Like every year before, 2024 will come with unique challenges and changes — and the sales landscape isn't exempt from those kinds of shifts. I anticipate the sales game won’t look the same as it does a year from now — just look at the changes we’ve already had in 2023. (I’m looking at you, AI).

Read the full article at: blog.hubspot.com

It’s a no-brainer that motivated sales teams enjoy their work more and do their work better, resulting in a healthier bottom line.

However, achieving this doesn’t come from cracking jokes all day (What’s the best way to stay happy at work? Take longer vacations!) and expecting morale to be high.

Indeed, happiness at work can be elusive, yet there are numerous practical steps we can take to encourage it.

Read the full article at: www.pipedrive.com

Managing virtual sales teams is becoming a common theme in the workplace.  

As times change, so does the average worker. Many companies are turning to virtual sales teams to save money on office space and create a flexible working atmosphere.  

This trend will most likely continue to increase with the advancement of new technologies and the current social distancing measures.  

However, many managers tend to worry that their team is either binging on Netflix shows, doing laundry or otherwise goofing off – while in their pajamas.

Guess what? 

The truth is employees tend to perform better when working from home.

Here are some tips that will help you manage a productive and high-performing virtual sales team. 

1. Select the Right Candidates for Remote Work

While the data supports the idea that remote teams are effective, not everyone is effective when it comes to remote work. 

Before you allow a current employee to go remote, you should evaluate their work patterns and ethics. 

Read the full article at: www.vanillasoft.com

Motivation is more than Vince Lombardi quotes and quirky posters on the wall. It’s one of the most important components of sustained sales success over time.

As a sales manager or director, you can only influence your team’s sales performance in two dimensions: Their skill set (what they can do) and their motivation (how repeatedly or passionately they do it).

Improving your team’s skill set is a largely objective process. By evaluating current performance metrics and comparing them to a successful end state, you can diagnose what areas need improvement and act accordingly.

But motivation is far harder. Not only are there are many external factors that affect motivation, every person requires different incentives and motivational tactics.

Read the full article at: blog.hubspot.com

Is it easier to change a company's sales culture when sales are going well, or on the contrary, when they are going badly? Actually, this is not the right question, because working on the sales culture will never be easy, whatever the conditions of the company and the market.

The real question to ask is whether there is a more appropriate time to make a sales transformation, so that the company can gain the maximum benefit from it, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

When sales are going well... you must avoid the traps!

The main issue, when sales are good, is that there is no real motivation to make changes. If the company grows and makes money... what's the problem?

Read the full article at: www.primaressource.com

This article describes the 5 biggest mistakes that new sales managers make, and how to avoid them.

When new sales managers were peak-performing salespeople they mastered the science of selling. But once they become a new sales manager, they often find themselves working harder but not seeing a commensurate impact on sales results. In order to once again attain mastery in their field, they must avoid making these five mistakes.

1. New sales managers have an unclear understanding of what exactly they need to do to improve the team’s performance

Every new sales manager knows that he or she is responsible for delivering sales results that the company expects.

Read the full article at: toplineleadership.com

What do you consider the greatest job in the world?

Maybe I'm biased, but I'm convinced I have that job. Why? Here’s what I do every day:

• Talk with people who are actively engaged in sharing important information with me
• Figure out what makes those people “tick”
• Work with sales managers to understand the talents of the people they are interviewing
• Help them to hire the very best people for the job
• Focus on the unique strengths of individuals
• And, help managers to coach their direct reports to become wildly successful

And best of all, I have the privilege of working closely with some of the greatest managers out there. After all these years, I can tell you that there are 15 things that every great manager knows. 

Read the full article at: blog.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com

I know you are working on ending the year strong. Your sales manager is encouraging you to pull the last couple of deals across the line. But this week, many people will be taking time off to spend with their families and friends, which means your contacts might not be at work on Wednesday and Friday. If this is true for you, it’s a good time to start building your plan to succeed in 2024.

Read the full article at: www.thesalesblog.com

Whether it be deciding on the right time to hire salespeople or identifying potential candidates, developing a sales hiring process will certainly help streamline recruitment decisions. A clear and comprehensive sales hiring process can save resources, reduce turnover, and produce an efficient sales team.

