3 Simple Ways to Set Your Sales Team Up for Success

By Charlie Tomeo

Charlie Tomeo

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our industry and sales leadership. Business-to-business sellers in IT will continue to evolve their methods and strategies this year in the face of pandemic-related challenges. According to Forrester, 40% of business-to-business (B2B) sales reps plan to modify their tactics to adapt to remote selling activities, and 58% of B2B sales leaders plan to make deeper investments in tools with artificial intelligence and automation.

Sales organizations are shifting their strategies, investments and approaches to manage new challenges. When building your process, here are three areas to focus on if you want your team to be set up for success in the current climate: create clear goals, understand your market and define a straightforward compensation plan.

Create Goals

As a sales leader, doing your homework to build a customized plan with measurable goals and objectives in place is No. 1 on my list. The strategy needs to determine the outcome you’re seeking as an organization. Ask yourself, how will the plan increase revenue and reduce churn?

Communicating the product road map and the company’s key business objectives also creates a blueprint for sales success. If the sales team understands where the company is going with its products, managed services and solutions, the sales rep will demonstrate to clients that you’ve got a plan for continuous improvement.

Given the rapid pace of change in the modern business landscape, your sales organization needs to continually develop new knowledge and new skills to enable your organization to compete effectively. Especially during the disruption of a pandemic, look at what other successful organizations are doing well and take that back to your organization.

Understand Your Market

To be an influential innovator, you need to understand your market. Understanding your market, clients, and competitors will ultimately make or break your success as a sales organization. You can do this through industry research, surveys and leveraging your vendor partner relationships.

In the phase of understanding your market, it also makes sense to check out your competition. What clients are they targeting? Figure out what market niche they are missing and go after it.

Create a Simple Compensation Plan

Now that the sales team has clear goals and objectives, they understand your ideal client and have a plan to …

… reach the target market, so defining a compensation plan is the final component to building a successful sales organization. The company’s key business objectives will set the tone because the sales organization cannot create its key performance indicators without it.

I see a lot of companies go wrong when they have different compensation plans for each sales rep. Avoid this at all costs because it can lead to confusion. Businesses that have set up simple compensation plans will be the front-runners. When building a compensation plan for your sales organization, ask yourself:

Once you’ve determined how you want to proceed with the compensation plan, document it and communicate it to the team. The goals will empower the sales organization to own it and achieve more.

Finally, as a sales leader, always leave room for feedback and new ways of doing things. It is a journey, and as we’ve seen with the pandemic, organizations might be required to shift often. Building a sales organization can be easy with the right tools and guidance. Don’t go it alone. Lean on your communities– in the IT channel and through your vendor partnerships. Tap into the partner programs and take advantage of the sales training they are offering.

Charles Tomeo is chief revenue officer for Axcient, where he leads the development, strategy and execution of sales for the cloud backup and data protection product portfolios. Previous positions included vice president of worldwide channel sales at Carbonite and vice president of worldwide business sales at Webroot. He was awarded the Channel Partners Circle of Excellence in 2018 for his leadership, vision and innovation in the channel. You may follow him on LinkedIn or @Axcient on Twitter.