This post is the third in a seven-part series on sales tips and best practices by Steve Lippock, Summa's Vice President of Salesforce Sales. Steve has over 25 years of sales-management and executive experience across various industries, with both direct and indirect sales models. In other words, he's our go-to guide for finding success in the wide world of sales. Today, Steve's got some tricks for streamlining and strengthening your team selling process. Read on!
Everyone likes to be in charge. But in a team selling environment, taking charge can disrupt the balance of the team, dilute your message, or worst of all, make the prospect doubt your offering. Alternatively, by defining roles and establishing some simple rules of engagement, everyone can be "in charge" of their own areas of responsibility, and you can still manage an effective sales process—even at the meeting level.
Prepping your team
Defining the roles and responsibilities of Sales Team members is the key to working well together. The most critical component of the team selling approach is meeting management. This is because your interactions with each other are visible to the prospect during the meeting. The impression you leave the prospect with can either create a positive competitive advantage for you, or create concern about your ability to work together as a team to help the client solve their problems.
Here are some steps that we recommend you follow in order to properly execute a successful sales meeting in a team-selling environment:
Define meeting goals and objectives
- What do you hope to accomplish?
- How do your goals move you forward toward the next stage in the sales process?
- What actions / information are needed to move to the next stage of the sales process?
- Who needs to attend (from your side and your prospect's side) in order to accomplish your meeting goal(s)?
Create and communicate a meeting agenda (in advance of the meeting)
- Confirm agenda meeting goals.
- Confirm your list of attendees. (Will the required attendees be present in order to accomplish you meeting goals?)
- Send a meeting request message. (A sample meeting request message is provided below in the Tips and Tools section.)
Hold a pre-call planning meeting
- This meeting can be as brief as 15 minutes.
- Define your sales team's roles and responsibilities.
- Do some role-matching: Map your team members' roles to the roles of the prospect attendees. The idea here is to create peer-to-peer relationships between your sales team and the prospect’s decision-making team.
- Review your agenda and rules of engagement. Who will take the lead on each topic?
Debrief after the call
- How did we perform as a team?
- What did we do well?
- What can we do better or differently next time?
Tips and tools
Here are some tips and tools that you can use for a successful team-selling effort:
1. Use a worksheet to define roles and responsibilities
Here’s an example of a simple tool that can help with role-matching and defining rules of engagement for your meeting:
2. Have an agenda
Make sure each team member is clear about what agenda topics they will cover based upon their role.
3. Stay in your own lane
Address issues that you are responsible for covering based upon your role.
4. Stay focused and on point
5. Don’t oversell or over-respond
Keep your responses brief. If the prospect wants to hear more, they’ll ask.
6. Never contradict a team member
If necessary, call for a break to discuss a sensitive issue.
7. Ask – don’t tell
Generally speaking, it’s better to listen than to talk.
8. Show basic professional courtesy
Don’t interrupt. Manage the time well. Be on time, and don’t run late (without permission). Stay focused on the meeting. (No cell phones, emailing, or texting!)
9. Debrief with the team immediately after the meeting.
How Salesforce.com can help
Use Sales Team and Contact Role features on the Opportunity Record
- Sales Team: Internal team members
- Contact Roles: People outside of your Sales Team involved in or impacting the decision-making process
- Benefits:
- Formalizes role definitions—everyone is on the same page
- Assists in planning
- Automated communications—workflow rules can be established to automatically update Sales Team members of opportunity updates and changes
Build email templates for your meeting requests with draft agendas
Here is an example:
There are lots of benefits for having a template for meeting requests and agendas:
- Fast and easy to communicate
- Supports communication standards and quality
- You can tell when the agenda email has been opened
Utilizing a Team Selling Approach will help put your best foot forward, and leverage the knowledge of others in your organization. If you do it well, it also demonstrates your teamwork and collaborative skills to the prospect, increasing their confidence in selecting your company (not just you!) for the project or solution.
Good selling, everyone!
