Sales Team Culture

Do You Have the Best Sales Culture?

A healthy sales team thrives with a few basic ingredients. Effective sales teams work well together, are quick to adapt to new challenges, and engage in clear communication. Your company’s sales culture should reflect your principles and be a source of positivity and solidarity for employees.

But this is easier said than done.

With so much emphasis placed on numbers, it’s all too easy for your sales environment to become competitive, cut throat, or stressful. So how can you foster a positive sales atmosphere while still encouraging employees to excel? The key is striking a balance between team-oriented training and goal-based selling. With the proper amount of healthy competition, excellent communication, and a strong sense of accountability, your sales team will soon be topping the charts while maintaining a collaborative approach to reaching their sales goals.

What are the Characteristics of a Healthy Sales Culture?

Whether you’re revitalizing your existing sales team or building a new team from scratch, here are a few strategies to help your team succeed.

Use Friendly Competition

Not all competition is a bad thing. In fact, encouraging sales reps to engage in friendly competition is a perfect way to motivate sales.

For example, instead of encouraging reps to compete with one another, encourage them to compete with themselves. According to a Hubspot article, employees respond well to self-directed competition: “by shifting their competitive energy to their own numbers, you’ll make them less likely to resent their peers.” Reward employees who beat personal sales records, but make sure not to overdo it. You don’t want to create additional stress and pressure at work. Remember, this should be fun!

It’s also a great idea to switch up the competition. Don’t use the same metric to measure success every time. Instead, highlight the employee who makes the most calls one week and the employee who lands the biggest account the next. By diversifying the focus of the competition, you’ll embolden more employees with different skill sets to participate.

Emphasize Collaboration

A collaborative sales team is your most valuable asset. Facilitate easier collaboration by using services like chat platforms so employees have an immediate way to share new ideas. In addition, hold regular sales team meetings and welcome brainstorming sessions to generate new strategies.

Above all, make sure you nurture an environment of trust between coworkers. Keep the conversations transparent, emphasize the importance of follow-through, and let your employees stretch their wings.

Facilitate Continued Education

A successful sales rep never stops learning. In order to ensure your reps are at the top of their game, offer employees opportunities to work on their professional skills.

Continued employee education programs might include:

  • In-person training sessions and seminars highlighting new sales techniques.
  • Online webinars covering specific topics of interest.
  • Access to educational resources like podcasts, publications, and videos.
  • One-on-one meetings with sales reps to check in about their goals.
  • Personal coaching to address challenges and questions.

Be Accountable

Hold all employees (and yourself) accountable for the commitments they make. This means that if you make a promise, you need to follow through! This goes for individual goals as well as team-wide commitments.

The heart of accountability lies in trust and respect, so it’s vital to hold employees accountable for their mistakes as well as their successes: “if reps see poor performance go unchecked, quotas will start feeling more like suggested targets than hard ones.” Although it might not always be easy, having hard conversations demonstrates your commitment to high standards and continued communication.

Don’t Rush the Hiring Process

Last but not least, don’t rush your hiring process! It’s okay if it takes time to assemble the sales team of your dreams. Take time to detail the skills you want to add to your team, and the non-negotiable values you need to uphold. It’s okay to be selective when it comes to hiring new members of your team. If you fill your office with the best people for the job, you’ll encounter less employee turnover and higher employee satisfaction.

Improve Your Sales Culture with Acquirent

Instead of relying solely on internal solutions to improve your sales culture, consider working with a team of professionals to develop your team. At Acquirent, we provide our clients with cutting edge sales enablement technology and innovative training to encourage an effective and collaborative sales environment. Through commission-based rewards and a commitment to continued education, Acquirent promotes a dynamic and agile approach to sales. Contact us for more information about our process.

Creating an ideal sales culture takes hard work, but the results are worth the effort. By prioritizing communication, upholding accountability, and utilizing the expertise of a professional development service, you’ll facilitate a culture of collaboration and continued growth.