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Turn Your Sales Team into Gold Medalists: Tips for Small Businesses

 

Now that the Olympics are winding down, “performance” is the word on everyone’s lips. And while most people are talking about the athletic performances of athletes like Simone Biles and Lebron James, we know that small business owners think a little differently.

If you watched the Olympics, you probably wondered if you could take any lessons from the Paris 2024 games back to your “starting lineup,” also known as your sales team; and the answer is “yes.” In fact, building and motivating a good sales team is not dissimilar to building and motivating a good sports team. Both endeavors require strong and purposeful recruitment (hiring), extensive training, and, ultimately, empowering a team to succeed. So here are some tips that will make you feel like the hours you spent in front of the T.V. watching the Olympics were productive for more than just entertainment value.

Tips for Recruiting & Hiring Your Team

  • Rookies vs. Allstars
    • In the same way that sports teams managers acquire players for different reasons, so should sales managers. It might be tempting to always hire salespeople with lots of experience on their resumes (Allstars), but that may not be what your business needs right now. Think about the amount of time you have to train your new salespeople and what you want them to be able to do. An Allstar will be able to hit the ground running, but will have preconceived notions and ways of doing things. A rookie (someone fresh out of college for example) offers the opposite: a blank canvas with a lot of enthusiasm who is willing to try a variety of sales tactics.

For an example of this at Paris 2024, look no further than the women’s skateboarding events, which featured both the youngest Olympian at the games (Zheng Haohao of China, 11) and the youngest gold medalist (Arisa Trew of Australia, 14). Both athletes were first time Olympians, announcers cited their hard work and lack of experience as driving factors behind the fearlessness with which they went into their runs. And that’s exactly the benefit of hiring a “rookie” salesperson: fearlessness, a willingness to work hard, and a blank slate.

  • Diversify Your Roster
    • A who’s who of NBA royalty, Olympic Team USA men’s basketball did give us a roster made up entirely of Allstars, but that doesn’t mean it was a homogenous team. An equal blend of guards, centers, forwards, and swing athletes like Anthony Davis, this team was expertly assembled by coaches to have diversity in positions and play styles, and that is another lesson you can take back to your sales team. In addition to having salespeople who specialize in selling to different demographics, you probably want to create a sales team that has some combination of roles. These roles may include sales managers, account executives, sales specialists, and customer services representatives. As a small business owner, you should take time to understand these roles and their needs. This will help you put together a roster full of people who can all play their positions, play them well.
  • Look Beyond Skills
    • It may seem counterintuitive, but there’s more to a good salesperson than strong sales skills. Like in sports, the skills need to be there, but when you’re looking to hire, it’s likely you will come across several candidates who have the necessary skill sets. After narrowing it down to those candidates, think like a coach and look for the intangibles: attitude and habits. The former will help motivate the rest of your sales team, and the latter will help your new hire grow in their role. Just look at the GOAT of this Olympics: America’s Sweetheart, Simone Biles. Of course, we all know she has the skills to be a great gymnast, which she has proved time and time again, even before these games. But what was striking about her at this Olympics in particular was how many of her teammates cited her attitude, candor, and leadership as a driving force behind their success stories. That’s the kind of person you want on your team.

Tips for Training Your Team

  • Have a “Playbook”
    • Even if you fill your team with all the right people, it’s hard to guarantee that they will hit their targets. That’s where a playbook comes in. If you watched any of the court volleyball games, you saw examples of playbooks in action. Those playbooks included when to set, bump, and spike, where to move, and often who to move. In other words: everything the players needed to make it to the next point. Like a good volleyball playbook, a good sales playbook contains everything a salesperson needs to make their next sale. Things you might want to outline in a playbook include company structure, sales team structure, messaging and positioning, product overview, differentiators, buyer personas, use cases, sales methodology, sales plays, lead sources, sales processes and definitions, sales collateral, cases studies, competitor battle cards, a pitch deck, tips for objection handling, tools, software, dashboard, and metrics.
  • When Possible, Train Your Team Together
    • Team building may seem like a cliché at this point, but it’s as important to your sales team at it is to the U.S. Women’s rugby team (who cited it as a major factor in their history-making, bronze-medal-winning performance at the 2024 Olympic Games). And while your team doesn’t necessarily have to create their own chants, cheers, and TikTok routines like those women did, building a strong sales team with a lot of camaraderie is important. It not only fosters healthy competition, it also creates an environment in which sales team members are more willing to share their struggles and successes. This is turn leads to honest peer feedback that will increase outcomes and take some of the training burden off your shoulders.

Tips for Empowering Your Team to Succeed & Win!

  • Be The Coach, But Listen to Your Players
    • As a small business owner, you should have the faith and respect of your sales team, and if you’ve followed all the tips up to this point, you probably do. But just because you have a team that trusts you to run the show, doesn’t mean you should do so with impunity.

Take, for example, the adorable relationship between Norwegian sprinter Karsten Warholm and his coach Leif Olav Alnes. Though Alnes has coached Warholm to success never seen before by a Norweigan sprinter, he continues to emphasize that his partnership with the athlete is just that, a partnership. Alnes doesn’t have a sprinting background, he is a sports scientist, and he knows that Warholm sees things on the track that he isn’t privy to. So, he focuses on, in his words “making the boat go faster,” while Warholm brings him real-time feedback about what is happening with his body and his opponents while he races.

The same is true of your sales team. They are out in the field, and able to see things that you cannot. So, create space for them to share those things with you, and balance their feedback with your goals for the team. Once again, this will help you win together. Plus, it’s a great chance to demonstrate one of the key truisms about sales: it’s 80% about listening. If you lead by example, your sales team is sure to follow.

  • Make Sure Everyone Understands What Winning Looks Like
    • If you watched the Olympics, you probably encountered at least one sport with which you were unfamiliar. Maybe you had heard of it, or even seen it before, but as you watched you realized that you had no idea how rules or scoring worked. For us, this was fencing. We enjoyed watching every minute of it, but we had no idea why the points were being awarded. This is NOT an experience you want for your sales team, and it is important to define the “rules of the game” early in the process. These rules should include how sales reps should interact with prospects and customers, with each other, and with other departments in the company. They should also clearly define things like lead assignment, territory assignment, and cross and up-selling procedures. With commission often being up to 50% of a sales rep’s pay, defining these specifics off the bat will help your team see what winning looks like, and allow them to “go for the gold” (or in this case, the green).

Building a high-performance sales team is an ongoing process that requires dedication and strategic planning. By implementing these tips and fostering a positive team culture, you can increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and drive overall business growth.

Ready to build a high-performance sales team? Join us at our upcoming Sales and Marketing Roundtable on September 12th to learn more about effective sales strategies, explore how marketing can leverage data, AI tools, and fundamental strategies to scale and enhance sales efforts and connect with fellow business owners.