5 Tips for Leading Strong Sales and Marketing Teams

 

When it comes to sales and marketing performance, a team is only as good as its leader. While the skills of your team might make your job a little easier, your leadership drives the team and pushes them to succeed. These five tactics will help you bolster your sales and marketing teams and achieve better results.

1. Motivate, Support and Empathize

When it comes to maximizing the potential of your teams, morale is a key factor in determining how far they are willing to go to hit quotas and reach goals. An easy way to help bolster morale is to actively support and empathize with your team members.

No one likes a manager who sits behind a desk and spouts metrics and processes all day. Talk to them, build rapport and create a relationship that shows you are invested in them. Improved results will often follow.

2. Develop Processes Not Rules

Sales and marketing teams have enough to deal with without having a 400-page book of rules to follow. A good salesperson does not always stick to guidelines. In fact, if they are determined to get the sale, some of your “rules” might be the first things to go.

Instead of creating rules, establish processes and workflows. This allows you to maintain accountability and gauge progress without tying the hands of your teams or introducing more resistance in an already stressful job.

3. Assess Skills and Specialize Accordingly

Even if your sales and marketing teams are comprised of star performers, each team member will have individual strengths and weaknesses.

Compare performances, conduct evaluations and discuss skills with your teams. Find out where they are most comfortable. Discover their natural aptitudes. Using this information, assign roles for your team members and watch team performance skyrocket.

4. Set Attainable but Challenging Goals

Any manager knows that setting the bar too high will only lead to demoralizing your team and creating a revolving door of employees. However, setting goals too low carries risks that are equally dangerous.

Sales and marketing professionals are driven people. If they do not feel challenged in their roles, they become bored, complacent workers. If an opportunity comes along that promises challenge and rewards, they could leave and never look back.

Set goals that push your team to keep them engaged.

5. Don’t Forget Positive Reinforcement

Although many people get into sales for the money, and your goals and incentives should reflect that, everyone likes a little positive reinforcement. It is easy to get wrapped up in the numbers, accounts and workflows and forget about these things. Instead of pointing out every mistake and missed opportunity, take the time to point out the improvements and milestones of your sales and marketing teams. You might be surprised at how a little recognition can re-ignite the fire in the most stressed or burnt out team members.

As a leader, it is up to you to steer your teams toward success. These best practices offer simple ways to boost performance and tap into the hidden potential in your teams.