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When was the last time you took a hard look at how your sales team functioned? We’re talking about day-to-day processes just as much as we’re talking about annual report cards of your performance in the market.
Building a more efficient ad sales organization requires careful planning and implementation, but ultimately it can benefit both your business and your clients equally. Here are 10 criteria that all sales organizations should strive for as they build symbiotic relationships with their clients.
- Set clear goals: Define your objectives and establish clear, measurable goals for your organization. These goals could include revenue targets, market share growth, or customer satisfaction metrics.
- Assess current processes: Evaluate your current ad sales processes, including lead generation, prospecting, pitching, and closing deals. Identify inefficiencies in the chain to prevent bottlenecked workloads and areas of improvement that can lead to more sales.
- Streamline communication: Making sure everyone is on the same page and informed of new processes and tools sounds simple, but it can work wonders. Take inventory of the communication platform(s) you’re using, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and adopt project management software to help with certain tasks.
- Optimize processes: Speaking of making your life easier, take note of departments, projects, and tasks that produce consistent friction. Unnecessary steps might be bogging down your processes here. You may be able to turn to automation for repetitive tasks. Clean up the mess and watch your productivity soar.
- Invest in training and development: Offer workshops, seminars, or online courses to enhance your workforce’s selling skills, product knowledge, and customer relationship management abilities. Document everything so that new hires can get up to speed quickly and veterans can brush up on aspects of the business they don’t know as well.
- Define sales territories: Assign clear territories to your team members based on market segments, geographical areas, or industry verticals. This will enable them to focus their efforts on specific demographics, increasing efficiency and effectiveness because each person knows how to cater to their area.
- Foster collaboration: An environment where team members can learn from each other and grow together is a place that breeds success. Even though everyone has their own responsibilities and sales areas, teamwork and knowledge sharing should be encouraged.
- Implement performance metrics: Being able to measure results gives your sales team something to strive for, provides you with a baseline for success, and offers opportunities for improvement. Brainstorm which metrics show you the best representation of your sales force, but some ideas include revenue generated, conversion rates, average deal size, or customer retention rates. Regularly track these and go over them individually during employee reviews.
- Improve sales support: Provide your ad sales team with the resources they need to excel. This could include access to marketing materials, competitive intelligence, case studies, or product demonstrations.
- Foster a customer-centric culture: Prioritize customer needs, deliver exceptional service, and build long-term relationships with clients. Taking this kind of approach may seem like extra work up front, but it will pay dividends later in terms of profit, customer retention, and positive reviews.
Remember, building a more efficient ad sales organization is an ongoing process. Regularly review and adjust your strategies based on feedback, market changes, and evolving customer expectations to ensure continued results.
Compulse is a marketing technology company that enables local media companies, agencies, and small businesses to operate more efficiently.
Our all-in-one platform streamlines the digital advertising process from start to finish to turn sold ads into successful campaigns built on tangible results.