Over the past year, your business probably faced its fair share of disruption, resilience, and change. This may be a good time to reflect on the things you have learned and celebrate what you accomplished in the last nine months.
It’s important to take a moment and see how far you’ve come and what you’ve been able to achieve. Learn what you can from 2021, so you can end it on a high, and kick 2022 off to a flying start.
Here are our top three ways to set your teams up for sales success in the year ahead, inspired by our ASEAN 50 Pro Sales Tips guide for 2021:
1. Review your plans
It’s good to review your plans and reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t. After all, good planning is only as effective as your team’s ability to implement it.
Having teams in clear alignment across a business is a guaranteed way to get closer to achieving your goals and targets. One way to help make that happen is to introduce new methodologies into your planning cycle.
One of the tools we use for planning success at Salesforce is our V2MOM, which stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. It’s a robust planning framework for businesses of any size.
The reason the V2MOM works so well is that it helps to align teams around the overall direction of the business. It brings everyone together, from the CEO through to senior managers and sales teams. This provides clarity and momentum around key business objectives.
Sujith Abraham is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Salesforce in Asia. He is a big believer in bringing teams together in alignment.
“The world, customer needs, and workplace operations have changed. You need to build a sales culture that adapts to the new and constantly changing business reality. Now, more than ever, sales leaders need to motivate teams and align representatives to common objectives,” says Abraham.
Jovy Hernandez, Senior Vice President and Head, Enterprise Business at PLDT, advises leaders to “have a vision and purpose for your organisation. Create a sales culture that gives meaning and reason to your day-to-day activities.”
When teams are clear on their purpose and the business objectives, they can start to focus on what matters most. This helps to remove distractions and builds energy across the teams for collaborating on common goals.
2. Empower your teams
So your teams are aligned and you’ve pointed them in the right direction. If you give them the right tools and access to the right data, you can unlock a powerful combination.
Start by empowering your teams and reskilling them, making sure they know how to make the most of any new tools. Cecily Ng is the Salesforce Area Vice President and General Manager of Singapore. She suggests fostering a love for learning across your teams.
“To succeed in the new normal, you need to build a resilient sales culture. Reskilling and retraining are critical,” says Ng. “Encourage people to have a mindset for learning, as doing so will drive innovation and growth for your business, now and in the future.”
A customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Customer 360 revolutionises the way your teams communicate with leads. It will allow them to choose the most appropriate time, format, and content for their conversation.
For Avis Easteal, Regional Head of Consumer at Luxasia, timing is everything and applies to all teams across the business.
“Try to understand where the client is in their annual budget and planning process,” she says. “When negotiating, timing can be the difference between success and ‘I can’t right now’. Do your research.”
3. Nurture your relationships
According to a recent State of Sales report, 89% of high-performing sales reps believe there is an increased need to build trust before a sale. Showing empathy for customers during challenging times is one way to build that trust.
“Nurture your contacts. Not everyone is ready to buy straight away, as much as we’d like them to,” says Jimmy Storrier, CEO and Managing Director of Aquient in Singapore. “Take the time to interact with people and check in with them regularly by sharing articles and insights, or a virtual coffee! This builds trust and a solid foundation to grow from.”
Another way to be relevant to your customers is to be active across social media channels and interact with them in helpful ways when appropriate. With 3.78 billion people on earth using social media, this form of social selling continues to rise in popularity.
Tiffani Bova, Global Growth Evangelist for Salesforce, believes that social selling has come of age. She says that “social selling should be your default method to connect and engage with customers.”
Whether social selling or interacting with empathy, these are just some of the ways salespeople can nurture their leads and build a pipeline of sales.
Learn from 2021 and accelerate into 2022
By aligning your plans, and giving your teams the tools and training they need, you can elevate their ability to nurture their leads. Don’t forget to keep them motivated and celebrate their wins.
These will set up your sales teams for success and get 2022 off to a great start.
Be inspired by the ASEAN 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2021 with insights and tips from more than 30 industry leaders. Download the e-book and get inspired.
