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Is everyone in your Sales Team pulling in the same direction?
Traditionally the active pursuit of team work in the sales force has not been considered a primary concern of sales managers, and as such team work is not a subject given much coverage on sales management training courses. Rather the development of the “lone wolf” salesperson has been encouraged. However, things are changing. Todays products are too complex and customer expectations too high for a single salesperson to be able to present solutions to all the problems. Thus, the encouragement of team work in the sales force is becoming a hot topic in sales management.
In the future sales strategies will only be successful delivered through a team approach to selling. This is especially true when looking after large customers, as anything other than a team selling approach will not work. Key Account Managers have to deal with many different contacts in a variety of positions – such as Buying, Planning, Control – and they have to think their way into these people’s subject areas. Utilising the specialisations of individual team members will mean that these contact partners have the opportunity to exchange ideas with people in your organisation who have specific knowledge and experience.
The current trend towards team selling is supported by the results of a study in which 120 managers from sales, marketing and personnel were surveyed. 78% of the organisations surveyed are beginning to work in permanent teams, and 68% are introducing (in addition) project teams of limited duration. According to the organisations surveyed, the arguments that support the introduction of sales teams include closer customer relations, increased efficiency and increasingly sophisticated project organisation.
Those surveyed were of the opinion that the most important indicators of success were close co-operation / intensive exchange of ideas in sales teams, having high team goals and collective responsibility. However, what was really decisive was for the sales team to be actively involved in the definition of its aim and to formulate its own goals as precisely as possible. It is only by doing this that a definite team function that had a motivating effect on the team members was achieved.
It was also considered very important by those surveyed that team members should have complimentary skill sets. Furthermore, it was absolutely essential that these skills included both technical and social competence skills.
Another significant factor revealed by the survey was that each team should be of a manageable size. The average number of people in permanent teams was 6.6 employees in the survey and the sales project averaged 6.1 members.
Problems go hand in hand with team work. This statement is obvious to everyone who has ever worked as part of a team. “Anyone who puts together a team without ensuring that it has a clear function and a set goal to achieve, will not succeed”, warns a pharmaceutical products manufacturer manager.
Nonetheless, around 30% of those surveyed complained that there was a lack of team management by their managers. Issues such as time wasted in the consultation process, tendency to compromise and lack of competence in realising sales strategies were also mentioned. This criticism shows how important it is to provide teamwork training not only for the members of a team but also management training in relevant team building skills for the managers. This should be given before the team is put into place.
In spite of the problems associated with introducing team work in to the sales process the positive experiences with sales teams adopting this team approach generally outweigh the negative ones. In the survey an average of 66% had good to very good experiences with permanent teams and the verdict on project teams was some 5% above this. These positive experiences highlight how both the company and the individual team members really benefit from good team work. In conclusion, all sales managers should review their own management training to ensure they have the necessary team building skills in place to support these important work prctice changes.
