Customer expectations are getting higher – the bar is being raised. More often, customers want salespeople to provide new perspectives and real insights, and the trend is likely to continue. To meet these expectations, salespeople will need help, and the help will need to come from a variety of sources. One source will be the more extensive use of team selling.
Although team selling can be effective, it is not so easy to get right. So,
How can we do a more effective job preparing for team sales calls by conducting better sales call planning meetings?
How can we improve how team sales calls are managed in front of the customer?
Internal Team Planning Meetings. We typically do well in training, coaching and providing salespeople with tools in areas like call execution, sales strategy, business acumen and sales negotiations, but we tend to provide less help in how to run a meeting. The quality of sales team meetings we’ve observed vary significantly. Many simply replicate the same techniques their sales leaders use. Others think back not so fondly on those meetings and do the exact opposite.
Call Management. Salespeople need to develop new skills to manage the sales team during the sales call. For example, they must learn how to better manager a call where there are multiple players on both sides of the table. During calls like these, salespeople need to assume the call-manager role. The specific responsibilities of the call manager include: opening and closing the call, managing the agenda, ensuring each team member gets airtime at the appropriate time, and redirecting the call when necessary.
An additional role for the call manager relates to follow-up accountability. The action items need to be summarized and distributed to the appropriate sales team members. Items that involve the customer need to be executed and verified. One of the core success factors in today’s market is thatyou have to do what you said you would do when you said you would do it. The good news is that it’s less time consuming if you use meeting software since the functionality is built in for making the follow-up easier to carry out.
Summary. Part of sharing in the good fortune of winning business requires a continued effort to improve the performance of your sales team. Doing what can be done to better plan and execute customer meetings is one small but important step in that direction.