Three Good Questions About A Sales Team’s Effectiveness

In a recent article posted on LinkedIn, Customer Service Expert Karan Chawla shares some good insights and raises some thought-provoking questions about common behaviors that can compromise a sales team’s effectiveness.

“Sales teams need to place more focus and energy on strengthening their ability to consistently execute the fundamental selling skills,” he writes. “Where is the value in generating a volume of leads through your social selling campaign if the team is not equipped to qualify and convert the right leads into opportunity?”

In his article Chawla identifies three specific threats to sales force effectiveness:

  1. The knowing – doing gap. Many sales people assume they execute the fundamentals well. But mastery of anything takes commitment and practice. Teams must be formally involved in on-going practice, and sales managers must systematically observe their teams in action to ensure effective “doing.”
  2. Dash and stack training, which occurs when sales team members participate in on-boarding or other sales training, and are then simply sent into the field or onto the phones with no follow-up or reassessment to ensure competency.
  3.  Shiny Object Syndrome. “We all (myself included) are seduced into chasing the latest, best and sexiest trend, especially when it comes to technology,” Chawla says. “Fundamentals are not sexy. But sales leaders are now realizing that they have to find the path to consistent execution of sales skills 101 if they want to outsell their competitors.”

Read the full article…