When markets get tough in any industry, the majority of the time companies believe the answer is to invest in sales, so they hire more salespeople.
Unfortunately, more salespeople will likely create more of the same results. Yes, sales is a volume game at times, what about navigating efficiency? Let’s talk about strategies (in order of importance) for increasing sales without increasing your payroll. Hopefully, both the shippers in our network and the transportation providers can benefit from the universal language that is sales.
Protect the house.
The first thing a company should ensure in a troubling market is that they have the operational and customer service support to on-board and provide the level of services as required and as you are selling. If customers are hard to obtain in the current market, you sure don’t want to lose any. Your sales team will be frustrated and ineffective if support internally fails as the sales team hustles harder to bring customers in. Imagine this transportation example: A sales rep spends months handling objections, reengaging a prospect, and finally lands a deal. Now, the asset company they work for asks if they can broker the freight as they do not have enough capacity on the lane as it was sold to the customer. Why wasn’t the sales rep informed in the beginning? Why is the company not directing salespeople to areas where they actually needed freight? Communication can be hard. Still, there’s no excuse for hanging your sales reps out to dry in this manner and burning prospects during or after onboarding will hurt your reputation and make it harder for your sales team to do their job.
Can your people create opportunity? Or were they simply taking advantage of a boom market?
Ask: What is our training process for our sales team? Do they know how to explain our value proposition? To what degree are they executing the few conversations that they are getting to have in this market? Many companies send their sales reps out into good markets and immediately see results that have more to do with market conditions than their team’s skill. As markets shift, salespeople who were not properly supported with training and direction will begin to struggle. Teach the difference between finding and CREATING opportunity. Hone the ability to create it.
How to teach opportunity creation? Start with fostering habits.
Top salespeople are more habitual than people believe, they establish routines and they stick to them. When Brian Tracy (New York Times best-selling author of ‘Eat That Frog!’) did seminars, he mentioned how when he conducted interviews, he found that the top 10% in every industry all had routines. He noted that top salespeople;
- Mentioned that keeping their pipeline full was always the first priority.
- Made their warm and cold calls from 8 am to 11 am every day.
- Understanding and assisting contacts even if it was not an immediate sale improved their relationship and their own long-term success.
- Regularly overcame objections, and they specifically handled price objections far better than their peers.
Check on morale, and boost it.
Salespeople often thrive on feeling success and tough markets will offer dopamine from a big win less frequently. Try bringing your team in for (at least) a few in-person meetings and have them share success stories. It is a good idea to do some team bonding together too, since sales roles can be isolating.
In Summary,
If you are hiring salespeople to build your top-line revenue and you have not accounted for the resources to support growth, you will fail and damage your brand in the process. The salespeople will leave, and the customers will follow.
Plan the growth to be controlled. Plan the resources required.
When companies plan properly, they see the success they have worked hard for, and they become a winning culture that will carry a company through bad times and good times.
