When we hear the word “sales”, we immediately start thinking of it as an individual game. All that we ever talk about are motivating a salesperson to achieve his targets and the incentive that comes along with the completion of tasks. A lot of people even believe that no one is a team player in a sales team.
But in reality, this is not true because selling is more of a team sport. As per a study by Gong.io, a business that has multiple participants from the seller organization, there is a 258% higher likelihood of closing that deal.
When the sales cycles become more complex and lengthy, it’s tough to be completely independent. To stand out from competitors and cut through the noise, businesses need to find ways that make the buying process easier for their prospects.
One way to do this is through team selling. Statistics show that 81% of sales representatives say team selling helps them close deals. So, let’s dig a little deeper into what is team selling and how it can help your sales team close more deals.
Kylas empowers your business for successful team selling by fostering collaboration and helping every team coordinate effectively with each other. To know more, schedule a demo now!
What Is Team Selling?
Team selling is a sales strategy where people from different departments collaborate to close more deals. For different companies, the way how representatives from various departments collaborate may vary. But the ultimate goal of making more sales remains the same across organizations.
Team selling helps businesses pave the way to pooling resources and meeting better exchange of business information. It’s based on the idea that when you have talented individuals in your organization, you must bring their expertise and skills together to maximize sales. This is probably why they say that sales and marketing alignment can help your company become 67% better at closing deals.
Sometimes, it may seem like an easy thing to do as all you have to do is bring a member from another team into a sales call. But sometimes, it may be more of a comprehensive strategy. You would have to build a cross-functional team with representatives from different departments like sales, marketing, support, and management in your sales cycle.
The basis for building a successful cross-functional team is having well-planned teams for every operational facet like sales or marketing. Here’s how you can create a high-performing sales team that can boost your closures.
Team Selling vs Individual Selling
As already stated, team selling is the strategy used by businesses to bring together two or more people from the same department or other departments to handle and close a complex deal. This is done to leverage your team’s expertise, offer a better customer experience, solve problems quickly, and improve the conversion rate.
On the other hand, individual selling is a sales strategy that entails a single salesperson using his/her skills to handle and close a deal. This is a traditional strategy where sales reps have to meet the customers face-to-face and explain their products or services. It means that a single person is responsible for the sales happening or not happening.
Why Is Team Selling Important?
It’s no secret that your business will flourish if you can provide your customers with an easy buying process that they understand. Team selling is probably the distinguishing factor that can keep your team engaged in the right direction. If you are not very sure about why you should adopt team selling as a strategy for your business, here is why we think you should.
1. Reach where a Single Sales Rep Can’t.
You will agree that each person in your team has a specific set of skills that no one else has. When these people are put together to think about a certain issue, chances are that they will come up with a solution that works. This approach simply multiplies the importance given to any task. And who won’t agree that multiple minds yield better results compared to a single mind?
2. Showcase your Company’s Worth.
When different people put a combined effort to help customers with their pain points, it’s for sure that a solution will come up. As the pain points get addressed from different perspectives, the results become unmatched. Because of the high-quality treatment, you will be able to impress your customers which builds credibility and trust, and hence, gets you repeat customers. You get praise along with the new business.
3. Build Long-lasting Customer Relationships.
You will automatically come in your customer’s good books when you help them solve a problem they are facing. They feel good when they are heard, valued, and taken care of. This also means that when your customers start trusting you, they don’t walk away easily. The teamwork you put into catering to your client’s needs, helps you build long-lasting relationships for a long.
4. Solve Customer Problems Easily.
It creates a situation of panic and stress when a single sales representative has to solve every customer problem. But when you have a sales team that is proficient in problem-solving it becomes comparatively less stressful and more comfortable to run sales and satisfy your customers. You will be able to solve a challenge faster and in a more efficient manner. Undoubtedly, the combined efforts boost the win rate.
By now, you will be convinced how much can team selling benefit you as a business. So, here is how you can help your team close more deals.
How to Close More Deals with Team Selling?
When you provide your team with the right tools, know-how, and processes they need to close a deal, you are empowering each one in your team to sell better. To implement team selling successfully and help your team close more deals, here is what you must do.
