The sales team is the heart of the business who intake prospects for conversion and pump revenue to your business. The sales team should be built with the intention to build a revenue engine and lasts for long-term growth. Only then you will have a strong foundation to build your business globally.
When you are starting a business with only a few customers you may not need sales personnel. As the business grows and when more prospects enter your business you need to hire sales personnel with distinct responsibilities. When you want to expose your products to new market places then you have to hire a dedicated sales team and marketing team. It is crucial to develop a sales team with a strong bond. A well-defined sales strategy with a revenue-generating sales team enables you to grow your business globally. When your business grows globally, you need to build a diverse group of Sales Development Representatives (SDRs).
When you’re developing your business in different regions. Every region is distinct depends on various factors such as climate, culture, people habitat and so their needs for your products also different. You need to find a skilled sales representative to identify how your products will help the people in that particular region and increase your business.
As your business grows, the sales process becomes more intricate with an increased inflow of leads. You need different teams to manage each stage of the sales process like a team to reach out to prospects, to qualify the best leads, to nurture the leads down the sales funnel, convert them to close or win deals, and customer support.
It is mandatory to build and scale a global sales team to grow your business. Here we discuss few steps to build and scale your Sales Development Representatives (SDRs).
Step1: Hiring The Right Sales Development Representative
As the leader of the Sales Development Representative (SDR) team, it is your responsibility to hire the right sales reps for your company. It is incorrect that, hiring more sales reps will generate more revenue. Initially, you should be clear about the role and duties of sales reps to be hired with the measure of success.
Build the right screening process with the support of the HR team to hire the right candidate. Consider that you are hiring people from different backgrounds and different geographic regions, it is a must to build an ideal candidate profile to recruit high-quality candidates.
Tips for recruiting the right SDRs:
- Encourage employee referrals.
- Profile candidates on LinkedIn.
- Hire fresh graduates who are energetic and competitive.
The Necessary skill of the right SDRs are,
- Competitive nature
- Detail-oriented, focused, and make full use of tools
- Informative
- Conversation skill (over phone, email)
- Time management
- Persistence
- Positivity
- Listening skills
Read more – Effective Sales Skills Of An Entrepreneur
Step 2: Training And Coaching SDRs
When the right SDRs are hired it is important to train them to ensure that SDRs have a clear understanding of your products or solution. This enables SDRs to increase productivity and to face challenges created by competition.
Generally, SDR’s training encloses,
- In the training session led by the team lead or manager, the SDR must be well informed about product benefits and its multi-uses.
- Demo sessions help SDRs to get well-acquainted with the product.
- All the queries and doubts of SDRs are cleared, ensuring that they have a clear understanding of the product.
- Sessions on how the sales process works and the sales strategy followed in the company.
- Understand the target audience for the product.
After the robust and extensive training, SDRs will have a complete view of the product like,
- Product – What it is? How does it work? and How it helps customers in different situations?
- Prospects – Who is the target audience? How it helps them? Who are their competitors? Challenges faced? How the product differs from competitors?
- Sales process– Sales strategy followed in the company, tools that are learned, common mistakes by most SDRs and how to avoid them, and the key metrics they have to check consistently to improve the performance of sales.
Step 3: Enable Your SDRs Team With Technology
SalesBabu CRM is a Cloud based CRM software, the best tool used by most companies to streamline the sales in the sales pipeline. Cloud based CRM software helps the salespeople to keep track of the prospects, manage their contacts, automatically records the interaction with the customers, automatically records the interests of the prospects, reduces data entry works, saves time, and more. Tools like cloud based CRM software help them manage your business efficiently and effectively.
Equip your SDRs with this online CRM application and encourage them to adopt these tools. This helps SDRs to connect the right prospects to the right salespersons to engage prospects quickly.
