9 Things Top Sales Teams Do Differently
A sales team might be full of talented sales reps, but if they don’t have the right infrastructure and systems around them, then there’s only so much they can achieve. In nearly all cases, average teams that spend their time and energy correctly will outperform teams that spend too much of their time on tasks that cause friction.
What’s especially interesting about this is that there’s usually nothing overly special about the habits that bring the best results. It’s just that most teams don’t do them all consistently enough to see an impact.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the habits of the top sales teams. Incorporate them into your team’s operations, and you should notice a difference before too long.
They Protect Sales Rep Time
Sales reps want to spend their time and energy selling, yet they typically spend a lot less time working on sales than you might think. Studies have shown that sales reps can spend as much as 30% of their time doing other things, such as attending meetings or fulfilling admin duties.
The best sales teams take steps to protect the time of each sales rep. Rather than taking an ad-hoc approach, teams audit how their sales reps are actually spending their days, and then make adjustments whenever possible. Even freeing up an additional 10% can make a real difference, especially on a long-term basis.
They Know The Importance of Timing
Even good prospects can go nowhere if they’re approached at the wrong time. The leading sales teams understand the importance of timing. The goal is to reach a prospect when they’re ready to buy, not when it’s convenient for the sales rep to get in touch. Top reps recognize the signs that a prospect is moving into buying mode.
They Understand Their Ideal Customer Profile
The best teams know that their success is dependent on putting their energy to good use, and that starts with identifying the right buyers. Leading teams go above and beyond when it comes to developing their ideal customer profile (ICP). Instead of putting it together once, they use advanced software to continually review and update the ICP based on which businesses are buying right now, not back when it was first put together.
They Do In-Depth Account Research Before Calling
Having up-to-date, in-depth account information before getting on the phone can be a game-changer for success. Leading teams know it, and make it as easy as possible for sales reps to have the all-important info they need. They’ll use advanced tools, such as GTM AI, which can provide an accurate summary of everything that the sales rep needs to know. This approach doesn’t just allow the sales rep to be more confident on the call, but also goes a long way towards preserving the rep’s time and energy. In the past, manual preparation could easily take 45 - 60 minutes. With the right AI tools, it can take seconds.
They Sync Up Sales and Marketing
Marketing and sales are often speaking to the same businesses, and the best teams recognize it. They’ll work to make sure that both sales and marketing are working from the same data, which in turn makes the sales approach easier to manage. After all, when everyone’s on the same page, the marketing efforts actively complement sales.
They Get In Touch With Prospects When Things Change
Change can be a powerful motivator for making sales. The best teams know when those changes happen because they use tools to receive automatic alerts when things change. It’s not feasible to think that a rep will monitor changes across all of their accounts, and it’s less likely that a random “just checking in” message will be effective. With AI tools that monitor changes such as hiring spikes or a new funding round, sales teams can make sure that they’re approaching the right accounts at the right time.
They Test New Approaches
Even the best sales playbooks don’t last forever. Leading teams always want to be on top, and as such, won’t rely on a playbook until it’s no longer yielding results. They’ll continually test new approaches to have a good understanding of what’s currently working. Even small changes, such as testing new email subject lines or testing different objection handling approaches, can have big results over time.
The time aspect is particularly relevant. A small change might not appear to have a big impact immediately, but it can slowly guide things in the right direction and can make a noticeable difference when spread over the course of a year.
They Learn Why Deals Die
Many sales teams have an “onward and upward” approach following a loss, but the best teams treat it as a learning opportunity. While there are some instances where the cause of the loss is unknown or unimportant, there are other instances where it is known — and working to improve things can make all the difference moving forward.
It’s not just the losses that sales teams can learn something from. The near-losses count for a lot, too. In fact, you can typically learn more from the ones that nearly fell out of your hands than you can from clean victories. Taking the time to analyze what went wrong with deals as a matter of routine can also be an indirect morale booster, since it removes the individual performance from the proceedings. Rather than being a failure of a sales rep, it becomes a tool for improving the organization as a whole.
They Prioritize Judgment When Hiring
In an age when software can do a lot of the heavy lifting for a sales rep, hiring managers are now looking for sales representatives who have skills that software can’t do, either now or in the future. Judgement and intuition fall into that category. When you have a sales rep who possesses expert judgement, then you can have confidence that they’ll improve alongside the tools that are playing an increasingly important role during the sales process.
Final Thoughts:
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