When you evaluate your company’s sales, do you consider how much support your sales staff requires to become top performers? Many companies hire candidates who have been great salespeople in the past and then wonder why they underperform in their new role. Take a good look at your company’s sales process and make sure you are avoiding these common mistakes:

1. Your sales reps are doing too much paperwork

Sometimes sales representatives are responsible for every client interaction, from prospecting all the way to product delivery (this is especially true for small businesses). If this is the case at your company, your sales reps are spending a lot of time filling orders when they could be on the road making more money for you. Good salespeople will grow unhappy with this arrangement – they think that time spent on non-sales responsibilities hurts their bottom line, and they are right. Consider hiring another employee to deal with the back-end of the sale and free up your sales reps to make more money for your company. 

2. Your support staff are letting your sales reps down

The worst feeling for a sales representative is when a promise made to a customer is broken. This happens when companies are weak on the back end of a sale. Missed deliveries, incorrect orders and poor customer support are all problems that a sales rep will have to deal with when selling to old customers and prospects. If your sales support staff are letting your sales team down, you need to address this problem, because in the long run it will hurt your company.

3. Your marketing efforts aren’t aligned with your sales goals

While enthusiastic about marketing and growing their brand, some companies fail to execute this plan with sales goals in mind. A customer may receive an introductory email from the company’s marketing department when he already has a good relationship with a sales rep. In other cases, unexpected marketing collateral for new products or services might distract a prospect deep in the pipeline and prolong or even prevent a close. Your sales and marketing teams need to work together to determine the best method to market your company to prospective and current customers.

SalesForce Search specializes exclusively in sales recruiting across Canada and serves small, medium and Fortune 500 companies. SalesForce Search helps companies find qualified sales people who will have an immediate impact on their sales targets.

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