As noted in a study by USC professor and author Steve W. Martin, high-performance sales organizations aren’t necessarily those with the most resources or coveted rain makers. Rather, they’re leveraging something that all businesses can benefit from, regardless of whether they’re small start-ups or large enterprises: an optimized sales team structure.
Naturally, each business must map out its own unique sales team structure based on variables such as team size and composition, average sales cycle duration, and so on. However, there are 3 best practices that we encourage our customers to embrace, so that they can position their sales team to perform and achieve, and their organization to succeed and grow:
Sales Team Structure Best Practice #1: Use inbound marketing to populate the sales funnel & prime leads into prospects.
It’s possible for inbound marketing to generate some B2C sales, and even occasionally some B2B sales as well. However, the primary function of inbound marketing isn’t to replace sales teams: it’s to augment them by populating the sales funnel with leads, which are then nurtured into prospects (i.e. into sales qualified leads/SQLs).
When this happens, sales teams spend their time doing what they do best: addressing specific prospect concerns, neutralizing objections, and structuring deals. It also means that they don’t waste their time speaking (or emailing or chatting) with people who aren’t legitimate prospects, or who have questions or issues that can be effectively addressed through well-crafted marketing collateral.
Sales Team Structure Best Practice #2: Align sales teams with marketing teams so they’re mutually successful.
In many businesses, sales teams and marketing teams are working hard. That’s the good news. The bad news, however, is that they aren’t working in alignment. As such, marketing teams can’t create the content that the sales department needs to increase win rates and boost deal sizes. Aligning these teams through effective collaboration goes a long way towards ensuring that they’re supporting each other’s success vs. unintentionally impeding it.
Sales Team Structure Best Practice #3: Track and analyze the right metrics and KPIs.
We’ve come a long way since the days when merely tracking website hits was considered a viable “data analytics program”. On today’s landscape, businesses need to track a full range of data covering everything from where customers are coming from, to their on-site and on-page behavior. All of this data helps determine the best way to structure and optimize sales teams. For examples, businesses may learn that they need to have a technical pre-sales team in place before the conventional sales process begins, that they need to have more sales reps in the field vs. based out of head office, and so on.
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At Leap Clixx, we specialize in inbound marketing, but we speak the language of business – which is fundamentally what sets us apart from conventional agencies and consultants. Yes, they may know a thing or two about inbound marketing. But no, they don’t have the real-world business experience it takes to ensure that inbound marketing is an INVESTMENT instead of an EXPENSE.
To learn more, contact us today and schedule your free consultation. We’ll help you design the ideal inbound marketing program and optimize your sales team structure for maximum success!
For more best practices, download our FREE eBook "A Guide To Inbound Marketing Best Practices" now:
Topics: Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation
