How to Ensure Your Sales Team is Making Its End-of-Year Numbers

by | Nov 4, 2016 | Wine & Spirits

Reading Time: 4 minutes

why-team-is-not-sellingYour sales team isn’t selling and it’s starting to irritate you. For beverage alcohol companies, this is the busiest time of year. Heck, OND (October-November-December) has a HUGE reputation as being the time when orders start flying in. Companies have extra budget that they’ll either spend or lose. And organizations base next year’s budget on what a department “needed” this year — so you can guarantee the department will spend, spend, spend!

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If this is such a busy time of year, why isn’t your sales team selling? There can be a lot of different reasons. But let’s talk about 3.

1. Disorganization

In Inc. magazine’s recent article, “5 Reasons Your Sales Team Isn’t Selling”, author Jeff Pruitt names the no. 1 reason as “They’re disorganized.” When people are disorganized it is difficult to get anything done. People miss appointments, lose email communications, and will most certainly overlook almost any hidden opportunity. Disorganization is painful not only to the organization, but also – and especially – to the individual who is disorganized.

2. Lack of storytelling

The second reason sales teams aren’t selling is that they don’t know how to properly deliver the company’s story – they aren’t good storytellers. One of the best tools that a sales person has for selling is the ability to tell stories. Stories engage the audience in a way that evokes an emotional response. People buy emotionally, so tapping into those feelings is important.

3. Lack of focus and leadership

And finally, the third reason I want to talk about is Pruitt’s reason no. 5: “They aren’t being led properly.” In every organization, the values and priorities of top management get trickled down to every department in the company. If there are failures at the lowest levels, it is important to look at the top and consider how management might be failing the employees. Management needs a clear focus and needs to clearly communicate that focus to teams. And the best management goes one step further and provides teams with the tools they need to achieve the goals of that focus. That’s true leadership.

Without proper leadership, the sales team may not have a sense of their goals, where they should focus their attention, and what process to use. Sales people need a company process to stay aligned with company goals and activities. Without leadership, Pruitt points out, sales teams can become quite disorganized (reason no. 1 that they aren’t selling!)

What can you do?

The best way to go about conquering these challenges is to move in reverse order from reason no. 3 back to reason no. 1. Consider reason no. 3, a lack of leadership. The first thing management should do to help the sales team succeed is to give them the tools, training and information they need to succeed. The information needed is broad and diverse, depending on the company: prospect contact information, product pricing, distributor needs, etc. Sales teams also need information in the form of presentations to tell the company story. And this information needs to be well organized and easily accessible no matter where the sales person may be – you never know where a sales conversation may occur.

How DiveTab can help

One way to get all of this is to employ Dimensional Insight’s DiveTab software application.

Users can access DiveTab via the iPad, Windows-based tablets and PCs. DiveTab speeds up research by allowing the sales team to access and use data and information – anytime and anywhere, connected and disconnected – with the data visualization they need. Sales people collaborate with their counter parts in the office with DiveTab’s easy to use interface. When using DiveTab as part of the sales process, sales people make informed decisions more quickly and get an edge over their competitors.

Learn how Mutual Distributing company uses DiveTab to improve the bottom line.

Rose Curtis

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