A high-performing sales team is not as simple as putting together a team of the best sales reps available.
Of course, more sales reps in any sales team are going to lead to more sales overall. But for a successful sales team, one of those sales teams that are completely above the rest, it takes hard work and determination.
And the secret to developing a successful sales team made up of the best sales professionals around is team building.
If you want to know more about building a sales team effectively and how team-building activities are critical to success, keep reading, this article will tell you all you need to know.
What Is A Successful Sales Team?
Before diving into how to build sales teams, it is important to outline some of the key traits of the best – that is, the best sales teams, sales representatives, and sales leaders.
1. They Understand Their Target Market
A good sales rep understands who their target market is and how best to sell the product. Understanding what the customer wants is crucial to sales enablement and a crucial element of the sales process – and the best sales teams know this fact well.
Understanding the target market is a crucial sales strategy and one that will drive more revenue in no time.
2. They Invest Their Time In Customers
Not only do the best sales professionals understand the target market and the customer, but they also invest their time in the customer. This applies to new customers as well as existing customers – everyone gets the same passion from them. This sales intelligence is crucial to the sales process.
3. They Love Learning And Professional Development
The best sales teams and sales reps are always curious and hungry to learn. They do not need a sales manager to tell them how to improve, run them by their key performance indicators, remind them what the sales goals are, or suggest sales training – they already know it all and are on it.
Sales reps like this are key to any successful sales team and the sales force mentality has a positive effect on the entire team.
4. Everyone On The Team Is On The Same Page
For any sales organization, it is always better if the entire team, the entire company, in fact, is pulling in the same direction. Everyone. From the sales development representatives and the customer service reps to the chief revenue officer and the account executives. If everyone in the business is on the same page, all the energy can be focused on sales performance and sales tactics.
5. They Understand The Business Model
This is very important when building a sales team. It is not just the sales team that needs to know the business model, but it should be clear to everyone from the hiring process through sales training and into the sales team.
What Is Team-Building?
Team building is the process of creating a team – a sales team, for example – that is cohesive, trusting, and can work together towards a common goal.
It is often achieved through fun, live team-building activities such as an Escape Room or a Murder Mystery, but with the rise of technology, there are some fantastic virtual team-building games now.
Why Is Team-Building So Important?
There is no better way to create a strong team than through forming strong bonds and connections among team members. And there is no better way of creating those bonds than through team-building.
Strong team bonds are crucial to any successful team, especially one such as a sales organization that is reliant on mutual trust and understanding.
Benefits of team-building include:
- Better communication
- Improved planning skills
- Increase in employee motivation and engagement
- Better employee collaboration
All of which are key to building a sales team that is successful and lasting.
How Team-Building Can Help When Building A Sales Team
Building a sales team takes time and effort. Team success only comes when team members are
- Comfortable working with each other
- Able to communicate freely and effectively
- Able to trust each other
- Aware of the company culture and best practices
Clearly, these are all benefits of team-building as outlined above! And what’s more, team-building exercises can also directly help train the skills required of successful sales professionals.
In the next section, we will outline some of the best team-building activities and how they can help in building a sales team, developing sales reps, and improving your sales process overall.
Team Building For Communication
The sales process would fall apart without excellent communication between sales reps and customers. And each person within the sales team should be on the same wavelength.
This can take years to build – or you can amplify the process with regular team-building activities for communication.
A brilliant option for developing communication skills in a sales team is an Escape Room.
How better to get your sales team working together to achieve a common goal by locking them in a room? Teams must work together to solve clues, answer riddles, and identify strengths within the group if they are to survive.
Perfect practice for a sales team trying to:
- Achieve sales goals
- Improve the sales process
- Work together to win new customers
- Develop a new sales methodology
- Foster an ambitious sales culture
And what’s more, this is not ‘classroom-style training’ but will have all the same benefits as if it were!
Other great team-building tools for communication include:
- Improv Class: An improv class is a perfect way to get your sales team working together and operating on the same wavelength.
And many of the games and exercises mimic the unpredictable scenarios which will arise in the sales process – meaning this is the perfect tool to get your sales professionals thinking quickly and innovatively in the sales process. - Amazing Race: The Amazing Race involves racing across metropolises and deserted islands in teams. How better to improve teamwork and communication than by working together to get across the sprawling city of Bangkok?
Team-building exercises like this also develop a sense of trust and camaraderie within the team, meaning they will become better salespeople and more inclined to generate leads.
What’s more, these team-building exercises are excellent for boosting employee engagement and a great way of incorporating new team members.
And employee engagement is essential for creating a company culture of fun and engagement – crucial for a high-functioning sales team as your business grows.
Team Building For Customer Service
Not only must a good sales team communicate and work together effectively, but it must also understand the customer and his needs.
Sales enablement is a two-way street – it is all very well having a great team, but it means nothing if the sales representatives cannot deliver brilliant customer service.
Team-building exercises can help develop this skill, increasing your team’s sales intelligence overall.
One such activity is a cultural team-building activity. Not only do these get your team engaged and working together, but also work with communities and local businesses to achieve goals.
For example, a School Teaching team-building event involves the sales team visiting a local school and teaching various subjects. The event follows the sales process as they must plan a lesson outline, think about their target audience, and deliver the content clearly and efficiently – and they must work as a team to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Or a Recycling Project is a great way to develop relationships with local municipalities to achieve a common goal.
Again, working with a range of clients in this way will help develop the ability of your sales team to build rapport and engage with customers – improving sales enablement and the sales process.
Team Building For Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is crucial when building a sales team. If your sales team cannot work well under pressure and solve problems as they arise – if they are not innovative and creative in their thinking – they will soon run into trouble.
The sales process is not a simple or predictable one – every customer is different and comes with his own challenges.
Improving your sales team’s problem-solving skills is a brilliant way to improve your growth trajectory and lead to your desired outcomes as your company grows.
All the best team-building activities involve problem-solving because it is such a crucial element in any team’s success. A couple of the best to help you build a sales team, however, are:
- Jungle Adventure: The Jungle Adventure involves getting your sales team to work together to navigate their way through a real jungle.
Each team gets a set of maps, a compass, and instructions that lead them through the jungle, ‘from waterfall to waterfall, over mountains, and sometimes even across the sea to places where clues can be found’.
The teams must solve the clues in order to reach their next destination. What’s more, teams race against each other – a sure way to develop some healthy competition back in the sales department!
- A Murder Mystery: The Murder Mystery team-building event is sure to get your sales team using their critical faculties!
What better way to train their problem-solving skills than by having them solve a murder? This exercise is sure to help develop your team’s sales methodology and give them the right tools to solve unique and novel problems in the future.
There are so many other brilliant live team-building events – and many popular virtual team-building activities – to help develop the problem-solving skills of your sales reps and build a quality sales team.
How To Build A Sales Team Through Team Building
High-performing sales teams don’t come about by accident. Building a sales team takes time and a whole load of effort from everyone in the business – from the sales manager and sales rep to the customer service reps, everyone is crucial.
And it can sometimes seem like an impossible task. Yes, you know what a successful sales team looks like, but how do you get there? Well, team-building is an essential tool to use!
Team-building can help develop all the skills required for a highly successful sales team, including problem-solving, teamwork, communication, innovation, and customer service.
So, when you are building a sales team, make sure you incorporate as many brilliant team-building activities as possible!