1. Pick up a Team Selling Strategy
Team selling structures are similar to the funnels, pipelines, deal flows, and other such structures that the sales teams use every day. All you have to do is pick a structure that matches the prospects ad deals your sales team takes care of every day. The Assembly line is the most commonly used structure for team selling.
Nearly every lead gets passed down the assembly line to the right sales rep. Once the leads are qualified by the sales reps, they are sent to the account managers and then to the customer success managers to onboard the customer.
There are also sales pods that are more cross-functional and require more sales reps, managers, and other departments to collaborate in real time to win new customers.
Both the assembly line and sales pods do the same kind of job but the difference is in the fact that in sales pods, everyone works at the same time while in an assembly line, managers keep waiting until the lead is passed on to them.
2. Select Team Members and Clarify their Roles
You need to have the right people with the right skills and experience when building your team for team selling. From sales reps to marketing managers, you can pick anyone whom you think will be able to add value to your team selling and close more deals for you. And the job doesn’t end here!
You must make sure that you define each member’s role clearly before they collaborate on a deal or prospect. Before moving forward, clarify things like:
- Who will be the customer’s point of contact?
- What is each person in the team responsible for?
- When should you introduce new members to the sales cycle?
When everyone in your team knows his/her role, there won’t be any clashes and the sales process will also run smoothly.
3. Set up a Clear Rewarding System
This has to be one of the challenges that can make or break your team-based sales structure. So, bear in mind that there has to be a fair rewarding system that compensates each one in your team for the hard work, effort, and results they get.
It’s entirely up to how you want to reward your team, whether with activity-based incentives or revenue-based incentives. But be ready to face challenges here because the role of each team member is a little unclear in team-based selling. This is why you must have your sales compensation plan right in order to motivate each member of your team.
4. Use Account Roadmaps
Team-based selling is implemented to easily manage complex deals and prospects. When a lot of people contribute to the success of the strategy, it can get a little confusing. Now that team selling is a team sport and you can’t avoid this, it’s best to use account roadmaps to visualize each customer clearly and help them with their needs.
When each one in your team will be able to see and understand the customer’s account, they will be able to identify the gaps and contribute their expertise to close more deals. A clear picture of the customer accounts helps you in making the sales process more efficient and avoid any kind of duplicate work.
5. Hold Regular Deal Reviews
Reviews from multiple team members make things clearer than a review from a single sales rep or manager. Regular feedbacks keep your team on track with the sales cycle and helps them understand what works and what doesn’t work for their customers. With continuous learning, your team adapts to every customer requirement and hence, ensures that the best services are delivered at all times.
Such formal reviews also give you an idea that your team is functioning smoothly and the customer is on the right track. Try to create a culture where everyone in your team works hard to improve constantly while also helping their team members whenever required.
Team selling can help you in closing big deals that your sales reps fear. And not just this but can also help you build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
What to Keep in Mind When you Sell as a Team?
Merely knowing the basics of team selling won’t do the job for you. Undoubtedly, you must make sure that you do it well and in the right context. Here are a few things that you must keep in your mind while selling as a team.
1. Not Every Deal/Prospect Needs Team Selling Strategy.
Smaller inbound deals/prospects can be easily handled by your sales reps and account managers. But when you proceed to connect with bigger outbound deals, you need to collaborate with other people in your organization to identify customer pain points and proceed with services accordingly.
2. Bring in the Right People at the Right Time.
The whole point of using a team selling strategy is to enhance the sales process and provide the best services to your customers. When we say about collaborating with multiple people across the organization, you must be thoughtful about whom you choose to be part of the team. Therefore, bringing together a lot of people who can’t contribute anything to the deal will only worsen the situation.
3. Keep the Right Tools Handy.
You need the right selling tools to be on top of the selling game. Selling tools like CRM sort a lot of manual tasks for you and hence, save your team’s time. There are also conversational intelligence platforms that help you record your conversations with your customers so that you know where exactly you need to improve your sales process.
Conclusion
There is no brainer that when you bring experts from different areas together to work on a deal/prospect, you will get better results. Start by picking up the right strategy and the right people to work on bigger deals so that you are serving important customers exactly what they are looking for.
Encourage relationship building among your team members and keep them talking to each other. When your team is comfortable with each other, they will be able to serve your customers better.
Use these tips and suggestions along with Kylas sales CRM to streamline your sales process and never miss an important opportunity.
