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There’s some a fun debate about whether sales is a team or individual sport. We even posted about this a little while back. Our simplified take is that sales is both, there are some individual elements you need to excel at, and then there are some team elements that are crucial to lean into.
As with any sports analogy, you might be wondering, is your team better than others? In this blog pots, we dive into 5 characteristics that define a high-performing sales team. We touch on things that sales managers should own or push, as well as how individual sellers contribute to and define a high-performing sales team.
High-performing sales teams have crystal clear goals that are understood by every rep. It should get to the point where each salesperson on a team can easily breakdown their numbers and it contributes to a team goal (which in turn might roll up into a department or country goal, etc.).
Goals are typically something that trickles down from leadership, but it’s up to a sales manager to interpret and educate their team on what they mean and how they can be achieved. Breaking down goals into more digestible timeframes (e.g. annual into quarterly into monthly) can great help to set shorter-term targets to pursue.
The role of a sales manager shouldn’t be to sit back and wait for something (or someone) to go wrong. A high-performing sales manager is going to be looking for ways to promote and improve their sales team in a proactive manner.
This could be from 1:1 (or 1:many) coaching, establishing programs within their team to support growth (like a buddy system, or learning & development plan), or from simple direct, constructive encouragement.
Higher-performing sales teams will not only recognize and reward their top performing reps, but also give them many unique reasons to stick around and continue growing with the organization.
This can typically be with a clearly laid out and rewarding career path that the rep is mutually interested in. Over time, they can take on other responsibility (which should be reflected in their workload or quota) to contribute to the org in other ways. Obviously money talks, so increase base pay and potential for higher earning is an easy reward.
Ultimately, some sales reps will be interested in the upward trajectory, while others might be more content staying as an individual contributor and taking in as much commission as they can earn. Have that conversation and figure it out.
It’s 2024. If your sales team is not running on at least some form of data and trackable performance indicators, you are by definition “old school”. With readily available CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, every sales team should be tracking structured sales data that they can learn from.
Where CRMs fall short at times is offering easily discoverable and actionable data insights. We are seeing a wave of new AI-powered systems that can leverage your existing, up to date (right?) deal data to
What will set high-performing sales teams apart, and what will keep them apart from their competitors, is having a culture of continued improvement and growth. This comes in many forms, but in application, it can look like a learning budget, a coaching program, or peer-matching for ongoing support and knowledge sharing.
While seemingly daunting, it can be very cheap and easy to setup training or coaching programs with a bit of thoughtfulness and support.
Technology can help overburdened sales managers to scale or reach reps more quickly by offering “always-on” coaching leveraging the power of AI and large language models (LLMs). This is not just about buying ChatGPT licenses - look for AI agents and knowledge bases that are tailored to the sales craft.
Pod leverages your existing sales data to both answer specific questions or provide you with some guidance and support. You’re already using your CRM, with up to date (right?!) deal data and contact information. Pod takes that information and actually tell you what to do and when to do it.
While you might be using some sort of spreadsheet + sales intuition to know which deals to chase and what to do to close them, this sort of solution may only get you so far. What Pod offers is a way to scale this “intuition”, giving you immediate, actionable steps to take on your deals without any of the manual work.
Providing coaching and support to every single sales rep, at all times, is a daunting and nearly impossible task for any sales manager. Things move quickly and it’s just too difficult for a sales coach to be everywhere at once.
Pod AI is there to provide on the spot coaching with any context provided by your sales CRM. This augments any human-provided support or interactions with an always-on solution!
High-performing sales teams don’t close more deals by fluke. They are doing and operating in a way that reinforces the right activities with clear goals, proactive sales management, and having a data-driven mindset. They ensure their people are growing and supported with training and coaching programs. All of this leads to higher seller retention which in itself creates a feedback loop for success.
If you’re struggling to perform at a higher level, let us help!
