I have a challenge for you and your sales team.
Are you ready to accept that challenge — and ignite hyper sales growth for your company?
I’m about to share with you strategies to send your company’s sales into overdrive. And this challenge goes beyond that. It’s about more than taking note of all those high-impact tips for building your sales process, creating a winning culture, and building your sales playbook.
It’s about taking action.
Sure, these strategies have helped companies grow their salespeople in quantity and quality for more than 30 years. But it doesn’t matter how great the material is if you don’t act on it.
My challenge is this: I want you to pick 1 or 2 steps you can put into action today.
If you get the ball rolling on any of these 3 action items for hyper sales growth now, you’ll watch your sales skyrocket in the next 5 years. It’s all about acting on strategies to build your sales growth toolkit, develop your sales playbook, and 10X your company’s revenue.
- Build Your Sales Growth Toolkit
- Develop Your Sales Playbook
- 10X Your Revenue With Proven Sales Tactics
1. Build Your Sales Growth Toolkit
There are 3 essential elements to growing your sales — and your business. And it starts with having a vision for where you want to go.
A Clear Corporate Vision
My first question to entrepreneurs, CEOs, and other business leaders who want to grow their business is this: What’s the vision for your company?
It’s amazing to me how few people can articulate where they want their business to go.
One of my clients calls this the painted picture. Start your path by painting a picture of your company in its future state.
Think about where you want to be 3, 5, and 10 years from now. Where will you operate geographically? How many salespeople will you have? What does your revenue look like? What do the profit line and margin look like?
Key Salespeople In Key Spots
Now that we have a clear, magnetic, and compelling vision for you to go after with your company, it’s time to ensure you have key salespeople in key spots.
If you really want to grow your revenues, then the most important position in the company is the person who’s responsible for growing your salespeople in quantity and quality. That’s your sales manager.
And how should you set up your sales leadership? For starters, you should quit sinning.
Stop Committing These Sins
The 3 sins of sales management hold too many companies back. Are you guilty of any of these?- Your CEO is the sales manager —
If you’re operating as both a CEO and a sales manager, you’re doing each of those roles only part time.
Whenever you’re operating as the CEO, you’re not growing the company. When you’re acting as the sales manager, you’re not fulfilling a CEO’s duties. In short, you’re holding back success. - Your best salesperson is the sales manager —
Too often, we take our best person and make them the sales manager.
What happens? We lose our best salesperson and get a mediocre sales manager in the trade. They are entirely different jobs that live in entirely different worlds. And these sales managers often leave to be a salesperson with another company, often a competitor. - Your best salesperson is a salesperson and sales manager —
I have no idea how that person’s supposed to be successful.
That salesperson might have the best sales year of their life and be the number one salesperson in the company, but offering this dual role as a reward comes at the expense of the growth of your company.
A Strong Sales Culture
The great management consultant Peter Drucker used to say, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Put another way: If you get the culture right, everything else that goes on in your company gets easier.
If culture is such a big deal, how do you build that winning culture? A strong culture has 4 legs. If we don’t address these 4 legs, it’s an uncomfortable experience.
4 Legs Of A Strong Sales Culture
- Recognition systems —
Emphasize the word “systems.”
What are your systems for regular, ongoing recognition? People in your company are starving for recognition. My mantra goes something like this for sales contents: daily contests, weekly contests, monthly contests, annual contests … layer on the contests with your salespeople, and watch those sales grow. - Communication systems —
When companies survey their employees, they often find one reason they feel disappointed: It’s the lack of communication.
Establish systems for regular, ongoing communication, and communicate proactively. - Personal and professional development processes —
Here I emphasize the word “personal.”
Looking for opportunities to help people become better human beings will distinguish you from your competitors. It’s not just about sales. It’s about leading an exceptional life. - Empowerment processes —
If you don’t trust your salespeople, get new ones.
But you don’t want your salespeople out talking to a prospect and negotiating a deal, only to have to say, “I’ll have to get approval from somebody to do that.” Create an environment where the people who work in your company feel as comfortable as the owner in making decisions.
2. Develop Your Sales Playbook
You’ve got your toolkit. Now you need a playbook. After all, I always that sports teams are run better than most businesses.
They run their teams through systems and processes anchored in a playbook. They practice and prepare better than we do in business. As you build your sales playbook, keep the following 5 elements in mind.
5 Parts To Your Sales Playbook
- Recruiting is a process, not an event.
I hear it all the time: finding salespeople is difficult. And it is, if you look for them only when you have an opening. But you should always have an opening for good salespeople, and you should always be recruiting for them. Are the general managers of sports teams always recruiting?
Absolutely. - Practice proactive pipeline management.
Inspect what I call the “baskets” of your salespeople at least once a month. That means you’re talking about top prospects, top occasional customers, and top regular clients. - Lead in-the-field coaching.
Effective sales managers aren’t hunkered down in an office, behind a desk. Conduct coaching and training with your salespeople off site, whether in person or remotely. - Conduct role practicing.
How often are your salespeople practicing, and where are they practicing? If they’re not practicing inside your company, they’re practicing outside on the real deals. That’s like a sports team not practicing and the coach saying they’ll practice when they play the next opponent. - Build your success guide.
There’s hardly anything that goes on during a sales call that you can’t anticipate before you arrive.
So, wouldn’t it make sense to figure out what the objections might be and determine your responses to those objections before you even get there? Include this success guide in your sales playbook.
3. 10X Your Company’s Revenue With Proven Sales Tactics
Now build on these strategies to ignite hyper sales growth. We’ve already covered many of the key elements of sales growth, so let’s highlight some other game-changers.
Differentiate Yourself From The Competition
Nobody decides to do business with you or your company without asking the question, “Why should I do business with your company? If you don’t know why your company and your product are better and different from your competitor, how do you expect your prospect to figure that out?
Create the perception of value to enhance trust and remove price objections.
Follow The Proven Processes & Systems Of Sales Pros
I call this “modeling the masters.” I’ve been at the sales training game for decades. Prior to that, I spent 20 years building 6 companies into national firms in the United States, selling 2 of them to Wall Street.
I’m not a theory guy; I’m a practitioner. I believe in following the proven processes and systems professionals use.
Build A Differentiated Touch System
A study on this topic discovered that it takes 9 touches of your prospect before they know you even exist. Most salespeople stop at 5 or less. They haven’t even heard you — and you’ve wasted your time, your money, and your energy.
Wipe Out Call Reluctance
Call reluctance might make it challenging for your salespeople to pick up the phone. Start by doing your homework on the prospect, finding where their pain points are, and then voluntarily sharing some tips or tools to help them improve their lives and businesses. Remember: It takes 9 touches before they know who you are.
Make More Money With Less Work
The very best salespeople call on fewer people, but they write more business. Their secret? They call on the right people. Have you gone through your salespeople’s territories and markets to find the best opportunities? All customers should not be treated equally; some deserve more attention than others. Taking this approach allows you to spend more time with fewer people.
Take Action Today To Launch Hyper Sales Growth
So, what action will you take today to ignite hyper sales growth? Now that you know the path to 10X your company’s revenue, what 1 or 2 things will you do to implement those strategies — and make a significant impact?
Here’s a great first step: I invite you and your sales team to join my Hyper Sales Growth Master Business Course. In that course, we’ll take a deep dive into all the keys to hyper sales growth. You’ll learn the systems and processes that help your business:
- Build your vision for the future
- Establish a winning culture
- Chart your path to hyper sales growth
You’ll get the lessons to set the foundation, the tools to take action, and the coaching and community to support you every step of the way.
It all starts with an action or 2. Let’s get started today.
