snafu_sales

SaaS Sales

How can we create more urgency in the sales team?

We have just come off the back of a poor quarter and are already seeing the motivation to win waning among some of the senior team... I want to make sure we nip that in the bud before it rubs off on the more junior members, anyone got any tips on how to get people into the habit of "now rather than later"?

🥎 Training

🗝 Sales Enablement

💼 Productivity

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butwhy

Politicker

Solutions Engineer

"The beatings will continue until morale improves"
Dude - if your first response to missing a quarter is placing the responsibility on the senior front line team and doing "more now" instead of doing some reflecting on what you can do to enable them to be more successful and whether your targets are realistic in the shit show this year is, you have way more issues than their "urgency."

Put down the sales book with some douchebag on the cover and look at your targets, analyze the past activity of what worked, and look at your product enablement. This is your responsibility to figure out and take those lessons learned to empower your troops.
Edit: after some coffee, I realize my answer was unusually cranky - apologies. But I am leaving it because it often times is true.

The real advice is that your salespeople have been around the block. They are not demotivated because they missed a quarter. They are probably demotivated because there is nothing telling them why this current quarter won't be more of the same. Younger reps think they can grind their way out of bad numbers, and it feels like you want to let them believe that. Little shady, but fine.

But if you want to get your senior sales reps going again, you have to rally them with definitive answers why this quarter (and the next if Enterprise) will not be bad.

Filth

Politicker

Live Filthy or Die Clean

Whole heartedly agree with @butwhy and the need to look inward here. No sales person need more motivation...we like wins, we LOVE money, and we NEED the ability to tell managers to fuck off we are at quota.
Get tangible no repercussion input from your team. Maybe the product isn't as great as you thought...maybe they need some more support from marketing or engineers? Maybe the price is too high? IDK but they sure as hell will know, they are living it day in and day out.
Throw a beer thirty and let everyone vent, then at the end ask what was they were bitching about and what was just to get it off their chests - what do they need to make more money? Then give them those things, quickly.
Have you ever met sales people that don't have opinions? I haven't.

salesjoe

Opinionated

"The pizza party spiffs will continue until gout kicks in or we hit our numberssss"

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Got to agree.

That kind of bs never made me want to sell.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Damn that's a great take, strongly agree!

SaaSsy

Politicker

Don't apologize at all for this answer - you are 100% correct! Leaders that are delusional about additional challenges this year aren't taken seriously so if you don't approach your team with empathy and try to make things better for your reps (extra spiffs/changing quota/improving lead gen, etc. etc.), you are the problem!

pirate

Big Shot

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Set the timeline with the customer right away from first meeting that if all goes well this is the expected timeline

snafu_sales

Catalyst

SaaS Sales

Thanks for everyone's comments!
Enablement and clear processes are my key takeaways, but seems to also be about belief systems. Lot's to think about!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Glad you asked the question, and really happy to hear you're considering the responses.

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

President/CRO

Great topic. You've got to start but understanding what your reps are working for. I don't mean the collective but each individual rep. If you're leading a team and every coaching conversation, 1 on 1, QBR, etc. is focused on sales metrics or % to plan you will have a difficult time keeping folks motivated when times are tough and numbers are low.
This is equal part art and science but taking a genuine interest in your team members is the key. Learning what they are really working for, what do they want to achieve in their life, and then helping them create a plan to get there will make a tremendous difference. This is building a culture of trust where you have a team ready to run through a wall for you because they know you'd do the same for them.
Full transparency I coach SaaS companies on this exact subject. When performance is driven by frontline team members goals you'd be blown away at what you can achieve and what you can fight through.
Hope that helps!

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Can you talk more about the sales process? What do you discuss during the initial meetings?

pirate

Big Shot

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Additionally,Be extremely clear that pricing only is valid for x time (weekly/monthly/quarterly) and that this is outside of your control and that you want to keep the customer informed. Ask them if this is agreeable so it's mutual agreement.
Having extremely detailed step by step process on what happens to close the deals. Deal with every potential roadblock
Poor quarter is perhaps not due to urgency. How's the pipeline generation? Are there enough leads and pipe being generated? How do you fix funnel issues?

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

Is it only an issue of urgency? Do reps have enough opps to be successful? Have there been "promotions" to incentivize prospects to move quickly?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

What caused the miss in the quarter? Do your reps have a path to their numbers for this quarter and the rest of the year?
While I definitely agree (as others have pointed out) that there are ways to encourage prospect urgency, I have to really agree with butwhy. You'll have to find ways to help your senior reps see the path to making the number.

quotascammedeverytime

Opinionated

account executive

Money. Give them a reason to double down

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snafu_sales

How can we create more urgency in the sales team?

16 comments

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