Kestio

Successfully onboarding your sales representative

How to get your team to adopt your Business Strategy

Vous avez certainement consacré du temps et des efforts à définir la meilleure stratégie commerciale pour votre entreprise. L'atteinte des résultats dépend désormais de sa mise en oeuvre effective par votre équipe commerciale.

To do this, it must be clearly explained and translated not only into quantified objectives, but also into concrete activities and means to achieve these objectives.

 

Here are 5 tips to ensure that your business strategy is fully implemented on the ground.

 

Distinguish between business strategy and overall corporate strategy

 

A quick test: ask a manager if his company's business strategy is clear to his staff. His answer will surely be a straightforward "yes". Then ask one of his salespeople if he knows why he has to make five appointments a week. Most of the time, they will not be able to explain their objective!

 

This perception gap between management and sales staff is often due to a simple lack of explanation and sharing of the sales strategy and the resulting action plan.

 

Of course, it is important to present the global strategy to give perspective and link the action of the sales staff to the life of the company as a whole: new product launches, international development projects, growth objectives, etc. are all subjects that concern your sales team.

 

However, make sure you distinguish it from the sales strategy itself and focus on the latter, while linking it to the former. And above all, make sure that you address all the questions that drive salespeople by giving them the concrete elements that will enable them to act effectively afterwards.

 

Make the link between the turnover target and the commercial activities in the field

To do this, take the time to make the link between the defined commercial result objective and its concrete translation for the sales staff: firstly in terms of individual result objectives, then in terms of the level of commercial intensity to be provided, i.e. in terms of the nature and frequency of the commercial activities to be carried out.

For example, 1 day per week devoted to prospecting, 5 appointments obtained per day of prospecting, or 3 client appointments made per week...

 

Share your reasoning for setting the business objectives 

Detail the steps in thesales processand explain the assumptions that have been made (number of leads, conversion rate, sales made...) to bring about the objectives presented. In this way, you will give them meaning and reference points.

 

Another essential point: beyond the figures and calculation hypotheses, take the time to define the expected commercial actions from a qualitative point ofview.

Depending on the context, for example, the generic term "meeting" can cover very different realities: a 30-minute discovery telephone call, a 1.5-hour workshop in a "sales-consulting" approach, or a 45-minute online demonstration of a solution, etc. Set the objectives of these actions accordingly and define the skills to be used to carry them out successfully

 

Translate "product sales targets" into "customer sales actions

Similarly, don't forget to translate product sales targets (usually set by the Marketing Department) into "customer-oriented" sales actions.

 

It's one thing to tell your sales people that they must sell 10,000 copies of one of your flagship products in the first 6 months of the year, or to set a target for one of your ranges to account for 40% of the turnover generated... it's quite another to achieve this for the teams concerned.

 

To give them - and yourself - the best chance of success , make sure you give them the means to succeed, by defining the corresponding sales action plan and, above all, by linking it to what is at the heart of your salespeople's daily activity: your customers!

 

Define the customer targets In short, translate the "product strategy" into operational sales tools, linked to the reality of the customers your sales team is dealing with.

 

Enhance the means available to your sales staff to succeed

In the same perspective, value the resources that you make available to salespeople to enable them to achieve their objectives: budget, time, human resources, tools, etc.

 

These resources can be of various kinds: purchase of segmented and qualified prospecting files, lead generation marketing campaignsnew attractive website, efficient CRM functionalities, sales coaching trainingsession...

 

Make a list of these resources with two objectives: on the one hand, to make them known to your sales people so that they actively take them up, and on the other hand, to boost their motivation by showing them that the company is investing to give them the means to achieve the desired results.

 

Build on the previous year's successes and capitalise on them

Finally, link the business strategy and objectives for the coming months to the victories of the past year.

 

  • What lessons did you learn?
  • How are they used in the current strategy?
  • How can you duplicate or build on them to construct a scalable model from the variables observed at a certain scale?

 

Building on your previous sales successes is a good way to show the consistency of your strategy and establish positive continuity. It is also a way to value the contribution of your sales people and to spread good practice internally.

All of these elements will help your teams to take ownership of your sales strategy, ensuring that it is effectively implemented and bears fruit.

To learn more about targeting and building a customer file, you can also watch our webinar:

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