Hi Joe,
I’ve just been put in charge of the Sales team at a relatively small company. So far, things have been great – but there are definitely some limitations.
Compared to the last company I was with, we don’t have nearly as many resources for the Sales team to use.
We’re hitting a plateau right now, and I’m unsure how to break through it. Any advice on how Sales can work more efficiently and effectively with what we have?
Thanks,
Efficient Emma
Hi Emma, thank you for the question – I’ve been in your shoes before.
Helping your company grow past a plateau, especially with very limited resources, is a serious challenge.
Here’s some advice I think will go a very long way in helping you get through this.
Understand your tools
I can’t emphasize this one enough.
If your company has a dedicated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform that is integrated with a marketing automation platform like Hubspot, it’s crucial that you know how it operates and how you can get the most out of it.
These are essential tools that will guide your sales process, allowing you to track and define the different stages of leads as they progress from lead to contact to opportunity closed and so on.
After that, see if your company has any other tools like Outreach or Salesloft that will optimize outreach campaigns and communication. You can learn more about the 4 pillars of a Sales tech stack here.
Sync with marketing
Alignment between sales and marketing is key. Especially when resources are low, every dollar must be used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Keep direct lines of communication open with your marketing team, so sales can stay up to date with relevant campaigns, inbound and outbound programs, and other materials that marketing has put in place. These are materials sales can leverage, including:
- whitepapers
- product comparisons
- product demos
- case studies, and
- customer success stories.
Ideally, marketing sees what happens before prospects get to sales, so make sure to leverage any intel you can get to increase your understanding of clients – which brings us to our next point.
Personalize communication
Having limited resources doesn’t mean you can’t personalize your emails, phone calls, or any other communication channel. In fact, it’s even more reason to ensure every reach-out is as effective as possible.
Doing this will require using tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to get detailed insights into the pain points of possible leads, which will help you tailor your messaging and create effective, targeted communication points that can increase conversion rates.
If you don’t have access to software that can help with this, or you’re at a stage where you simply can’t afford to invest in a data enhancement tool, then I encourage you to do as much manual research on your leads as possible. Depending on your business, even 2 to 3 hours of extra research on a single lead is worth it if it means closing on a sale.
Once you’ve collected enough data on leads, you can work with marketing to create an ideal customer profile (ICP), as well as key personas that will aid communication strategies going forward.
Automation is your friend
If your team is hitting a plateau, one way to accelerate productivity is to automate anything you can. Find yourself entering the same pitch, message, CTA, or value offer more than once? Make it into a template!
And if you’re working closely with marketing, you should have a good understanding of what each persona in your ICP needs to hear at different stages. This will allow you to create templates with reusable content for every scenario, so you can spend more time personalizing your message.
You’ll find yourself sending higher-quality messages to more prospects this way.
Stay patient
If a certain approach or sales strategy isn’t working right away, it’s okay to persevere and see it through for a longer time.
I’ve seen far too many sales teams give up on a strategy after a single week if the email open rates weren’t ideal, only to realize later that their strategy needed more time and a larger sample size to produce meaningful feedback that can guide future decisions.
Of course, it’s good to persevere – but do so within reason. If you’ve been following the same sales strategy for months without success, it’s time to experiment with new approaches.
And when you’re trying something new, KPIs and deadlines are your friends. Adding specific numbers to benchmark against (such as reaching a minimum of 1,000 prospects in 3 months, for example) will make the process easier to control, measure, and replicate.
Follow the points above, and your sales team will certainly be getting more out of the limited resources that you currently have.
If you still need more help to push past this plateau, Revenue Pulse is here to help.
You’ve got this,
Joe
