Whether you love the Fast and the Furious movie franchises or treat them like a punchline, there’s one thing we can all agree on: These movies are a box-office goldmine.
Straightforward storytelling and diverse casting choices have been a big boon for the franchise. But everyone knows the true appeal of these movies is the non-stop action and adrenaline. Real life may not be quite as exciting, but there’s no reason you can’t use a little movie inspiration to turbocharge your sales operations. If you’re a sales leader looking to get more efficient, consider these four sales operations tips for improvement.
Diversify Your Sales Team
Just like the Fast and the Furious crew, diversity on your team is a crucial asset for efficient sales operations. Sales leaders should cultivate teams with a wide range of specialties, interests, backgrounds, and career goals. You don’t want all your team members attempting to solve a problem in the same way. The best results often come from combining a range of perspectives to consider sales strategy from many points of view.
To that end, sales leaders should seek out such diversity when making new hires to their teams. Additionally, personnel should be developed and managed in ways that allow them to build specialties and make unique contributions to the team. As long as everyone remains focused on the same goals, your operations are sure to benefit.
Document Roles and Responsibilities
Sales operations and sales enablement may be two different teams with their own respective goals, but the actions of one can affect the other. Coordination is key to creating efficient operations. The best way to do this is by documenting roles and responsibilities, which outlines the role each group plays, as well as any instances where these responsibilities may overlap.
Through this document, operations and enablement can each establish their own goals and KPIs, and communicate this to the other side of the sales divide. By adhering to the documented roles and responsibilities and using it to clarify inter-team communications, operations can better prioritize their resources and focus on meeting their most pressing responsibilities.
Resolve Turf Wars by Using Social Proximity
Typically, sales territories have been determined according to geographic proximity: Sales teams focus on nearby prospects. In recent years, however, sales teams have begun shifting toward social proximity as a tool for dividing up sales territories
Instead of using location, social proximity assigns salespeople to prospects based on their social closeness: How well they are connected, or how closely their social networks are aligned. By targeting prospects with team members owning the strongest personal connection, sales operations is able to leverage these relationships to conduct personalized outreach, which will boost conversion rates. LinkedIn can be a great resource when assigning by social proximity, letting sales teams view connections and degrees of familiarity for any professional contact.
Invest in the Right Gear
It’s as true for cars as it is for modern-day sales: The right tools and equipment can make all the difference. Today’s high-performing sales teams take advantage of social selling tools to streamline sales operations while creating new efficiencies. LinkedIn also offers valuable integrations with external sales solutions that help identify prospects, generate leads, and manage existing relationships while offering data-driven insights to improve your current strategy.
Sales leaders should always be on the lookout for new tools, platforms, and partnerships that can make their teams more productive and cost-effective. It’s fuel-economy for the sales world: Use less to go farther.
For more tips on improving sales operations, check out The Sales Rep’s Checklist.
Topics: Sales management
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