How to Grow Your Sales Team into an Efficient, Revenue-Generating Machine A successful sales team is key to a growing business. Here's how you can position your salespeople to exceed expectations.

One thing many businesses may struggle with is the phase between starting up and scaling up. Scaling a business means setting the stage to enable and support growth in your company. This requires a special set of skills and tools.

Companies should not underestimate the importance of their sales team and the vital role they play in an organisation's growth. "Sales teams not only increase revenue, but they also have a strong impact on brand reputation, long-term customer relationships, retention of customers and overall business growth," says Brigid Charmant, Senior Area Vice President and Head of UK Small and Medium Business at Salesforce.

The art and science of selling have never been static, but a global pandemic has upped the ante for transformation. Here, Charmant shares tips for building a sales team that is efficient and revenue generating.

Create a hiring plan and process.

In many industries, remote and hybrid models mean businesses can hire top-tier talent regardless of their physical location. For sustainable growth and success, thinking long-term when hiring for sales is vital. Each salesperson is an investment in the business.

When interviewing, ask yourself questions like: How will this salesperson help your business now, does the company motivate and excite them, how will they adapt to and improve your sales methodology over time, and how can you help develop their skills to create future leaders?

Starting a new job often involves rapidly digesting a large amount of information—from practical matters such as working procedures, knowledge on how parts of the business function, values alignment and learning how new teammates like to work. That's why onboarding needs to be structured to set new hires up for success from the very start. It's also important as remote employee numbers are growing, that companies are creating human centric virtual cultures. "Hiring fast without a blueprint for repeatable processes is a mistake," Charmant says.

Have a strong go-to-market strategy.

Whether you're tapping into profits, or you've taken on investment, having the necessary funds to hire and scale is great, but no business should consider expanding without a strong strategy, Charmant advises.

"You need to be where your customers are," she says. "It's important to figure out where to place new salespeople based on the market opportunity." In other words, devise a go-to-market strategy that maximises the return on your time and resources, positioning your team to generate significant revenue.

Utilize the best tools to strengthen sales.

Smart decision-makers are monitoring data across the operation to understand how the business is performing. In a recent survey, 77 percent of sales leaders Salesforce spoke to said their digital transformation has accelerated since 2019, they also recognised that flexibility is key, rating it as their top tactic for success over the next 12 months. "Sales reps need to stand out from the competition and provide deeper insights by leveraging data to become more like their customers' strategic advisors or business partners. That means selling with empathy and cultivating a relationship for the long term, not for immediate gain."

This is where tools such as a customer relationship management (CRM) service like Salesforce help sales teams flex their proverbial muscle. A CRM puts all your customer information in one place and gives you and your teams insight into your customers as well as intelligent recommendations about the best leads to engage with. Leaders can see real-time reports to understand how the sales org is doing as a whole and understand what part of their business needs support in order to meet sales and revenue goals. Team leads can understand how their reports are tracking for the week, month, or quarter and dig in to understand where open deals stand, or how a specific rep is doing. And, sales reps can track where their leads and prospects stand, automatise rote tasks to free up time, as well as sell on-the-go in the mobile app.

"Even while scaling, you may not think you have the people or the bandwidth to keep up with maintaining customer relationships," Charmant says. "But with the right technology you can bring leads into your sales funnel, engage them regularly and on time with targeted communications, and maintain long-term relationships to improve customer happiness and retention.

Click here to learn more about how Salesforce can help your growing business scale and your sales team succeed.