Smart-Sizing Your Salesforce is a Critical Sales Strategy for 2021
What is your major salesforce concern as you’re looking to refine your sales strategy for 2021?
Many leaders wonder if their salespeople will succeed in this difficult economy. Some are not impressed with the results they see. And yet, they keep salespeople in roles where they don’t fit.
Have you ever wanted a pair of shoes so badly, because they looked so good on the shelf? But when you try them on, they’re just a little too tight. There’s no bigger size available, so you buy them anyway. And then you’re stuck with the pain, every time you put those shoes on.
Isn’t that what we do with our salespeople sometimes? We love their personality and think the clients will love them too. But then they just don’t deliver the results we had hoped for. They’re not fit for that specific role.
Take Care When Restructuring to Improve Sales Growth
I hear these questions from presidents, CEO’s, and business owners every day:
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- How are we going to hang on to our top customers?
- How in the world are we going to reach our numbers – this is a big hit?
- What do we need to do differently to ensure we survive and thrive in 2021?
- How am I going to make payroll?
- Which sales managers and salespeople can contribute meaningfully to our recovery strategies?
You may be asking these, and other important questions at this time. Now is a great time to analyze, take action, and get your sales team optimized to grow revenues, raise margins and take market share. I trust this article will provide the guidance you need to right-size and smart-size your sales effort!
Take Care When Restructuring to Improve Sales Growth
My granddaughter, Joanna, is fascinated by my husband’s shoes and loves them on. Yes, it’s cute for a 2-year-old to play with the misfit. However, it’s isn’t “cute” when your salespeople aren’t aligned with your strategic growth plans.
Business leaders admit that they need to restructure, or smart-size their salesforce. This action is critical to respond well to the emerging trends of this volatile ten-years-of-change-smashed-in-two-months economy.
However, any restructuring process can turn into a painful nightmare quickly. Just like the pain you experience from buying shoes that don’t fit, you may end up paying a high price when your salespeople don’t fit in their roles. Too many mistakes can cost the company big time in the short term and may also have long-lasting effects.
I believe you need accurate insights to make the best decisions with clarity and confidence. The success of your recovery will be determined by how well you restructure and smart-size your sales effort.
Consider These Critical Sales Strategy Challenges
As you are weighing up your restructuring options, consider the following:
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- What Critical Sales Strategy Challenges are you facing?
- Which of these issues are you anticipating to become a problem soon?
- What other Critical Sales Situations are obscuring your rocky road?
Sales Strategy Challenge #1: Introducing new products and services
You’re in the middle of launching innovative new products and services, and then the pandemic and lockdown hit! What do you do now? Which of your sales leaders and salespeople can proceed confidently, considering this major health and economic crisis?
Sales Strategy Challenge #2: Emerging trends
Your industry is shifting from a product-based solution to a technology-based solution. Which of your sales managers and salespeople will be able to make the transition to a more conceptual-based solution?
Sales Strategy Challenge #3: Eroding margins
Your high-growth market was already flattening. Which of your sales managers will be able to motivate the salespeople to maintain margins? They’re facing an economy where buyers will be reluctant to let go of their money – if they have any left. Who can succeed?
Sales Strategy Challenge #4: Intensifying competition
The competitive landscape is changing even more rapidly. You once were a dominant market leader. Now your sales managers and salespeople are up against competitors who are already dropping prices dramatically just to get cash flow and stay alive. Who on your team will be successful in this selling situation?
Sales Strategy Challenge #5: Acquiring another company
The new company acquisition looked like a great strategic addition…until the pandemic. You were starting to see gaps in the selling competencies of the newly acquired salespeople. Now, the gap is widening. You don’t have the time or money for a wait-and-see approach. You have to make decisions now on who’s going to stay and who needs to go. Which sales leaders and salespeople can help ensure your new acquisition is profitable during this mess?
Sales Strategy Challenge #6: Changing go-to-market strategy
You realize the demographic shift in both your clients and your available workforce requires a change in sales strategy. However, with an economic recovery that’s a gradual process, is there a way to speed up sales growth results with your new BDRs?
Sales Strategy Challenge #7: Adjusting pricing position:
Your strategy calls for selling a solution that provides value. Now the need for consultative, value-selling will skyrocket. Which of your sales managers and salespeople are ready to execute this change? Who needs to be shifted to deal only with the transactional sales?
