How to Build Your MSP’s Sales Team for Success
BY IT GLUE | July 30, 2018
How’s your sales team coming along? We know, anything in the realm of sales probably just feels overwhelming. But the truth is, to set your sales team up for success you have to start by looking beyond the selling component. Just like mastering pre-sales must take place before the sale, developing a strong sales team must take place before they can start selling. Let’s get started.
Hire the right sales roles
Whether it’s your initial sales hire, or your entire sales team, it’s important to identify what their roles are with your customers and prospects. So as your team begins and continues to grow, consider hiring for the following positions:
- Business Development Representative (BDR):
A BDR is your front-line sales position, but never underestimate the value they provide. As your company’s first impression, and the external voice of your brand, your BDR is in charge of creating experiences that delight your prospects, and encourage them further down the sales pipeline. Their role in the sales funnel is to listen to the prospect’s needs and evaluate whether there is a fit. - Account Executive (AE):
Your AE, in other words, your closer, is responsible for exactly that – close the deals. So after your BDR has ensured an incredible first impression with prospects, you need to have stellar AEs in place for turning that prospect into a partner. This role also helps define the right product or service, negotiate pricing and iron out some of the technical details to make sure that your offering is entirely aligned with what the prospect needs. - Account Manager (AM):
Generating new customers is always important, but so is maintaining the customers you already have. Your AM is responsible for managing existing partner relationships in an effort to maintain and even strengthen those relationships. - Sales Engineer (SE):
Sometimes, your sales team won’t be able to answer the highly technical question that your clients or prospects have. Not to worry though, this is where your dedicated SE comes in to provide that extra technological understanding for clients and prospects. This role can be quite helpful when your clients have an IT person on staff already that you’ll be working with.
Teach your team to focus on your prospects’ needs
You know that building a successful sales team isn’t just about selling, but do you put this into practice? If there’s one thing that sales teams seem to create a bad habit of, it’s focusing so much on the selling component that they underestimate the power of truly listening to their clients and prospects.
Instead, teach your team not to focus entirely on what they’re trying to sell, but on what their prospects really need – what solution are they looking for, and how can your product help? The end goal is the same, but changing their focus to be more prospect-oriented can make all the difference. When your team can align on the importance of finding the right solution, they’re going to increase their sales, and develop great customer relationships in the process.
Encourage your sales team
To create a competitive sales team, you need to offer competitive compensation, but finances aren’t the only way to recognize your sales team members. Create a team environment in which members recognize each other’s successes, and work with each other on their shortcomings. You can also encourage your sales team by implementing gamification. Generating a healthy sense of competition within your sales team is a great way to encourage their performance.
Don’t forget about inbound marketing
If you really want to build an epic sales team, you’re going to need to make sure you also have a great inbound marketing strategy in place. After all, without offering your customers and prospects valuable content developed through your inbound strategy, your sales team will lack the leads they need to be able to really do their job.
Documentation, documentation, documentation
How well does your sales team know your product? Your sales team can’t sell your product if they don’t know what it is, but it’s also the case that your sales team likely won’t have the same in-depth knowledge that your techs do. That’s okay. But having good documentation will ensure that your sales team has access to the information they need when speaking with clients and prospects, and also gives them the ability to leverage that documentation to close deals.
Keep your team up to date by using good documentation. Product changes? New features? Both your prospects and your current customers are going to want to be kept in the loop with these updates, so make it a priority that your sales team is up to date too.
Lastly, use your documentation to prove what you can do. When you have good documentation in place, your sales team can go far beyond telling your prospects what you can do for them, and instead, show how it will get done.
IT Glue™ is a proven, best practices-driven IT documentation platform packed with features designed to help you maximize the efficiency, transparency and consistency of your team. With so much of your business productivity lost each day in search of vital information, let IT Glue secure this information and start Freeing Minds™.
