8 Ways Sales Organizations Can Succeed in the New Year

Each year Selling Power sends its editorial team to Sales 2.0 Conference events to hear a mix of sales practitioners, industry analysts, and sales experts share insight about the sales profession. Here are the top 10 things we learned in 2014 that we believe sales leaders should carry into the new year.

1) Sell with a “noble purpose.”

“Organizations that look beyond just making money and have Noble Sales Purpose wind up making more money than those that focus on the numbers alone. In a double-blind study my firm conducted with a major biotech company, the unifying characteristic of the top performers was a sense of larger purpose. The salespeople who were product or incentive focused were average at best. The salespeople who sold with noble purpose – who truly wanted to make a difference to their customers – drove more revenue than those who were focused primarily on sales goals and money.” — Lisa Earle McLeod, Author of Selling with Noble Purpose

2) Don’t focus on fear.

“People in organizations have post-recession traumatic stress disorder. Leaders are petrified of making the wrong investment or decision. Don’t focus on fear. Think about what will allow you to serve clients and build trusting relationships and allow customers to feel safe moving forward with you.” — Anthony Iannarino, President and Chief Sales Officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing and Managing Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy

3) Celebrate exceptional salespeople.

“We all work for something larger than ourselves: the people we love. When you plan to recognize the achievements of salespeople on a conference call, invite their friends or family to join the call so they can hear how exceptional they are. If you’re recognizing the best salespeople in the whole company at a kickoff, fly their friends and family in so they can learn how they become so amazing. Do this and you’ll have an incredible year.” — Mary Delaney, Chief Executive Officer at Luceo

4) Embrace social selling.

“The tools many companies use today are still part of top-down corporate America. You have a wall around your company, marketing that yells, salespeople who bag and tag, and then customer service that cleans up the mess. And no one talks to each other. Today, your contacts aren’t in email; they’re on social networks. Today’s social business requires a different way of doing business.” — Jon Ferrara, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nimble

5) Hire based on attitude.

“Hire candidates with the right attitude. Failure in sales can come from either poor skills or poor attitude. Skills can be taught, but you can’t change a person’s basic attitude. It’s better to hire inexperienced candidates with the right attitude than experienced candidates with the wrong attitude. In general, the right attitude consists of three key qualities. First, sales professionals need empathy so that they can understand customer needs. Second, sales professionals need the ability to persuade so that they can bring customers to the point of buying. Third, sales professionals must have the ability to use rejection as a spur to move forward.” — Patrick Sweeney, Coauthor of Succeed on Your Own Terms

6) Motivate salespeople with the right compensation balance.

“Compensation plans based upon events outside of the control of the sales team can’t possibly provide any motivation to change behavior. Metrics should always be within the scope of what the sales professional can personally impact. For example, compensate your ‘hunters’ for acquiring new and potentially important customers, regardless of the initial size of the order. Similarly, compensate your ‘farmers’ for revenue and revenue growth inside established accounts.” — Tamra Tejada, Vice President of Consulting at The Croner Company

7) Focus on pipeline.

“Most sales managers focus on sales quotas; however, it’s usually more productive to focus on the pipeline, because that’s where the marketing and sales machines work. Rather than fussing over how the current quarter will turn out, you’re better off ensuring you’ll have the pipeline to substantiate the achievement of your long-term sales goals over the next twelve months.” — Bill McDermott, Chief Executive Officer of SAP

8) Build a simple sales process.

“Don’t build every possibility, exception, and eventuality into your sales process. When a sales process becomes too complex, sales reps don’t know what comes next and will be strongly tempted to ‘wing it’ in the hope that something – anything – will work. What you want is a sales process that is simple enough that, over time, will become second nature to the sales staff. If a sales process can’t be encapsulated in a few sentences, it’s probably too complicated for the sales staff to understand.” — Julie Thomas, Author of ValueSelling: Driving Up Sales One Conversation At A Time