This post was originally published on lessonly.com.
How’d you do this quarter? Perhaps you’re spending the last day of the quarter with your feet up—sipping a choice beverage and toasting your team’s success. For others, this quarter didn’t go like they wanted it to.
The good news is, the start of each new quarter is an opportunity to revitalize your team’s disciplines, practices, and systems. It may be tempting to deprioritize backend processes and instead focus on the day-to-day busyness of sales, but intentional improvement via sales enablement is critically important.
At Lessonly, we talk a lot about continuous rapid improvement. We don’t want to stay stagnant; we want every one of our teams and teammates to get better—consistently and quickly. And particularly in the fast-paced world of sales, the opportunity cost of not continuously improving is too high.
“Sales leaders must thoughtfully consider how their team should improve in the quarter ahead—and then plan their entire sales enablement strategy accordingly.”
Here are five ideas to jumpstart your thinking:
Prioritize practice
We’re convinced that the most undervalued ingredient of great sales teams is practice. Reps that make practicing—and receiving feedback—a regular part of their routine see week-over-week improvement in their skills and messaging. And when practice is paired with regular win/loss analysis, it’s easy to see which messages and ideas are resonating with prospects. Sales leaders should view dedicated practice and feedback sessions as a way to quickly iterate on the messaging that their teams are using—and get it into the market. Sales enablement best practices like these ensure that your team moves faster, closes more deals, and maximizes their productivity.
Learn the art of coaching
“Practice is essential—and a great coach turns the lemon that is practicing into the lemonade of closed deals.”
There are many skills that a great sales coach needs to cultivate, but the most important step is simply setting aside time to be with your team. Sales teams move fast, and sales leaders are busy. But the most valuable use of a sales director’s time is focusing on team improvement; this investment will pay dividends as salespeople continually improve, succeed in the market, and reach out to help other reps learn the ropes. Sales enablement training tools like Lessonly by Seismic are purpose-built to help leaders maximize their efficiency and impact when coaching a team.
Go agile
Agile is a process used by software engineers to ensure healthy project management that champions rapid iteration, testing, and application. Sales teams stand to benefit from embracing an agile mindset as well. No matter how you practically apply them, the four key ideas of agile will point your team toward success:
- Individuals matter more than tools
- Impact matters more than thoroughness
- Customers matter more than contracts
- Responsiveness matters more than sticking to the plan
While experience with Agile might not currently be a part of your sales enablement job description, an Agile mindset could revolutionize your sales team—read more about these ideas here!
View every failure as an opportunity for growth
Every salesperson experiences ups and downs in their career. One quarter will be fantastic, another will be a struggle. One role will be a perfect fit, while another may feel maddening. Regardless of your situation, embracing every challenge as an opportunity for growth will pay remarkable dividends for your sales career. Each career step provides new arenas for growth, as well as numerous potential pitfalls along the way.
“Those that learn from both their successes and failures—and apply those insights to personal and team improvement—will win in the long-run.”
Revamp your training program
As the saying goes, “you only get out what you put in.” This rings especially true when training a team. Employees deserve—and want—to know what great work looks like, to be taught the skills they need to succeed, and to be guided by leaders that care about their personal development. Sales enablement solutions don’t just happen by accident. It takes intentionality to design a training regimen that helps people reach their fullest productivity and personal potential. Our Employee Training Plan Template Builder is a great first step to developing a training plan that puts your sales team on the path to productivity.
Sales teams that want to get better use Lessonly by Seismic
Continuous rapid improvement is no easy task. That’s why we designed Lessonly as a sales enablement software that helps teams learn, practice, and perform like never before. Want to see how Lessonly could improve your sales team? Get a demo today.
