Scaling is essential to the long-term success of a company, yet some business professionals don’t have a firm grasp on what it means. A sales business that operates fully at scale has adequate resources and knows how to allocate them appropriately. This ensures that it can keep up with the current demand and continue to grow.
Business owners can err in either direction when it comes to scaling. For example, they may hire too many people too soon and go over budget trying to scale the business too fast. At the opposite end is the business owner who won’t make the bold moves necessary for company growth. The key to scaling success is to find a workable balance between these two extremes.
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Ensure That Everyone Contributes as Expected
When only a small percentage of a sales team consistently meets its goals, it’s a mistake to keep them on and continually hire more people. Sales managers may think that additional employees mean an improved opportunity to meet goals, but it can have the opposite effect.
A larger sales team means more time spent training and going several months managing a team that is not yet up to speed with expectations.
A better solution to this dilemma is to hold the current sales team members accountable for reaching their quotas. It isn’t fair to expect the high performers to carry the load for the entire group. A new hire should replace a salesperson whom the manager had to let go for not being able to achieve goals despite additional resources and training.
The Hiring Strategy Should Be Customized for Sales
The successful salesperson possesses a unique combination of skills that would probably not work well in another position. Businesses need to determine their specific selling needs and style before doing any hiring.
This will help the human resources department craft an advertisement requesting skills such as partner management that may be unique to the organization. Job candidates will need to demonstrate knowledge about the company and products sold in addition to more general sales skills and personal attributes.
Overhaul the Sales Process if Necessary
New sales representatives won’t be successfully unless they can follow a sales process that is easy to understand and repeat. Not only is this essential for training, but an unclear process will be impossible to measure and track. It needs to be structured in such a way that new salespeople can begin following it immediately. As far as making the sales process repeatable, sales managers should consider these steps when creating it:
- Determine the company’s most essential KPIs
- Clearly define each stage of the pipeline
- Outline the requirements for lead qualification according to the various pipeline stages
- Tell salespeople which activities to complete at every pipeline stage
It’s up to the sales manager to deliver the most recent copy of the sales process to every member of his or her team.
Scaling Can Be a Process of Trial and Error
It’s normal to experience successes and failures while scaling sales. The important thing is to determine why the failures occurred and take steps to avoid them while also making sure the company has the resources to continually repeat successful processes.
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