Both inbound and outbound SDRs are connected with technology. Outbound SDRs have the responsibility to create awareness of the product and reach the customer by cold prospecting. Inbound SDRs determine the qualified leads, nurture them and push them down the sales funnel. Outbound SDRs leverage social prospecting and social selling techniques. As online CRM application is mobile-friendly, collaborative, and easy integration helps outbound SDRs to reach the prospects quickly and enhance their sales.
Online CRM solutions easy accessibility from anywhere (from any place, office or home, or outside the city) at any time with any devices like laptop or mobile. CRM system helps you to connect with sales activities from wherever you are and set up meetings, calls with your team.
Step 4: Key Metrics To Track The SDRs
- Number of dials, emails, meetings – Tracks the number of dials, emails, and meetings in a day or week the SDR makes. This helps to understand how your SDR spend time.
- Response rates – Positive response from the prospects to your SDRs mail, dial, or other outreach attempts.
- Conversion rates – Number of meaningful conversions or interactions
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) – Number of leads qualified by your SDRs in a day or week or month
- Number of calls per win – Number of successful deals
- Average deal size- The rate reveals the average value of the opportunities. SDRs should not only focus on the number of deals but also on the quality of the deals.
- Win or close rates- makes you understand how many lost or win deals over time
Online CRM solutions help you track these metrics. This feature of the CRM system enables you to track your SDR activities and motivate or improve them at the right time. An online CRM system helps you manage your sales by tracking detailed report analysis. This enables you to understand where to improve and enhance your sales.
Step 5: Sales Meetings For The Development Of The SalesForce
The main objectives of sales meetings are:
(i) Training and development of individuals;
(ii) To inform and get the feedback information;
(iii) To stimulate and motivate, and
(iv) Enables SDRs to exchange experience in their tactics.
A sales meeting to be successful should have the following essential ingredients:
- Location – It should be held in a place where all participants can attend and where additional information can be available like company headquarters
- Audience – The level of intelligence or hierarchy of the participants must be considered
- Agenda – A proper agenda should be framed, considering the needs, for which the Meeting is being held.
- Periodicity – The meeting is to conducted in a definite period like 6 months once or annually like national meeting or conferences.
- Activities – The meeting arranged should involve activities like motivating best sales performers, discussion on the feedbacks, challenges faced and more.
Read more – SalesForce Motivation Tips
Step 6: Refresher Courses
Refresher courses should be conducted once a year for the SDRs. This motivates their interest and refreshes them to get prepared for the next year with fresh ideas
The course content is usually based on the feedback information and challenges faced from
- Company activities
- Sales strategies
- Marketing trends
- Sales meetings
- Technical difficulties
These courses help SDRs to adequately prepared to face the challenges of competition, with confidence.
Step 7: Setting Up Right Compensation For SDRs
It is crucial to provide the right compensation for SDRs to keep them motivated. Incentivize and encourage them based on the parameters they control on the key metrics. Reward your SDRs based on their skills and their experience in handling inbound and outbound sales activities.
Compensation should be provided to SDRs based on the number of qualified leads, number of scheduled meetings, and opportunities per month.
An online CRM solution allows you to track the SDRs’ activities every month automatically and helps you to motivate them by providing the right compensation.
Read more: Sales Team Development Tricks
Conclusion
The sales team is the basic foundation for your business. It is crucial to build and scale a sales development team. There is no standard method to build and scale your sales team. Sales leaders or Sales managers should take the responsibility to hire and train the right skilled SDRs for the company. When the SDR faces difficulties in the sales process support them with the right tools like salesBabu CRM (online CRM application). Encourage SDRs to make use of these tools and manage the sales process effectively. Periodic meetings and refresher courses may help SDRs to gain more knowledge and handle difficult situations effectively. Task management software in the CRM system helps SDRs to monitor their daily tasks and allows them to improve. Place right SDRs with the best technology tools, train and motivate them to enhance your business. Streamline your sales with SalesBabu CRM software and enhance your sales with its benefits. Feel free to request a demo.