Sales Strategy Challenge #8: Shifting target client
You’re not confident that your sales manager can handle the transition of the salespeople to full-time online selling. What do you need to do to ensure your sales managers are keeping your remote team motivated and productive?
What other situations are you facing that you would add to this list?
Strengthen your Restructuring Sales Growth Strategy with Accurate Insights
Whether it’s one of these Critical Sales Strategy Challenges or some other sales issues caused by the Covid-19 crisis, you require accurate insights. This will help you confidently restructuring and smart-sizing your sales teams.
So, what might you do to maximize your shift to business recovery?
We have proven tools, processes, and resources that help you get clarity on your current sales capacity. We will give you the insights to make the bold crossroads decisions that create the breakthrough results you need.
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- Stimulate compelling growth plans
- Spark strategic problem-solving
- Strengthen Ownership
- Spur action to reach goals
- Source opportunities to serve
Start building the success mindsets in your sales teams to steer your sales growth in the right direction.
3 Questions to Maximize your Business Sales Growth Recovery
Even if you’re not using our resources, consider these questions that my salesforce development colleague, Hunter Byington, asks in a recent guest post, “How to Right-Size Your Sales Team to Maximize Recovery.”
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- Are my salespeople suitable for the sales growth role I’m asking them to play? Many salespeople and sales managers were transferred into roles that just don’t fit. However, with the strength of the economy over the past five years, it didn’t matter. Now, it matters. How many people in your salesforce were put into situations where they were able to produce, but won’t fit now?
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- Does my sales strategy include coaching my sales leaders and salespeople to succeed in this new normal, challenging sales environment? Overall, we find that only 39% of the sales force even come close in consultative sales skills. Now, with the current state of the economy, they will have to dig deeper than ever before into all aspects of the client’s business. And if they didn’t ask the right questions in the past, what makes you so sure they will do the deep-dive probing required to be successful in today’s climate?
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- How do you tell who’s a good vs. mediocre vs. poor sales growth performer? Personal Bias is the number one reason companies lose good performers. In the last three economic downturns, many great salespeople were let go due to emotional ties, years in the industry, and even the nonsensical “last-in, first-out” approach. Look for real performers, just like you would choose a strong, trustworthy vehicle to navigate difficult and treacherous terrain.
3 Leadership Development Skills for a Changed World
In a recent article, How to Leverage These 3 Leadership Skills in a Changed World, Paul Cronin, an Executive Coach to over 60 CEOs and their leadership teams, explains how to create a dominant position in today’s volatile marketplace. He talks about the importance of talent. He writes, “When talent is recruited, they should be invited into the seat by their supervisor by asking three essential questions:
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- Does this person understand the importance that this seat has in the company’s success?
- Does this person want this position, such that they are excited to own it?
- Can this person deliver on the expectations, clearly laid out in the position’s role alignment card as an ‘A’ player?”
Now is the time to gear up your response to deal with the emerging trends of a smashed economy. With accurate sales growth insights and breakthrough mindsets, you can start your business recovery without making long-lasting, costly mistakes.
Contact us for a Smart-Size Sales Growth Discussion
Would you keep wearing shoes that don’t fit? If you’re sensible, you probably won’t! Would you keep salespeople in roles where they don’t fit? If you’re a leader looking for business recovery and sales growth, you probably won’t. However, you may not know how to get the right people in the right seats on the right bus.
Our goal is to help you strengthen your leadership and management quotient. Let’s chart a sales growth plan that 
ensures you and your team succeed during these difficult economic times.
Let’s start with a Free Consultation Meeting where we talk through your sales strategy challenges. Based on that, we can decide if there’s a right fit, if there’s any reason for us to talk further. If yes, we can get on the path toward tackling your goals. If not, I’m confident that we will have a great action-oriented conversation. Either way, you’ll walk away with more clarity about moving forward and making good choices.
Sales Growth Leadership Lesson:
Address your Critical Sales Strategy Challenges by getting accurate insights on smart-sizing your salesforce.
Sales Growth Leadership Question:
What are you doing to get clarity on your current sales strategy so that you make the right decisions to navigate this volatile marketplace?
Having challenges keeping your team engaged and focused in a productive direction? We invite you to schedule a free virtual coffee meeting with us. No charge, no obligation. Just a one-on-one 45 minutes to talk through what challenges are happening, receive personal tips, advice, and next steps on how to solve those challenges. To schedule, email me at danita@DanitaBye.com
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