Sales is the lifeblood of business. Your company thrives on how much you’re making. Hence, you have to ensure that you have a competent sales organization that can sell your goods.

As a business expands, the market opens bigger opportunities and you’ll need a bigger sales team. But building a sales organization is not just about hiring the best salesman. It’s about properly setting up and streamlining a process with every individual playing their roles correctly.

So, without further ado, let’s look at the best practices on how to build an efficient sales team.

What is a Sales Organization?

Let’s first get a better idea of what a sales organization is and what role it plays in a business.

A sales organization is made up of individuals responsible for the marketing, sales, and distribution of a company’s product and services. It is a structural framework that specifies the authority and responsibility of each member, in regards to handling the merchandise.

This department processes all the business transactions of the company. Some of its main functions include assigning, supervising, paying, and motivating the business’ sales force.

Why do you need a Sales Organization?

As a startup with a limited budget, creating a sales team is probably not a priority on your to-do list. However, sales play a big role in establishing your brand.

Your salespeople will represent the voice and personality of your brand. They are the ones who will directly engage your market and convince them of how great your idea is. You may have an incredible product at hand but you still need the right people who can communicate exactly how amazing it is.

Also, if you’re just starting out, you want to be known as a company that truly cares about your customers. A company with a very stale personality won’t sell well. So, you should invest more time and resources in building up your sales force.

If you want to implement a more formal structure in your sales department, you need to learn what the key roles are.

Sales Team: Roles and Responsibilities

The sales department is made up of multiple positions. Although it differs from business to business, some key roles essentially make up the team.

1. Sales Representative

A sales representative is in charge of the sales funnel; from cold-calling to acquiring leads, researching, and creating customer profiles. They are what you would imagine as the frontline “voices” of the company, doing the initial product pitch and luring in potential clients. They take care of the sales development, training, and communication. Their main responsibility is to filter and endorse the qualified leads to the account executive.

2. Account Executive

Once the sales representative has endorsed the qualified leads, the account executives take over. The account executive’s main objective is to close the sale. Their duty includes writing proposals, creating presentations, demonstrating and discussing the sales plan more elaborately, and finally, negotiating the terms with the client.

3. Sales Administrator

When things start to go downhill, the sales administrator is there to the rescue. Sales administrators are expected to have in-depth knowledge about the company’s policies and domain. Hence, they are the best people to provide support to the team. Whenever the sales rep or account executive gets stuck, the sales administrator takes over to resolve the issue. This person’s role is to oversee the entire sales process and ensure that each task is executed properly. Additionally, the sales administrator also makes sales strategies and makes certain these are followed.

4. Customer Success Planner

After the whole business transaction, the customer success planner steps in to ensure that all the customer’s needs are met. This person is responsible for the customer retention aspects of sales. When customers are satisfied and happy, the cash flow continues. The customer success planner will further communicate with the customers to up-sell or cross-sell their purchases. On top of that, he or she will also provide support for inventory, operation plans, and other cross-functional initiatives in the company

5. Sales Operations Manager

Every team needs a leader. In the Sales department, the sales operations manager is the chief of staff. The manager guides and assists the team to meet their sales target while also making sure that everyone is adhering to the right conducts. This person is responsible for monitoring every member’s performance and reporting it to higher management. Along with supervising, the manager is also in-charge of devising techniques and strategies to improve their processes.

The Power of Persuasion: How to Sell

If you want to improve in the sales department, here are some tips to fine-tune your sales strategies. These will help you and your sales team develop a more effective and persuasive method of handling customers.

1. Know what you’re selling

First and foremost, everyone on your sales team should have a good understanding of what the company’s product does. They themselves should be convinced that it’s a great thing to buy.

Now, we’re not talking about knowing all the technicalities and the backend functions of the product. But it will certainly add confidence to your sales team if they know what features to highlight. Educate them of the pros and cons of using your product. This will help them create a much more accurate and informative sales pitch.

2. Don’t oversell

In line with educating your sales team, you should also set the proper limits in their pitches. Sales reps might get too passionate in pitching your product that they might end up making false promises.

You don’t want to misinform your customers as this can lead to disastrous publicity. A good sales pitch will still tell the truth while highlighting all the important points. Hence, be strict about certain pitches that may be misinterpreted.

3. Cultivate strong relationships

It’s a no-brainer that a sales team’s goal is to make a profit. However, customers shouldn’t feel that they’re just a number in those transactions. Make it a priority for your sales team to establish rapport and genuine relationships with clients. The goal is to build trust between the market and the business. Customers who will deem your business reliable are more likely to recommend it to friends.

4. Personalize each transaction

Take advantage of the tech age to create a more personalized experience for your customers. There are now plenty of ways you can track your customer’s behavior and use that data to strategize. Through analytic tools, you can enhance the buying and post-buying transactions. Personalizing the experience can help you improve your customer relations.

Build your Team with Full Scale

In a very competitive market, you need a sales team that can pitch your brand to the top. Alongside that, you’ll also need a strong development team who can back up their sales talk. You don’t want to sell flawed products to a highly picky market. Hence, deliver the quality you promise.

If you’re having a hard time finding the right people for your business, we can help!

Full Scale is an offshore software development company that specializes in helping startups. Whether you need help in marketing, software development, sales, or project management; we’ve got the people to help. We can match you with seasoned software engineers, veteran marketers, creative designers, and more.

Interested? Talk to us!