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Transforming a sales force can be challenging for organisations and sales leaders to effectively implement.

During periods of significant economic pressure, sales leaders are often challenged to cut costs, but if this is not done thoughtfully or strategically, it can actually accelerate the trajectory of falling revenue and margins.

Below is a summary of learnings from my experience of partnering with Sales leaders and leading Sales Operations teams as to how the profitability of a sales organisation can be increased in a sustainable way.

Where Do I Start?

Firstly, any transformation of a sales organisation needs to begin with analysis. Building a clear data-driven understanding of your customers and how your sales organisation operates today is crucial.

Understanding your customer needs across the sales cycle is often the starting point. What level of interaction do they require with you and when, and to what extent, do they require face-to-face interactions?

A field sales representative comes with a high cost so it is important to understand where to use these scarce and valuable assets, and where work they do today can be deflected to lower cost resources within the organisation or addressed through self-service or automation.

In a post-pandemic world, customers are increasingly comfortable and familiar with dealing with sales teams virtually so exploring virtual or ‘inside sales’ teams should not be ignored.

Optimise your Sales Territory and Channel Strategy May Allow You to do ‘More With Less’

An in-depth analysis of the return of investment of your sales team from various dimensions is required to help you deploy your valuable sales resources effectively:

This will help you understand how best to organise your team’s territories including which customers and product combinations should be served with ‘boots on the ground’ and which can be served by a virtual ‘Inside Sales’ team.

Invest in Sales Operations Capabilities

A sales operations organisation exists to help maximise the impact of your sales team. This organisation, whether centralised, or geographically aligned, should provide the necessary support to allow your sales executives and sales managers to focus on selling.

In some models, a sales operations organisation may also incorporate a sales training function which focuses on ensuring that the sales team have the appropriate product and customer knowledge as well as the right skills and capabilities to win in the market.

Focusing on Sales Execution

To win, sales execution needs to be consistently reviewed and monitored.

A focus on the performance and capabilities of the sales team should never be overlooked and is always part of a winning strategy. Simultaneously, this can help boost morale amongst your sales team and help nurture a more productive work culture.

Reducing Non-Selling Time for your Sales Representatives

For a salesforce to be the most successful, organisations must allow sales representatives to dedicate as much time as possible to selling.

The use of a sales operations team and other sales support resource should be used to free up your sales reps’ time from administrative tasks. Where possible automation, customer self-service, or even AI should also be explored to offload other non-value add activities.

Conclusion

During difficult economic times sales forces are put under immense pressure to perform and maintain growth. Implementing changes to a salesforce for senior leaders is often difficult to navigate and are frequently met with resistance and apprehension.

Thoughtful changes in the organisation of your sales force can produce effective results without causing unnecessary disruption amongst the team and harming the organisation’s top line.

Developing processes, capabilities, and a supporting organisation to allow the sales team to maximise their available selling time is paramount.

And finally, regardless of the changes implemented, the motivating factor for change must always be focused on customer needs and your ability to demonstrate value to them.