7 Key Systems To Build A World Class Sales Team

I started selling at seven years old.

I was making potholders and selling them to moms and grandmas in the neighborhood. Other kids were selling them too. But I found a way to dominate the market for my product and even managed to charge twice what other kids asked. How did I become the sales superstar of my neighborhood at the age of seven?

I realized the key to sales is all about standing out from the competition with a world class sales team.

This key lesson has stayed with me throughout my career as a leading sales speaker and trainer, where I teach street-proven sales systems and processes from over 30 years of sales and executive experience.

These systems and processes have also helped me turn six companies into fast growing and profitable national firms, as well as lead successful sales team as large as 2,600 people.

As a CEO or business owner, I know you’re interested to learn the secrets behind creating a world class sales team so your company can grow quickly and profitably. That’s why in this article I’ll share the seven key systems I used to help numerous companies achieve hyper sales growth.

 

World Class Sales Team System #1: Goals

When I was 13, I became a caddy at a private country club. At first I thought my job was to carry clubs, find balls, rake traps and such. But after a couple of weeks, I realized that these golfers all had nice cars, big homes with pools, and a lifestyle far better than my parents had.

I saw this as an opportunity to learn from these successful people — and that’s what I did, all summer. I peppered them with questions:

“How did you become more successful than most people?”

             “What did you do differently?”

             “What would you not do again?”

             “What would you tell a 13-year-old who wants to be successful in life?”

I had a country club full of mentors who were taking a vested interest in my success. From them, one of the key lessons I learned was if you want to succeed, you need to have goals, AND a process and a system to ensure those goals take place.

The same thing applies when it comes to achieving hyper growth for your sales. You need to have goals. Lofty goals. Equally important, however, are the systems and processes you establish to ensure that those goals are reached.

Here are seven specific activities a world class sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #2: Marketing

I was once hired by a client in Southern California who had a mortgage company. This company had a terrific marketing program that made the phone ring regularly. They were using TV ads, newspapers, magazines, the Internet and direct mail — a wide variety of marketing methods to get customers to call about getting a mortgage.

You want to make sure you have a great marketing system in place in your company too so that your salespeople will have a constant stream of prospects to sell to.

Here are six specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #3: Business Development

While marketing promotes your company’s brand, product or service to attract prospective customers, business development identifies strategic partnerships and opportunities within and across segments or industries to achieve the same goal.

Both marketing and business development need to be done concurrently to maximize the number of prospects, customers, and clients your company attracts.

Here are four specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #4: Customers For Life

One of the fastest ways to ensure hyper growth sales is to focus on turning one-time buyers into customers for life. After all, marketing and business development to gain new customers is a lot of work. If you can turn new customers into repeat customers, you’ll only accelerate your sales.

Here are four specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #5: Referral Business

It’s important to get referrals and give referrals to achieve hyper sales growth. Let me give you an example.

About twice a month, I am contacted by sales managers and business owners asking me if I can help them design a new compensation plan for their salespeople. Years ago I built some comp plans for my own company and for some clients. But I discovered I’m not really good at that. There are people way better at comp plan design than I am. In my database I have three trusted resources on comp plan design.

Each of those calls asking me for help could mean money for me. I could register a sale. I could put the money in my pocket, and yet I’m telling them to go to that other guy. Never once has anyone come back to me and said, “No, Jack, we want you to do it.” My referral to someone I trusted satisfied all of them.

And six months or two years later, I’m likely to get a call back from that person who had wanted me to design a compensation plan. I hear this: “Jack, we want to hire you to do sales training.”

Perfect! That’s what I do. And we make it happen. How many other firms do you think that person talked to about doing sales training for his company? Zero. They trusted me, so they only approached me.

Here are three specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #6: Entrepreneur Behavior

When advising clients on how to recruit their sales team, I always remind them that you can train people in the business; however, attempting to retrofit people into a culture is a Herculean challenge.

This is why it’s important to think “culture first, experience second.” When you invest considerable time and effort to nurture entrepreneurial behaviors in your sales team culture, everything else (including growing sales) becomes much easier.

Here are five specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

World Class Sales Team System #7: Culture For Success

A winning culture is an environment where your sales people are excited to get to work. It is the heart of your company’s success because it pumps vital energy to every part of your organization. The right culture will make each and every person excited to perform their role and support your business growth.

When you create an environment where the workers actually enjoy what they’re doing, they’ll convey that enjoyment to the customer, and magical things will happen.

Here are four specific activities a superstar sales team must do in this area to achieve hyper growth sales:

Build Your Own World Class Sales Team For Hyper Sales Growth

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Build Your Own World Class Sales Team