What does every company want? More sales. When do they want them? Right now.
The thing is, you can’t snap your fingers and make more sales. You have to put in the work — analyzing data, updating strategies, training and coaching reps. If you do all of this consistently, it’ll pay off over time and you’ll eventually improve sales performance for your team.
Read on to discover six proven ways to boost your team’s performance and get more sales.
1. Think outside the box when you hire sales reps
Better sales reps get better results. If you really want to improve sales performance, you of course need to build a team of talented professionals. But don’t be fooled into thinking there’s a one-size-fits all formula for hiring great reps.
Some of the best sales reps come in with little or no selling experience. And even a seasoned pro might not be successful at your company.
So what should you look for when you hire sales reps?
First and foremost, look for people who fit your coaching style and your company culture. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and look beyond experience to find the right hires for your team.
Some of the skills and personality traits you might look for include:
- Coachability
- Willingness to take initiative
- Flexibility
- Strong work ethic
- A desire to collaborate
- An impressive emotional intelligence level
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2. Prioritize onboarding
You just hired a new sales rep. Now what? It’s time to onboard them. But if you think this is just a formality, think again. The way you onboard reps makes a big difference for improving the overall performance of your sales team.
By some counts, a strong onboarding process speeds up time-to-productivity by 25%. Employees who are properly onboarded also stay with a company longer. A good onboarding program increases employee retention by up to 82%.
Once you understand the importance of onboarding, you can design a successful onboarding strategy that works for your company.
For example, you can pair each new recruit with a sales mentor. Or commit to creating short-form training videos to send new hires on a consistent basis during their first few months on the job.
Short-form video is particularly effective for onboarding.
Videos help new hires assimilate information
The average person remembers 95% of what they see in a video, compared to just 10% of what they read on a page.
Video is an on-demand reference
Video is asynchronous. Once you’ve built a library of short-form onboarding videos, your new sales reps can watch them at their convenience, and refer back to them as many times as they need.
No matter what methods and tools you use, make sure you prioritize onboarding your new sales reps so you can get new hires up-to-speed as quickly and effectively as possible.
3. Evaluate your sales strategy
When was the last time you sat down and analyzed your sales strategy? If it’s been six months or more, there’s a chance your current strategy is outdated and hurting your sales performance.
Set aside time to evaluate your department’s approach to sales.
Is it working? Are your reps hitting their quotas? Is upper management happy with your results? Since you’re reading an article on how to improve sales performance, we’re guessing the answer to all of these questions is “no.”
In all likelihood, it will only take a few tweaks to get your sales strategy back on track. You just have to figure out what tweaks to make. Do this by studying the data.
As you sit down to revamp your sales strategy, keep these things in mind:
Start with goals
What are you trying to achieve? “More sales” is not an adequate answer. Every company wants more sales. Dive deeper. Pinpoint specific things you want to accomplish — higher close rates, bigger territories, etc.
Choose your KPIs
Which numbers do you need to measure to evaluate your goals? Analyze these metrics regularly to make sure you’re on track.
Motivate your reps
To achieve your goals, you need to motivate your reps. Hard-working sellers are crucial when trying to improve sales performance. Is your incentive structure motivating reps to make more sales?
4. Invest in sales enablement
Sales enablement professionals are tasked with giving sales teams the resources they need to succeed. Potential resources include training videos for sales reps, content that educates buyers and shortens the sales cycle, and timely data on the current market and customer needs.
If your sales department doesn’t have these resources yet, now is the time to create them. Doing so will help align your sales team, improve your sales processes, make your reps more efficient, and ultimately help your department make more sales.
You might choose to hire a full-time sales enablement manager, or you could fold these responsibilities into your current sales and marketing teams.
Either way, one of the trickiest things about sales enablement is communication — especially now that a significant portion of sales teams are remote, hybrid, or working from scattered locations.
As a way to beat Zoom fatigue and overcome email overload, many companies have turned to short-form sales enablement videos. Adding short-form, asynchronous videos to your communications stack helps ensure your reps actually engage with the sales enablement resources you share with them.
Start with these sales enablement videos:
Announcements
Incentive program changes, meeting invites, new hires announcements. All of this can be done efficiently and effectively through video.
Training
Train reps via bite-sized videos they can watch anywhere, any time. Create video recaps of longer training sessions, or make micro-learning videos and send them to the sales team regularly.
Product updates
Has your product team made any updates lately?If so, your sales reps need to know. Tell them with a short video.
Sales metrics
Are your reps closing deals at a consistent clip? Are they on track to hit their quotas? Share these important wins with your team via video.
5. Consider your incentives program
Most sales reps are motivated by money. You just have to give them an opportunity to make more of it. This means you need to take a serious look at the quality of your incentives and whether or not those incentives are attainable.
Here’s the bad news: incentives are tricky to get right. You need to align incentives with company goals, while also making sure that your reps care about the incentives available to them. It’s a tough line to walk, but it can be done.
Here are a couple of tips:
Get input from your team
Your sales reps are in the trenches every day. They have a pretty good idea of what’s possible and what’s not in terms of reaching incentive goals.
While you’re at it, get sales rep input about the actual incentives, too. Yes, most sellers appreciate cash bonuses. But some might prefer other perks. Ask reps what would motivate them most, then try to work this into your incentives structure.
Create multiple incentives
If you manage a large sales department, there’s a good chance that you have multiple kinds of reps — prospectors, inside sellers, outside sellers, etc. Since each of these people have different responsibilities, it makes sense to compensate them in different ways via multiple incentive structures.
Generate buzz about the changes
Once you’ve ironed out your company’s incentive structure, create a video to explain the new incentives and generate excitement among reps.
6. Focus on training your reps
To improve sales performance, you must invest in sales training.
A strong sales strategy and a stable of natural-born sellers isn’t enough. You need to mold your reps into selling machines for your company. Think about it this way:
Michael Jordan is widely considered the best basketball player of all time. How did he get to that point? He worked hard every day to become better. Yes, he was blessed with amazing abilities. But the time he spent training is the main reason why he achieved greatness.
There are plenty of ways you can invest in sales rep training:
- Regularly analyze sales data; then use it to guide your reps to success.
- Hire a professional sales coach to speak and/or work with your sales reps.
- Create training videos on a regular basis to sharpen your reps’ skill sets.
- Build a video library so reps can access training materials whenever they need a refresher.
Supercharge your sales department with Biteable Teams
Every company wants to improve sales performance. The question is, are you willing to do what it takes to boost sales for your company? Fair warning: it might be difficult. But it’s definitely possible — especially if you follow the tips we’ve outlined.
And remember all of this is much easier to do with video. And videos are much easier to create with a tool like Biteable Teams.
Biteable Teams is a popular video-creation tool for sales departments because it includes professionally designed templates, pre-built scenes, and eye-catching animations, all on an easy-to-use platform. Create sales enablement videos in minutes, not hours — no experience necessary.