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: Encourage Your SDR Team Through Technology
SalesBabu CRM emerges as a cloud-based CRM software, extensively considered as the leading tool for optimizing sales pipeline management. Such cloud-based CRM solutions turn out to be instrumental for salespeople, providing functionalities such as prospect monitoring, contact management, automated customer communication recording, and automatic logging of prospect interests. It relieves the burden of information entry, saving imperative time and contributing to entire efficiency. Tools like cloud-based CRM software deliver an important role in improving business management abilities.
Grant your Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) with access to the specified online CRM application and promote its adoption. This encourages SDRs to easily connect with the appropriate prospects with the accurate salespersons, regulating the prompt engagement.
Both inbound and outbound SDRs gain advantage from technological integration. Outbound SDRs pay attention to creating product awareness and approaching customers through cold prospecting, while inbound SDRs recognize qualified leads, nurture them, and coach them through the sales funnel. Leveraging social prospecting and selling strategies, outbound SDRs catch the online CRM application as mobile-friendly and collaborative attributes beneficial, allowing quick outreach to prospects and improving their sales efforts.
Online CRM solutions are convenient and suitable from any location, either be it the office, home, or even outside the city, utilizing the devices such as laptops or mobile phones. This mobility enables smooth engagement with sales activities, allowing users to set up meetings and calls with their team members from wherever they are.
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 forms the backbone of your business. Building and scaling a sales development team is essential, though there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Sales leaders and managers must take on the responsibility of hiring and training skilled Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) for the company. When SDRs encounter challenges in the sales process, support them with the right tools, such as SalesBabu CRM (an online CRM application). Encourage SDRs to utilize these tools to manage the sales process efficiently. Regular meetings, refresher courses, and coaching can help SDRs stay motivated and develop their skills. Task management software within the CRM system assists SDRs in monitoring their daily tasks and improving their performance. By equipping the right SDRs with the best technology tools, and providing continuous training and motivation, you can enhance your business. Streamline your sales operations with SalesBabu CRM software and reap its benefits. Feel free to request a demo.