Devising a thorough process in objective sales hiring is a critical component of sales management success. To simply put it, you need to build and manage a team that will get you to your numbers and delivers profitable revenue. 

For your business to hit its target sales and revenue, it’s extremely essential to hire the right people. 

Read the full article at: www.myvirtudesk.com

Sales management is how sales managers organize, motivate, and lead their sales reps while tracking — and improving — team performance. This includes hiring top talent, training sales staff, coordinating operations across the sales department, and implementing a cohesive sales strategy that drives business revenues.

Think of it like a sports team. Have you ever heard of a top-ranked baseball team without a coach? Of course not. The coach provides the guidance, inspiration, strategy, and training that enable players to secure big wins. The best sales managers operate the same way, inspiring, educating, and guiding their teams to maximize revenue. The result? Consistent sales growth and a happy team — not to mention sizable commissions.

Read the full article at: www.salesforce.com

This article provides specific and practical techniques for measuring the performance of your company’s sales managers.

Perhaps no position in the sales organization has less accountability than the sales manager position—in part because many companies don’t know how to measure sales manager performance.

For example, the primary (and sometimes only) metric most companies use to measure sales managers is “team sales results.” But that’s a mistake. Why? Because when a sales team misses its quarterly number, the focus invariably shifts to one or more salespeople that missed their individual sales forecasts. And so the accountability for poor team results shifts away from the sales manager toward specific underperforming salespeople.

Read the full article at: toplineleadership.com

The word “demand” or “demanding” can induce an adverse reaction, and not without good reason. The way we are using the word “demanding” here does not point to the autocrat or despotic leader, who doesn’t care about their people. The term “demand” as we are using it here means being uncompromising when it comes to a leader’s expectations. The following five demands are part of being a good and effective b2b sales leader.

High Standards In Sales

Competent sales leaders are demanding leaders, raising the people’s standards, and serving as an example. The demand for higher standards separates the competent from sales leaders who set no standards, or standards so low that none on their team is required to stretch themselves to reach them.

Read the full article at: thesalesblog.com

Ask any sales leader whether they want to build a high-performing team, and the immediate answer will be “Yes.” But what are the specific best practices that support this goal? Here are three that we have seen in organizations that are thriving in 2021.

First and foremost, create clarity about the salesperson’s role. A simple and effective way to begin to do this is to invest a little time in a KARE analysis. Is the role you are looking at primarily responsible for KEEPING existing customers, for ACQUIRING new customers, for RECAPTURING customers who have been lost, or for EXPANDING business within a current account? These are four very different priorities, and a written job description should clearly identify for you and for the sales professional exactly what the expectations are for the role in question.

Next, identify the high performers on your current team. Taking the role you have just identified into account, ask yourself these questions: Who would you most want to hold on to? Who would you replicate if you had the power to do that? Who would you most want to serve as a role model to other sales professionals in your organization?

Read the full article at: www.sandler.com

Remote sales teams are widespread right now due to the global pandemic.

Most remote sales teams are adjusting, albeit with a few aches and pains, to the new status quo.

But there are still remote teams that are struggling with the reality that the team is connected by nothing more than Slack and other assorted software.

COVID-19 and Managing a Remote Sales Team – Finding that proverbial “new normal”

The impetus for this article are the lockdown measures and the pivot to remote work by many businesses.

It’s likely that even as the measures to contain the pandemic subside, businesses that have shifted to remote work will maintain a remote work approach.

Read the full article at: www.business2community.com

If we had a dime for every time we heard “new normal,” “unprecedented” or “uncertain times” in the past six months—well, we’d be some pretty rich quarantiners.

But the truth is that when Covid-19 arrived, no one really knew that the new normal (sorry) would slowly become the norm. We still don’t have a crystal ball, but it’s pretty clear that a lot of teams and offices will be remote through the end of 2020 and beyond.

Whether your sales team’s transition to remote work was seamless or tough, or somewhere in between: you’ve likely gotten into a groove. Hopefully you’ve created new processes and workflows and identified the right tools to motivate and engage your remote team so you can look toward the coming months with (a least a little) more confidence than many of us were feeling back in March 2020.

Read the full article at: openviewpartners.com