Many companies consider a great sales team key to their success. We rarely stumble upon those that will openly tell you about what a sales team is, how to create it, and what is the secret behind their sales team’s success.
A sales department promotes the growth of the company and customer retention. A sales team is, in essence, a section of staff dedicated to selling a business’s product or service to customers. It is responsible for meeting the growth goals of a company.
By recognizing the significance of the sales team in running a company profitably, we have collected essential elements together with a brief guide on how to assemble a great team, what roles to consider, and how to run a team effectively.
Defining a Sales Team
The sales team is the mastermind behind the revenues and profit that the company achieves. In almost all businesses, the primary function of the sales team is, as the name implies, “selling.” The team builds relationships with new leads and closes deals in that process.
If we are set to define the team within the company, it would be a link between a company’s product or service and its customers. This personal touch to sales reflects happy, long-term client-company relationships and increased profitability. Therefore, a strong sales team is responsible for a company’s success.
What Makes Sales Team Successful?
In the discussion regarding the sales team, it is crucial to differentiate features that make one sales team successful. One of the most critical elements is well-defined roles with a straightforward sales process. The main feature is distinguishing between effective and ineffective sales teams, which means growth or decrease in companies’ revenues.
Similarly, it is essential to consider the stage in which your company is currently and develop the team based on unique needs that depend on its stage.
Another element worth considering is the size of the team itself. This feature is primarily related to the overall size of the company. It is reasonable for two or three people to wear multiple hats if it is small. Conversely, problems will arise if you shrink your team and the company continues to grow.
The company’s growth impacts the sales team on multiple levels. It primarily increases the amount of work and reflects productivity. Still, most importantly, it requires you to assess needs and dedicated sales reps who can help customers with their specific needs. Specialized team members in particular topics like product features or upgrades make the company more professional and successful, which is essential when defining a sales team.
A sales department is the direct link. However, a well-trained sales department can do more than just sales. A good salesperson builds an ongoing relationship with the business customers. The importance of personal relationships in business can’t be understated. An emotional connection makes customers feel valued and encourages them to remain loyal to the company. Additionally, a happy customer will recommend the brand to other people.
What are the Tasks of a Sales Department?
Besides the factors that impact the performance and creation of a sales team, their success is often dictated by objectives that the team sets for themselves. It is one of the incremental features of the sales team’s set path and a significant organizational component that impacts the team’s performance.
If we talk about the sales team’s objectives, the first thing that comes to your mind is making sales. It is not the only objective that should lead the team. Therefore the team needs to consider business growth, customer retention, conversion rate, and set responsibility frame.
Let’s consider that each team has a set of tasks and objectives that it needs to complete. The logical first step is setting the responsibilities and determining the overall dissemination of these responsibilities among team members. It can include identifying new customers or reaching out to already identified targets, making presentations and proposals, researching sale strategies to assure the deal, etc.
Business growth is also one of the overall objectives of the team’s responsibilities. Companies usually set it as the second most crucial thing, closely tied with the sales team and its role in the company. The sales team is about relationship-building and keeping the customers happy, leading to great recommendations. The line continues with offers spreading the network of customers, leading to the company’s growth, which is often the most significant goal, especially for small-scale companies. Lastly, connecting this to the sales team and their performance, a quality sales team, will always search for a new client.
Retaining customers is another crucial objective that the sales team sets. This objective is straightforward if you know it takes up to 25 times more money to attract new customers than retain them. Research further shows that upping your customer retention rate by only 5 percent can increase your business profits by 25-95%. Therefore keeping customers happy is much necessary and obligatory for a sales team. Following up with customers and making sure they are happy is crucial.
The sales team’s main objective is to make sales. They must seek to improve the conversion rate. When talking about conversion rate, it is crucial to understand that the number of conversations and proposals sent to clients results in sales. Once this feature is improved, revenue and the team’s performance are hired. Therefore all sales teams seek to set their objective to improve conversion rates.
Roles in a Sales Team
An efficient and profitable sales team is the product of extensive strategic planning. Depending on the size and goals of the company, many strategic decisions have to be made to have a successful team, such as: how many people you need, who to hire, how to onboard and train them, and much more.
Before considering all mentioned, the company has to analyze customers, their needs, and how to meet them. Based on this assessment, the company assembles an outline of required positions.
Sales teams usually include positions: sales manager, sales representative, account executive, sales specialist, and so on.
These roles make a successful team in practice only if their positions are precisely defined, and each person is familiar with their responsibilities and expectations. Additionally, the overall team has to have a growth strategy and analysis of customer needs.
Sales Manager
This person is the leader of the team. The scope of responsibilities for the sales manager includes management of the team and making sure goals are achieved. It is up to the manager to identify the obstacles and make sure to overcome them.
Sales Specialist
Deep knowledge of your niche and the products you sell is the primary responsibility of a sales specialist. The sales specialist is in charge of adapting product presentations and proposals based on their judgment and the data. Additionally, this individual is a go-to person in crisis when team members encounter issues or demand customers.
Sales Development Representative
The sales development representative is responsible for step one of the sales process: researching, identifying, and contacting leads. After assuring that a sale is likely, the sales representative moves this customer to the following hierarchy level. This individual is a cold caller and contact base for new clients in most teams.
Account Executive
The account executive is the person whose work is most visible, bearing in mind that they must create and run demonstrations and proposals and ensure there are no obstacles in the sales process. Their job description is all about bringing new clients and making sales.
Final Remarks
As visible, the sales team is among the company’s most crucial departments. The responsibilities that this team holds impact revenue directly. Also, their performance is the most relevant for the company. Furthermore, because the sales team is the link between two spheres of business (customers and owners), it is critical to set the right objectives, have excellent team members, and ensure that each team member has the proper responsibilities to contribute to the company’s success.
