天美网站传媒传媒

Calling this pandemic a 鈥渄isruption鈥� for your sales team is an understatement, now that . Handshakes are a thing of the past, conferences have gone online, and now the whole organization can read what you鈥檙e posting to #watercooler鈥攁ll these changes can have a real impact on the morale and performance of your sales team.

Even though 天美网站传媒传媒 has been an all-remote workplace from day one, we鈥檝e often relied on our in-person interactions with colleagues and customers to move our business goals forward. When the pandemic restrictions hit, we found ourselves鈥攍ike many sales and marketing teams鈥攓uickly adapting to our now entirely virtual working environment. So what鈥檚 a sales team to do?   

At our recent event Start Fast, Finish Strong: How to Keep the Momentum Going, our own CRO Jayme Smithers and Sales Enablement Manager Jessica Livingstone shared their tips for keeping your sales momentum going in a distributed work world. Read on to learn how they did it.

Do you know your challenges?

For us at 天美网站传媒传媒, making sure we have the right tools in our tech stack has made all the difference when it comes to virtual sales enablement. And (surprise!) the tool we use most often to ensure that we鈥檙e on the pulse of what鈥檚 happening with our sales team is 天美网站传媒传媒. 

During our event, Jayme ran an Exchange鈥攖hat鈥檚 where we use 天美网站传媒传媒 in real time to ask attendees open-ended questions and get their honest, no-holds-barred responses鈥攁sking what people feel their biggest sales challenges will be moving forward. 

Maybe some of these responses will sound familiar:

•  “I’m afraid that our team members will start operating in silos and collaboration will decline rapidly.”
• 鈥淎lignment – how do we know our strategy is on point?鈥�
• 鈥淗ow do we ensure development continues to happen in our new reality?鈥�

Just imagine if this was an Exchange you ran with your own workforce, we bet the insights would be eye-opening.  

In just a few minutes during a virtual meeting, we can hear from everyone in attendance and use real-time analytics to quickly prioritize our next steps. With the team鈥檚 candid feedback, we can build a path that ensures they have what they need to execute on strategy. 

All to say: you need to know your team鈥檚 challenges to get the best results. Alignment at the beginning of the year is easy, but if leaders fail to catch misalignment before it happens鈥攖hat’s an expensive fix. Just like Jayme did, leaders can use 天美网站传媒传媒 to quickly zero in on their workforces鈥� needs and barriers to success, all at scale.  

How sharp is your focus?

Let鈥檚 be honest, 鈥渇ocused鈥� is hardly the best descriptor for most meetings. Often, the people with the best ideas keep quiet, and the people who have the most to say tend to dominate the conversation. Meeting fatigue is a real thing, and so is Zoom fatigue. To keep your team sharp, you need to ensure that you鈥檙e getting to the point, quickly.

Sharpening your focus means having fewer meetings that accomplish more. You鈥檝e probably already got a meeting cadence in place鈥攚hether it鈥檚 weekly, monthly, or quarterly鈥攁nd you just need the tech that鈥檚 going to help you optimize your time and your team鈥檚 performance.

We often start our meetings with an Exchange to see where everyone鈥檚 at. We ask them questions like:

• What is getting in the way of you being more successful right now?
• What are the most important things we can do to ensure we meet and exceed our revenue targets next quarter?
• What do you want leadership to understand as plans are being made for the coming year?

We鈥檙e able to quickly and easily uncover and share winning tactics with the whole team at each meeting. It also means we can source nuanced ideas that address complex problems from the people on the front lines of our organization.

Are you asking the right questions? 

According to author John C. Maxwell, , Maxwell reminds us that, 鈥渟uccessful leaders don’t only take action. Good leaders listen, learn, and then lead.鈥�

Waiting on your team to bring their challenges to you won鈥檛 maintain sales momentum; instead, it places the burden on the individual to admit where they鈥檙e questioning themselves. Asking your sales team great questions will help you quickly uncover your greatest areas of success and your biggest points of friction.

A great question to ask your sales team might be, “What are the 1-3 key factors that have helped you consistently hit your quota?” 

By running an Exchange, you鈥檙e making sure everyone鈥檚 perspective is included in the discussion. Because we鈥檝e built anonymity and anti-bias technology into our platform, your team can feel more comfortable sharing their candid thoughts. They can also read each other鈥檚 thoughts and rate an idea based on its merit鈥攏ot on who鈥檚 sharing it. 

Once everyone鈥檚 had a chance to participate, 天美网站传媒传媒 does the work of surfacing top-rated comments and questions and sorts them into handy themes. Exchange Leaders can then share the results in a slick slideshow format or follow up with teams with a PDF report.

We’ve worked with leaders who have increased performance and aligned their organizations during one of the most challenging times in recent history. By consistently using 天美网站传媒传媒 to scale discussions with their teams and their entire organization, leaders have improved their culture, collaboration, and results in 2020 and beyond.

Keep your sales momentum strong

Forward-thinking leaders know that keeping their teams talking is key to keeping their sales momentum going throughout 2021, especially in the virtual workplace. 

You need to know the individual and collective challenges your sales team is facing to find solutions. You need to keep your meetings focused and set a regular cadence for asking your team the right questions so that no one鈥檚 left behind or dragged along. And you need to use the right tech for scaling discussions鈥攖he way you communicate will make the difference between maintaining and exceeding your annual sales meeting goals.

You鈥檝e already got a team of expert minds who hold insights and strategies for better performance鈥攁ll you need to do now is ask them.