Building your Sales A-team in three steps

The Why?

Everyone wants more A-players on their sales team. A-players exceed sales targets and create revenue.

But how do you find them? And how do you encourage them to stay once you’ve got them? I encounter this often at Toggle Switch Consulting.

I suggest following these three steps.

1. Use my help to find them

A-players don’t come marked as such. Some will seem obvious. They’ll already have risen to the top of their sector’s crop. You might have to pay a premium for such candidates, but you’ll probably* have a good idea what you’re paying for. 

(*Buyer beware! The “top” performers aren’t always what they seem. They could’ve got lucky – sitting on clients; not truly selling for years.)

And there are hidden sales gems out there too. People with ample potential to excel, but who, for whatever reason, haven’t yet had their chance to shine. They’ll take more accurate insight to find and aren’t always where you expect.

To find these you’ll need a winning card: Me. And I will introduce you to Objective Management Group’s Sales Candidate Assessment. This highlights candidates who are both suitable for your role AND who also have the key competencies of Sales A-players. Learn more here or sign up with me for a free trial.

2. Recognise what you’ve got

Some sales managers think that great sales people will have similar traits to them. That isn’t usually the case. A host of sales competencies combine to make an A-player. 

These include the types of things you’d expect (desire to succeed in sales, commitment and motivation) but also things like: being comfortable discussing money; bouncing back from rejection; reaching decision-makers; and staying in the moment. Not everyone can be stellar at everything. It’s handy to know who your super stars are, where their weak spots are AND which role best fits them.

Using Objective Management Group’s tools, I can help. If you’d like to see the sort of information that sales team evaluations can provide, click here or get in touch with me to request samples.

One of the things which astonishes me, is how frequently sales people are in the wrong role. OMG’s data confirms this. A sales team evaluation will highlight role misalignment so that, where feasible, you can let your sales people do what they do best, where they will do it best. 

3. Encourage your A-players to stay

Where you can, talk to your sales people. Find out what makes them tick and where they are struggling. If you don’t have time, or you prefer to use something, or someone, more objective, get in touch with me at Toggle Switch Consulting. Evaluating and supporting sales players is our speciality. 

I like to use Objective Management Group’s evaluation tools as my starting point for many reasons. The main one is that I trust it: I’ve seen the transformations it has kick-started. Sales team evaluations give me, and you, as my client, a springboard to start ramping up your business.

If you don’t know what motivates your A-players (and you need to know), it will tell you. 

If there’s a cultural problem within the business that is hampering performance, it can help to uncover this.

Most importantly, once we have information on team players strengths and areas for improvement, we can work, together, on making those improvements. 

From initial 1:2:1s through to regular group or individual training and coaching sessions, we can design a bespoke programme based on the evaluation’s insights, that will maximise your sales team’s transformation potential – all within your budgetary constraints. 

In this way you’ll hopefully not only keep and improve your A-players, but also transform your B-players, and your team as a whole, too!