Sales leadership tips from Sendoso industry expert

KEY POINTS

• Companies must invest in people and teams to find success.
• Development, training, and the right tools are key for empowering salespeople.
• Data remains a pain point for many businesses, but the best tools integrate data into your workflow naturally.

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Sales teams are critical to the growth and stability of any company.  In the era of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation, leadership among those teams is more critical than ever. There is a common thread between attracting and retaining top talent and motivating and enabling teams. And it comes down to one thing.

People.

That was the collective message from a group of industry insiders at the RevGen Digital Summit.

They included former Sendoso VP of Enterprise Sales Laurent Castaillac. He shared his industry expertise and provided insight into today’s state of sales.

The purpose of the summit was to connect leading sales and revenue experts to discuss business-critical challenges and drive the industry forward collaboratively.

The overarching message from leaders was that to find success in today’s business world, companies and leadership must invest in their teams. Gone are the days when the main goal of any organization was to drive revenue, even at the cost of employees.

Today, a people-first approach is at the core of any company wanting to drive sustainable, successful results.

Enabling team members drives success

Sales leadership involves making relevant strategic decisions that fit the vision and mission of the organization.

In today’s business world, those leaders must also find ways to motivate, enable, and inspire sales teams. Furthermore, experts stress that buy-in has to happen at all levels and not just be a directive from C-level executives.

Excellent sales leaders are essential because they set the tone for a company’s culture, and it translates to their overall business success.

It is vital to remember that sales teams are the soldiers of the company. They carry out orders from executives, manage the brand messaging, and ultimately are responsible for the overall customer experience and engagement.

“When the directive comes from the top down and you don’t have buy-in from the rest of the team, the campaign tends to have a poor rollout,” said Castaillac.

So how do we address that? Castaillac says to focus on your people and their needs. Among the key pieces of retaining good salespeople are development, training, and, most importantly, empowerment with the right tools.

He stressed companies of all sizes face these same challenges, whether in companies of 500 people or companies with hundreds of thousands of employees.

The Sendoso Sending Management Platform™ allows team members at all levels to play an active role in outreach as they procure new accounts and close deals. In addition, it provides the data to back up their efforts.

Using data to work smarter, not harder

In a RevGen Digital Summit user poll, participants disclosed their biggest challenges surrounding data.  The top answer, at 41%, was getting the right data to the right people at the right time.

Sendoso compiles concrete analytics on all campaigns. That helps sales teams provide timely and highly coordinated follow-up in conjunction with marketing teams, thus creating a unified outreach approach.

The platform allows every team to easily interpret the data and develop benchmarks for future campaigns. It is a great way to launch and scale future campaigns with predictable results.

Creating an effective and integrated strategy among teams leads to higher engagement and can directly translate to pipeline growth.

“You can’t enable or help a sales team if you don’t know what you are basing {your campaign} off of,” said Castaillac. “So, having that data and having those insights is critical. Then you can start to enable around that.”

Castaillac added it is critical to enable sales teams to produce more, without asking them to do more.

In Sendoso’s case, the platform streamlines outreach campaigns from start to finish. It coordinates, ships, tracks, and provides insights to teams.

It takes the burden off workers who previously spent countless hours manually assembling direct mail gifting and interpreting results.

By incorporating Sendoso into their tech stack, sales teams can focus on their main goal of driving revenue.

“[Sendoso] is hiring right now.  What we are finding is people throwing their hat in these roles because they’re like, ‘I know what you do, you solve a problem that I personally have on a daily basis, and being able to sell it to me would be exciting,’” said Castaillac.

Empathy drives company culture

Castaillac drove home the point that sales leadership comes with understanding the needs of your team.

“If you are looking to implement something, take the time to understand what that is and make sure you are setting the right expectations,” he added.  “You have to get buy-in at all levels and explain to people what you are trying to solve.  It all goes back to the people process and technology.”

Castaillac reminds all leaders to have empathy when incorporating a people-first approach. He adds that employees want to feel valued and respected in their organization.

“If you can take care of that in your team and your organization, you’re going to see less [attrition] in your team,” he added.

Establishing career development also played a role in successful sales leadership. Castaillac stressed investing in the continued enablement of employees.

“It goes back to building that path,” added Castaillac. “If you don’t have a vision and a plan, saying we’re going to start you with SDR [sales development representative]. And in the next 12 months, you will be an AE [account executive] if you do A-B-C. If you do not have that plan in place, you have a risk of not being able to bring in brighter or younger people who have that drive.”

Castaillac added his biggest takeaway is for leaders to listen to their team. Understand their values, concerns, and put a plan in place to support them.

“I think part of it has to do with you building a company culture within your organization.  And how are you establishing it? It is not always going to be about salary,” said Castaillac. “It is about work–life balance, the culture, and demonstrating that people matter.”