Salespeople need to be focused on actual selling rather than merely navigating the complexities of the sales process, which has become increasingly complicated over time. Companies should clarify the roles and expectations for their sales teams, ensuring that productivity and selling time are maximized instead of being consumed by administrative tasks. Aligning sales strategies with process improvements and providing strong leadership are essential for transforming sales teams to increase efficiency and customer acquisition.

1. GETTING SOLD ON
SELLING
Salespeople need to get sold on sales not
just the sales process

2. “What do you want me to do"
• Salespeople need to get sold on sales not just the sales
process. One of the big questions any sales team needs
clarification on is "what do you want me to do". Simple I
hear sales mangers say, "Go sell".
• Which leads on to the bigger question, what is selling
inside your company. You see time was selling was easily
quantified. In the day of the door to door, all a sales
person needed was the product to demo and enough
streets with enough door bells to ring. Simple numbers
game, keep knocking until someone opens, give the sales
pitch and close.

3. Has selling got lost in the sales process?
• As time went bye, sales moved inside, online, blended,
push, pull, hunter, miner, gatherer and the systems
supporting the sales process got more complicated.
• First we had contact management with software programs
like Goldmine, then came CRM and now Sales Force
Automation.
• Which makes me wonder, has selling got lost in the sales
process?, are sales people more engaged in the sales
process and systems than the actual selling itself.

4. Selling time
• The sales models for many companies have become
more complex and less efficient, putting pressure on the
rate they can acquire customers, productivity and even
shifting the focus point from selling time to admin time.

5. Clarify the scope of the Sales teams
• The guiding principle of all sales and marketing teams is
to maximise selling time, lead generation and relationship
building. That may sound obvious to any sales leader, but
it is important to remember that the drive for data and
sales insights can collide with the forces of rising
complexity in the sales process.
• Sales teams can over time slip comfortable into being
sales processors against being sales winners. Companies
must understand and clarify the scope of their sales
teams while promoting efficiency throughout the sales
process.

6. Aligning your selling
• Aligning your selling efforts with sales process takes work.
Sometimes companies can be cautious about meddling
with the sales force—directors and even owners need to
overcome the common fear that disrupting it will hamper
revenue.
• Then, other stake holders from not only sales, marketing
and sales support but also other functions, such as
finance, must work together to identify and prioritise the
expected outputs from the sales engine.

7. Sales teams transformation
• Next, successful sales teams transformations require
support from the very top: someone has to take the lead,
get the senior people from across the company to sit
down, share data, and be willing to talk about what’s not
working.
• This leader must override internal concerns, see the big
picture, and focus on the best solutions to boost sales
time regardless of past practices.

8. Change the sales focus
• Changing the sales focus may mean changing the sales
talent as successful sales teams refocusing may change
how people carry out their roles and the ways other
stakeholders interact, from customers to marketing and
back offices.

9. Sales teams time is better used to sell.”
• winning back and protecting selling time for sales people
to sell requires vigilance. The growth of multi channels
marketing and sales channels in the B2B and B2C
markets can demand non-selling activities into the sales
teams day.
• In addition, old habits chip away at selling time: a
salespersons ingrained response when a customer needs
a quick answer to something is to drop everything and
dive in, even when a well mapped out sales support or
customer support mechanism is in place to handle any
issue faster and better.
• The new mantra has to be “A sales teams time is better
used to sell.”

10. Sales operations can be streamlined
• In larger companies, viewing sales operations across
departments may not be easy, nor is implementing
changes that affect the entire sales process.
• Yet the more sales operations can be streamlined and
admin reduced, the more likely customer satisfaction will
improve as deals close quickly and sales pipeline grows
faster.
• At these companies, the result can often be millions of
Euros in higher revenues and lower sales costs.

11. • Get the right sales people and channel in front of the
customer at the right time.

12. Role of sales specialists
• It may not be enough to transform the sales teams by
hiring people with the skills and capabilities to sell
solutions to target sectors. Companies might have to
restructure their sales coverage model, which means
defining the sales roles differently.
• The questions to ask, include how much hunting versus
gathering capacity to employ; what the role of sales
specialists should be; whether to use one or multiple
sales people to serve a segment or customers across
different geographies.

13. Sales people comfortable serving current
customers
• When to hunt for new customers and when to mine
deeper within current customers is one of the answers
that needs to be made explicit to any sales team.
• Too many sales people often get comfortable serving their
current customers, so an obvious initial step is to charge
them with becoming more aggressive about mining the
largest customers to their full potential.
• The life blood of any business is acquiring new
customers.

14. Effective coverage model
• That’s why an effective coverage model needs to be
deliberate about who should be hunting and where.
• Sales managers should meet regularly with hunting sales
people to understand and actively refine their target
prospects and beach-head plans.
• Given the degree of sales difficulty and the strategic value
of acquiring new customers, sellers should receive a
compensation recognition for breaking into new accounts.

15. Sales people need to learn
• Whether hunting, farming or mining, it’s critical to get the
mix and sequence of sales skills and specialists right. Do
not ignore a sales stream because there’s no sales expert
in-house to cover the area with the skills the target
customers considers crucial.
•
Sales people need to learn and be taught how to
orchestrate effective teaming. Like musicians who
seamlessly improvise back and forth after they have
played together several times, salespeople who get to
know and trust one another tend to sell together more
effectively.

16. Sales people need to get selling again
• Sales people need to get sold on selling again, start a
new romance with more new customer conversations, fall
in love again with sales time and get an answer to
• “What do you want me to do?.