Having an effective field sales team is critical for any business looking to scale its operations. The best way to ensure success in this area is through a comprehensive sales enablement strategy that leverages the latest techniques.
Given that 71 percent of the sales force is field sales teams, it’s evident why this approach to customer engagement is highly effective. Rather than waiting for customers to seek out your products or services, actively engaging with them through field sales activities allows for a more proactive and personalized approach.
Let’s explore how you can set your field sales team up for success with simple yet extremely effective tactics.
Create the Team
The phrase ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ is particularly relevant when it comes to sales teams. To create a successful team, you have to incorporate the best of the best from both sales and marketing departments.
After you assemble the team, start with an analysis of your current performance. Even if the results are solid, approach the process with the attitude of polishing the details and embellishing your strategy.
Go over your sales playbook and pinpoint just what works and what you can do to enable your sales reps to close deals faster.
Recognize ICPs
Field sales involve various practices that sales reps use in order to incentivize prospects to take action right on the spot. The entire campaign should start with a field marketing strategy to raise brand awareness and get prospects a bit more familiar with the products you offer.
This is the perfect opportunity to understand your ideal customer profile (ICP). This will help you understand which customers have the need for your products and with what kind of budget they work.
Make Collateral Easily Accessible
Your collateral is blog posts, case studies, and other resources your sales team uses to maximize the effectiveness of every pitch. They play an integral role in the entire sales process, and this is why your reps need to have easy access to them.
Equip your team with devices that will help them access these resources instantly and set them up for perfect pitches.
Encourage Collaboration
Encouraging collaboration among teams is a crucial aspect of sales enablement. Research indicates that team collaboration can enhance employee engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction.
Unfortunately, in many organizations, marketing and sales teams often work in silos. Marketing generates leads and expects sales to act on them without proper communication. On the other hand, sales may question why marketing isn’t targeting specific customers.
This lack of communication can lead to tension between departments and hinder overall efficiency. However, implementing effective sales enablement strategies can bridge this gap and promote collaboration between teams.
Establish a Standardized System for Reporting and Analysis
Establishing a standardized system for reporting and analysis is crucial in measuring the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts. This allows you to demonstrate to senior management that your strategy is yielding positive results or present a well-researched plan for improvement.
Creating reports on key metrics such as win rate, quota attainment, average sales price, sales cycle length, and collateral performance can provide valuable insights into the success of your sales enablement initiatives. Analyzing these metrics can help you identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy.
Here are some of the most significant sales metrics:
- Win rate. Measure the percentage of opportunities that your sales team converts into paying customers. It should increase once you implement a sales enablement program.
- Quota attainment. Measure whether reps hit their quotas or not. A successful sales enablement program makes it easier for reps to hit their quotas consistently.
- Average sales price. Analyze the average sale price metric for your sales department to ensure that closing deals result in more revenue. Create new content with higher-value deals if necessary.
- Sales cycle length. Analyze this metric to see how long it takes your team to guide prospects through the buying journey and identify friction points. Remove any actions by reps that stall sales to close deals at a quicker pace.
- Sales collateral performance. Track the number of times your sales reps use marketing content and analyze it on a regular basis. Optimize content to increase sales if necessary.
Conclusion
Sales enablement is an essential tactic for any business seeking to establish a thriving field sales team. Through the implementation of the strategies we discussed above, businesses can optimize their sales processes and expand their operations for long-term success.
