3 Smart Ways Top Performers Close In On Sales Targets

If you are a sales leader, you no doubt spend a good deal of time worrying about reaching your sales targets for the month, the quarter and the year. It is often a constant source of tension for sales managers and sales teams.

Sales managers through their team are held accountable for attaining their revenue targets. They become successes or failures each and every quarter and then the sales cycle begins all over again…the cycle of trying to meet and exceed sales expectations. Wouldn’t it be great if you could spend less time agonizing over making quota and more time encouraging your sales team across the finish line?

Here are three ways you can improve your sales outcomes and rest easier at night:

1. Make clear what your sales team should be doing to succeed.
   Do you know what critical few behaviors and activities drive sales success in your marketplace? Do you know the top 5-10 sales scenarios that matter most?  If not, you absolutely should. You and your sales team should know explicitly what drives success for you and your target customers.
   
   First establish a profile of sales success by analyzing what your top performers do that works. Then see that the rest of the team is trained to follow a proven sales methodology and incentivized to practice those critical few behaviors. Unless you are selling a simple commodity, your team should receive customized solution selling training so they know how to solve real customer problems. Complex sales require business savvy, great communication skills and the ability to persuade customers that the solutions you sell are exactly what they need to succeed.
   
   When your sales team has the solution selling skills combined with the understanding of what activities make the most sense for your specific sales strategy and culture, you will see improved results.
   


2. Know what you need to do to enable your sales team members.
   How should you best spend your time to see that your sales team is successful? It may be to coach them on-the-spot toward those customer-centric behaviors you know work. Or it may be that you need to re-vamp the sales compensation system to reward the activities that foster success. Or perhaps you should review the sales territory maps for more efficient use of your team’s time. Figure it out.
   


3. Measure and track.
   How else will you know if you are making a difference? As the sales team adjusts to applying new solution selling skills and behaviors and as you adjust to how you spend your time enabling the success of your sales team, gather the data that will tell you if you are moving in the right direction.

Learn more at http://www.lsaglobal.com/solution-selling-training/