Steps to Build An Effective Sales Team

Instructions

• 1

  Find Your Target
  
  Every business has the kind of people they want and the kind of places they want their brand to enter in terms of the market areas. Laying out those areas for the team to focus on and conquer.
• 2

  Plan
  
  Before reaching out to your target market, your team need to gather and study information on the various segments of your target market. Create a plan on the kind of people they want to meet and how they go about.
• 3

  Goals and Vision
  
  
  These could be either long term goals or short term goals of the company. Depending on your business plans and the corporate vision, your sales team should be aware so that they can make a meaningful contribution to the business. For example, if you are in the clothing business and you need to clear the amount of shoes currently in stock, you could inform your sales team of this goal to make sure they aggressively sell more shoes.
  
  The vision of a business propels the team to move forward, it inspires them, make them understand what you want to see and how you feel towards this. Let them into the vision, let them see what you see, feel it and get it and the magic is done.
• 4

  Attitude
  
  In order to achieve a dream team of sales personnel. You need to maintain a healthy attitude at work and outside too. They should be positive, vibrant, full of energy, not lazy, slouchy, indifferent or uninterested. You must not be afraid to praise and discipline your sales personnel, this will help cultivate a positive attitude and weed out any destructive trends.
• 5

  Develop Their "Closing Skills"
  
  To have a top notch team, these people are to have excellent "closing" skills, the ability to sign on a new account or convenience a customer to actually buy a product or service. Training your sales personnel on this technical skill is very essential.
  
  Anybody can talk but turning talking revenue is something else. Training your team is an investment not a cost.
• 6

  Stand Out
  
  In order to have the best marketing team in the environment that can compete with the "big boys", they ought to be trained to be different, in speech, dressing and mannerisms or approach. They should be totally different from what is happening on the outside.
• 7

  Learn From Others
  
  Take every learning opportunity to enhance your marketing team, as an employer you need to understand that whatever they where taught in school is not sufficient. Educate them in seminars, they should attend conferences on marketing. All these would enable them form into the picture you want them to be.
• 8

  Figure Out Each Team Member's Master Skill
  
  Every individual is different, unique in their own capabilities. They all have what works for them to make them a good salesperson. As a supervisor, you have to understand that that so that each person can harness that special ability of theirs and use that that skill to compliment the teams efforts.
  
  For example, if one team member is "natural closer" capable of convincing customers to sign on while another team member has great people skills that can break-down the resistance of any customer to your product. A combination of these salespeople is a clever way to develop your business.
• 9

  Analyze
  
  Analyze each person's effort, show them areas they need to work on, let them practice what they ought to do and inspire them to be a better team.
• 10

  Face Reality
  
  There is no perfect team, as it takes training and grooming and patience to build one. Be realistic with your expectation and goals, and let them know that it is perfectly alright if they do not get it the first time-but let them know it up to them.
• 11

  Building the dream sales team team takes hard work, patience and guidance, but if one consistently pushes, it can be achieved