Remember the days when making a sale was as easy as taking candy from a baby if you had the right product? All that was needed was a sales pitch followed by a proposal and it was done. But those were the old days when there wasn’t much competition and a plethora of companies targeting the same prospects. Times have changed, companies have evolved and the need of the hour is innovation and standing out among the rest.
As times evolve, organizations need to make necessary changes to their core teams and the way they work. One of those is the sales team which drives the product sales and finds clients for the company. And over the years, companies have paid attention to building great sales teams through multiple training programs and guidance. But, it has since changed. Modern-day sales teams are built with exceptional individuals. But how do you identify them? Well, a simple answer is Sales Readiness.
What is sales readiness?
There are several definitions out there that confuse sales readiness with sales enablement and sales training. But, it is different from these two. Sales readiness is the process of identifying and training the sales reps for certain skills through various activities, tools, and guidance enabling them to perform efficiently. While the other two are essential to a sales readiness system, sales readiness as a whole focuses on the individual and offers a step-by-step solution to get better at facing and winning clients. These individual performances help in building the ‘greatest sales team ever.’
This is also the reason why sales-readiness platforms have seen a sudden rise in their trajectory of growth offering great results.
Why is sales readiness important?
Sales readiness is a process that has a result-oriented approach and focuses on achieving a better end-goal. It is also very goal-oriented in developing a strategy to empower the client-facing sales reps to not only present better but to handle situations better and get a higher conversion ratio.
- A team driven by sales-readiness not only works efficiently but also manages their resources better and works on developing their interpersonal skills among other things. Let us have a quick look at some of the reasons why sales readiness is important.
- It enables the identification of strengths and weaknesses of each individual and helps them work on overall improvement.
- It helps identify the needs of the team and offers the right set of tools to work.
- Goal orientation helps the organization increase efficiency by cutting out unnecessary processes.
- Enable a one-on-one feedback system for each sales rep.
- Offers the right set of metrics to the team leaders to help them understand and grow the team.
- Optimizes the team working thus leading to better revenue for the company.
- Not only does it improve the communication between the team but it also improves the communication and relationship with the client.
How to improve sales readiness?
Sales readiness can do wonders if implemented correctly, and today we will discuss the five main steps to improve your sales readiness implementation.
- Documentation: For any sales rep to have a successful closure, the support material provided plays a very important role. We are not talking about a 100-page product information guide, but a clear and concise 10-slide presentation.A sales lifecycle has different stages and every stage calls for specific documentation. While a pre-sales period requires a pitch deck, a post-sales period requires documentation such as client guidelines, onboarding documents, and product training guidelines.
- Past Experiences: There is no better way to win over a prospect than by telling them about that time when one of your clients was in a similar situation and you helped them out. It instantly helps them relate to you and get you their attention. Using past wins from other sales reps gives you an upper edge and helps you establish trust through instances of understanding and product support.These experiences can be shared in multiple forms such as case studies, customer matrix, and other quantifiable demonstrations to help get insights into the work previously done and how it relates to the prospect’s situation.
- Practice the play: This is a very important step and is essential to making the sales reps more confident and independent. Creating documentation is one thing, but pitching it is another one. Through videos and live sessions, getting the reps to practice their pitch will help go a long way and implement what they have been talking about.The simple process to be followed includes creating a script and sending it out to the reps to prepare for the same. Once they have understood the basics, they can record their videos for feedback or also resort to live sessions with trainers and practice using role-play techniques.
- Continual Support: Documentation, case studies, and video training will only help as long as it is used regularly by the sales rep. Often we see many companies starting on a high note but with time their trajectory starts to fall and after a couple of months, they do not retain most of what they had learned.To tackle this challenge, you need to ensure easy searchability and availability of all the content in your sales readiness platform. Organization of data in the platform based on factors such as content type, content duration, and priority of content to name a few. This step is essential to maintain retention among the sales reps which further ensures that the data is being utilized properly.
- Technological intervention: Several surveys have reported how the efficiency of the sales team is affected because they spend too much time on activities that can be automated using the latest tools and technologies. Sales readiness takes into consideration all factors and one of the most important steps is to save time in which sales reps can invest in talking to prospects and getting deal closures.There are different types of tools available in the market that ease their jobs. These include CRM software, content management systems, Engagement platforms, and proposal automation.
Resources are constantly being made available to the sales team but the modern-day solution to sales readiness is to understand the needs of the team and act accordingly through a proper channel as well stream of information. If you are looking for a sales readiness company to guide you to create the perfect strategy and help you grow your performance, MindTickle is the perfect option as we are a team of driven individuals who understand the requirements and act upon them. Contact us today and let us help you grow.
Additional Resource: Effective Presentation Training Tips
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