The 5 Factors Beyond Talent Needed to Sell Solutions

Does Your Sales Team Have the Factors Beyond Talent to Sell Solutions Consistently?
Business sales training experts know that it is great to find a salesperson with raw and natural sales talent.  But, sales leaders also know that more than raw talent is needed to sell solutions consistently.  Experience has taught us that it takes a lot more than sales skills alone to build a high performing sales team.  Does your sales team have the factors beyond talent to sell solutions consistently?

The Basics Needed to Sell Solutions
Of course, when hiring new sales reps, you want to look for people who display the characteristics you know work for your specific sales strategy,  sales culture, industry, and sales playbook. You want motivated, confident, curious, empathetic sales reps who are driven to perform, serve their customers, and build long lasting relationships with them – people who know how to juggle the many demands on their time with a focus on lasting business results.

3 Major Themes to Consider
But to achieve maximum performance from the sales team as a whole, factors other than simple talent must come into play. And these factors fall into three main arenas:

Sales Strategy
First, you need a clear, believable and implementable sales strategy that defines ideal target customers, how your unique value proposition differentiates you from the competition, how sales success is measured, what sales processes matter most, who has which roles and responsibilities, and the key barriers you must overcome to succeed. It all starts with your sales strategy.  We know from our organizational alignment research that sales strategy accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams.

Is your sales strategy clear enough, believable enough, and implementable enough to get you where you want to go?

Sales Culture
Second, because a sales strategy must go through your sales culture to get implemented, you need a high performance sales culture that defines “how things get done” in a way that aligns with your sales strategy. Sales culture accounts for 40% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams and must help, not hider, seller’s ability to meet quota and serve customers.

Do you have the sales-driven culture required to meet your targets?

Sales Talent
Lastly you must be able to attract, develop, engage, and retain sales talent in a way that fits within your organizational culture and aligns with your sales strategy. Sales talent accounts for 29% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams.  And if you want to create synergies between different people and teams, make sure that goals, roles, processes, and team norms are crystal clear.  The good news is that sales competencies can be quantitatively  measured and improved using tools such as sales simulation assessments to improve hiring and development.

Do you know your sales team’s strengths and weaknesses?

5 Factors to Consider
According to solution selling training experts there are five factors beyond talent to sell solutions consistently:

1.  The Overall Goal
Be clear about the overall plan to win. You need to define your ideal target customer to help salespeople identify those most likely to buy. You need to understand what sets you apart from the pack and why. You need to provide targeted business sales training for the sales methodologies, processes, and systems you know work in your market and with your buyers. In other words, you need a company-specific sales strategy to guide your solution sellers toward sustainable success.

2.  Organizing the Sales Team
Who is responsible for what? A high performing sales team is one in which roles and responsibilities are clear. Different salespeople have different strengths and relate differently to different customers. Match your talent to the challenge so you deploy your team members in the most efficient and effective way possible.

3.  Sales Accountability
When team and individual goals are clearly set and agreed upon, the best salespeople hit the deck running. They are challenged to do their best and know they will be held accountable for their part. And as they reach those goals, they expect to be recognized and rewarded in a meaningful manner. Accountability is how you keep a sales team motivated and heading in the right direction.

4.  Sales Support
Sales managers must ensure there are sufficient resources available to back up the sales effort. Salespeople need access to information about their customers; insight into who, internally, can help adapt operations and delivery schedules to customer needs; and technology to streamline customer contact info in order to plan how to spend their time most fruitfully.

5.  Continuous Learning
Selling should never get stale. Solution selling training teaches that solutions should fit the customer and the customer’s customer. If each customer is different, so should the solutions crafted for them. Keep your sales team on their toes with targeted, relevant sales training and sales coaching that will help them succeed and give them what they need to know to constantly improve.

The Bottom Line
Complex sales is not easy, buyers are becoming more savvy, and expectations for a value-added sales process are only increasing.  are your sales reps ready to win?

To learn more about increasing the performance of your sales team, download, The Truth About Sales Coaching and the Biggest Mistakes