How sales managers can boost their team’s performance

1. Find and hire the best talent

Managing a successful sales team starts with hiring the right people.

The people on your team are the foundation. If you don’t put care into building your team with A-players from the start, it will make everything that follows a lot more challenging.

But let’s get one thing straight: when we say “A-players” we’re not only talking about individuals who possess the hard skills to do the job. Rather, people who are able and eager to learn and raise the entire team up, not just themselves.

When looking for the best talent, you can focus on their attitude. Are they willing to learn? Are they comfortable being autonomous but thrive in a collaborative environment? Can they empathize with customers?

Remember the values that your company has in place and use them to help you find the best candidate.

Before you even start your hiring process, you should document your expectations to increase your odds of hiring the best person for the job. Some things to consider include:

• Outcomes: What does success look like and how will it be measured?
• Scorecard: What qualities, soft and hard skills, are most important for success in this role?
• Standardizing questions: Before you jump into your first interview, be sure to make a list of questions you’ll ask each candidate. If you go off-kilter for every interview, it’s going to be really hard to compare candidates.

As you review and define your expectations for hiring, consider focusing on these five core qualities found in the majority of successful salespeople:

• Focus 
• Responsibility 
• Drive 
• Optimism 
• Empathy 

And we can’t forget the importance of being customer-centric.

The good news is, if your candidate possesses the characteristics outlined above, they’re likely to understand the importance of the customer.

For instance, someone with empathy will be able to identify with customers and put themselves in their shoes. These are the types of individuals who will be able to make your customers feel respected and appreciated. 

Ultimately, this will help increase your customer retention and loyalty—and help you increase revenue.

2. Provide proper sales training

When employees go through a structured onboarding program, they’re more likely to stay longer with the organization. In fact, an HBR study found that poor onboarding experiences lead to 33% of new hires looking for a new job within their first 6 months.

That’s why it’s crucial to provide proper sales training on top of a great onboarding experience for every new hire.

After 3 months into the job, every rep should have a deep understanding of your product, customers, and value propositions so that they can answer customer questions effectively. As you go through your onboarding planning, be sure to book new sales reps in sessions around:

• Buyer personas with the marketing team
• Product and feature walkthrough with the product team
• Product roadmap walkthrough with the product team
• Customer Success landscape and handoffs with the CS team
• Escalating and reporting customer issues with the support team
• Company mission and vision with a senior leader

Keep in mind that new employee onboarding is also a major part of being a successful sales manager – it’s not just for HR to deal with.

You need to create an onboarding checklist that will help you build a strong foundation for the future success of your new hires.

The purpose of your onboarding checklist is two-fold. Firstly, it should help you prepare in advance of your new employee’s first day. Secondly, it should also help them, once they arrive, to get to know the team and how everything works. Include a checklist of administrative tasks for yourself and also things for your new hire to do in their first week to help them get acquainted. 

3. Develop powerful strategies (and communicate them)

To become a successful sales manager, you also need powerful sales strategies that allow your team to be creative while also meeting objectives. 

For example, a CRM strategy, such as using a CRM with a predictive dialer to supply a constant flow of new leads, will grow your sales and boost your customer service through a combination of technology, actions, and processes. 

The most effective sales strategies are created in collaboration with other teams, like marketing and customer service. Having said that, sales strategies need to be complemented with state of the art marketing emails sequence tools and customer service tools. Strategies for sales have to be in tandem with driving optimized marketing and customer experiences.

Don’t work in a silo.

Working cross-functionally will help ensure not only that you’re providing an enjoyable customer experience at every touchpoint in the customer journey, but also that the sales team can quickly identify the best leads and opportunities to increase revenue. 

When you’ve developed a strategy, make sure you communicate the strategy to your team. Encourage questions and feedback to make sure everyone’s on the same page and bought-in. It’s important to make sure your strategy is crystal clear to everyone because it plays a major role in successfully growing revenue.

4. Set measurable and realistic goals

According to The State of High Performing Sales Teams, 61% of salespeople agree clear goals and expectations are the top factor impacting productivity.

While it’s great to have big, audacious goals, it’s also important to make sure they’re achievable— otherwise, you risk demotivating your team rather than boosting performance. Having realistic goals gives the team a sense of direction. 

Establishing both long and short-term goals will help your team stay motivated and on top of their work. 

Your long-term goals are the ones that need to be achieved in a timeframe of at least 6-12 months. The short-term goals are the ones you’re looking to accomplish within the week or by the end of the month. 

Having measurable sales goals provides a sense of purpose and urgency — both factors that can positively affect performance.

When creating goals, one approach that’s widely used is the SMART goals framework:

• Specific – Make your goals as specific as possible. Be detailed and be concise with the numbers you want to achieve.
• Measurable – Define the metrics that make you say that the team is progressing and getting close to the goal.
• Attainable – The goals you come up with should be obtained within a certain timeframe. 
• Relevant – Short-term goals should be in line with long-term goals. 
• Time-bounded – Set a defined timeframe for the goals you come up with. This makes team members know which goals to prioritize.

5. Build trust with your team

As a sales manager, very few things are more important than building trust with your team. 

However, this can be difficult to achieve. In many instances, current leaders used to be contributors on the team and were promoted to leadership roles. It takes time to adjust to new team dynamics — and that’s okay.