Annually, 34%-38% of companies have stated they have an accurate perception of their reps throughout the company. Over the last 18 months, reps have stated that 60% of their relations with prospective clients have stayed the same. To understand how to improve sales enablement and client relations, first begin by understanding your sales force.
1) Consider your reps as an extension of you
The culture you portray and the level of proactiveness you demonstrate creates the same positive or negative reaction with each sales rep; and this is multiplied by the volume of your reps. For example: If you have ten reps, your behavior can be 10x more impactful than your own actions. Consider the game of “Simon says”, and do as you tell your reps to do by leading the way as a prime example of the kind of performance you seek.
2) Create a consultative approach to Sales
Reps need to transform from order takers to problem solvers and become a partner with their showroom customers by providing opportunities and solutions for retail sales.
3) Give reps the right technology, and learn with them.
The more reps are prepared with the appropriate sales enablement and CLM tools, the better they can sell. The more you interact with a rep the better you can understand him or her and improve the adoption rate of changes.
4) Your best reps also represent the key to your New Business
A good working relationship and belief in a strong sales force continues to be the best conduit for fostering relationships and taking care of issues in the field. Give credit where credit is due and recognize your top performers. Focus less on the potential disruption of attempting to make them better (if it’s not broken don’t fix it), and more on enabling lower performers perform as top performers do.
5) Treat your reps equally, but as individuals.
Each rep brings along their own way of doing business and their view of the world. There are three categories of sales reps in this regard: Some work in perfect unison with internal support staff, and others just exist with few highs or lows. The last group is the anomaly; they scream aloud and are very demanding of resources and attention, but this seems to pay off in higher than average sales. Keep in mind that this requires various approaches but the approaches must work to achieve the same results.
