Revenue Ops & Automation Blog

Most CEOs have a vision or value proposition that is the backbone of their company and corporate strategies. Quite frequently, however, that value proposition isn’t communicated to or followed by the sales team (and other important departments).

Value proposition misalignment and confusion can wreak havoc on your growth plan as departments market to the wrong customers, work towards different goals, and use the wrong tools and messaging to sell products and services that they don’t fully understand. 

Being a successful salesperson doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make a great sales manager. After all, the customer-centric skill set that helps you close deals is much different than the team-focused skills needed to coach, motivate, and inspire a diverse group of salespeople. 

As a sales manager, you know it's easy to get overwhelmed - even when your team is performing well. However, the weight of all of the data and all of those starting points grows exponentially when you have to evaluate and resolve a dip in sales. 

To sell is human. To run a sales team is not.

Leading a sales organization - where everyone has the tools, support, and clarity they need to turn leads into opportunities and opportunities into closed sales - takes a completely different skill set, mindset, and discipline than caring a bag.

Startup SaaS companies face abundant opportunities and tremendous risks when it comes to scaling revenue. Without high fixed overhead and fulfillment costs, SaaS leaders can direct more capital toward marketing and sales. However, if their sales and marketing processes aren’t streamlined and optimized, all that money will quickly go to waste and their investors will walk. 

The most successful sales teams are made up unique individuals with different backgrounds, personalities, and levels of work experience. As a sales manager, you understand that working with and coaching a diverse group of talent can be as challenging as it is rewarding. 

Technology is continuously improving the sales landscape, but the overload of options and information can seem daunting to even the most versatile sales leaders.

While they understand that AI-driven insights and relevant data based on machine learning can be valuable tools, top revenue executives also know that sales and CRM processes must be as simple as possible so that reps can sell quickly and easily. 

Sales skills are one thing, but building a world class business development organization is a whole different ball game. From motivating your team to follow a unified process to aligning your sales and marketing teams, creating a business development engine is just as much art as it is science. 

While many companies have been selling their products online with a remote sales team for years, sales managers that are new to this “COVID-19” sales model face tremendous challenges. Tasks such as keeping your sales team engaged, finding new ways to demo/sell products online, and promoting collaboration within a remote team can seem daunting to even the best sales executives. 

While product, markets, and messaging may vary, a successful sales organization always starts with plugging the right team into the right culture. The best people in an unhealthy culture will result in unproductive habits and slower than expected growth. And eventually, you’ll lose top talent. If you have the wrong people with a strong sales culture, you are not much better off.