What do sales reps want: meeting their needs for sales success

Success in sales is deeply rooted in understanding and meeting the needs of sales representatives. Remarkably, 24% of top-performing sales teams prioritize building a culture of trust, compared to just 13% of less successful teams, as noted by HubSpot. This insight underscores the vital role of trust in fostering a productive team environment.

In this blog, we'll explore the essential needs of sales reps and how meeting these can lead to greater sales success.From creating a supportive environment to providing the right tools and incentives, we'll find out what it takes to empower a sales team to not only meet their targets but exceed them.   .

Brief Overview of the Importance of Meeting the Needs of Sales Reps for Sales Success

• Enhanced Performance: Addressing the needs of sales reps directly correlates to improved sales performance. When sales reps feel supported and valued, they are more motivated and engaged, leading to higher productivity and better results.
• Increased Job Satisfaction: Meeting the needs of sales reps helps increase job satisfaction, which is crucial for retention. Satisfied sales reps are more likely to stay with a company, reducing turnover and the associated costs of training new employees.
• Stronger Team Cohesion: When the needs of sales reps are met, it fosters a sense of belonging and teamwork. This unity can lead to a more collaborative and effective sales force.
• Better Customer Relationships: Sales reps who feel their needs are being met are better equipped to build and maintain positive customer relationships. Happy sales reps translate to happier customers, which can lead to repeat business and referrals.
• Competitive Advantage: Companies that prioritize the needs of their sales reps often stand out from competitors. This focus can attract top talent and create a reputation as a desirable place to work, further enhancing a company’s market position.
• Adaptability to Change: Meeting the needs of sales reps prepares them to adapt to changes more effectively, whether it's new technologies, market conditions, or customer expectations. This adaptability is crucial for maintaining resilience and competitiveness.

Discussion on the Common Challenges Faced by Sales Reps in Their Roles

• High Pressure and Stress: Sales representatives are typically required to meet specific quotas and targets that can be quite demanding. The constant pressure to perform can lead to stress, which, if not managed properly, can result in burnout. This not only affects their productivity but also their overall well-being.
• Customer Rejections: Facing rejection is a common part of a sales rep's job. Repeated rejections can be challenging to handle and may negatively impact their confidence and motivation. It requires resilience and effective coping strategies to maintain a positive outlook and continue performing well.
• Keeping Up with Product Changes: The products or services a sales rep offers can frequently undergo updates or improvements. Sales reps must continuously learn and adapt to these changes to ensure they provide accurate and current information to customers. This task can be overwhelming, especially if changes are frequent or complex.
• Managing Customer Expectations: Sales reps often deal with customers who have high or specific expectations. Balancing these expectations with what is realistically achievable is crucial but can be challenging, particularly with demanding or difficult clients. Mismanagement in this area can lead to dissatisfaction and lost sales.
• Administrative Tasks: Besides selling, sales reps often handle a variety of administrative duties, such as updating customer records, scheduling meetings, and processing orders. These tasks, while necessary, can consume a significant amount of time and detract from their core selling activities, potentially reducing their overall sales efficiency.
• Adapting to Technological Advances: The landscape of sales is continually evolving with new technological tools designed to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. However, keeping pace with these technological advances requires ongoing learning and adaptation, which can be challenging for sales reps who must balance this with their daily sales responsibilities.

What do sales reps look for in companies

Here are some surprising but important factors that salespeople consider when deciding whether or not to take a job at a new company:

1. The company's product or service is genuinely useful (and therefore, potentially, fun to sell).

First, you must be excited about the product or service. The product or service has to be something you can get excited about, something for which you’re willing to put in your own blood and sweat. 

It also needs to be something that, in theory, people might want (or at least not mind) buying. It needs to have some kind of practical use in their lives: if it’s nothing but an expensive toy or luxury item, then why are they going through all this trouble? Because nobody wants another pointless gadget cluttering up their living room! They want something they can actually use—a new blender maybe, or a better lawn mower— something they can really believe in as a tool for getting things done around the house so that they can get back outside as fast as possible without having any more distractions than necessary (and without wasting any more money).

Case study

The Food Marketing Experts (TFME) targeted people who care more about food than commodities. Earth lovers with a passion for cool kitchens and biodegradable products.

Challenge: BeeBee Wraps needed to elevate their market presence and sales, catering to both direct consumers and new retail stockists. The challenge was to transition from a niche to a mainstream product.

Solution: The strategy focused on exploiting the growing environmental awareness by marketing the wraps as a sustainable alternative to plastic. This involved aggressive PR strategies, an influencer program, and social media initiatives aimed at boosting visibility and credibility within both consumer and retail sectors.

Result: This approach resulted in a substantial increase in brand awareness, several new stockist partnerships, and a significant rise in regular orders from retailers, highlighting the company's potential to provide ongoing value and support to sales reps looking for reliable and expanding brands to represent.

2. The company has a good reputation

A company's reputation, or employer brand, as the buzzword is, is just as important to a salesperson as it is to you. Reputation can be earned and lost, and it plays an important role in attracting and retaining top talent, attracting clients, attracting investors, and attracting new customers — all of which are critical for the success of any business. 

You might think that a company's reputation matters only if you're an executive making big decisions about how your company operates or its direction. But even if you're not interested in climbing up the ranks at your workplace or starting your own business someday soon (which would mean you'd need to make sure that others view your employer favorably), this data shows why it's still worth knowing what factors affect someone else's perception of where they work: because they could have some influence on whether or not they decide to stay there long term!

3. They're granted independence and not micromanaged

The third criteria is that salespeople are granted independence and not micromanaged. Salespeople need to be independent to be successful because making decisions on their own means they can operate more efficiently, gain trust within the organization, and feel like they have a say in the direction of the business. Micromanaging your sales team is never a good idea because it takes away from your talent pool's ability to make quick decisions on their own without having anyone else involved (except for perhaps someone at headquarters). Micromanaging also undermines trust between you as an owner/manager and your team. Instead of team work being encouraged, employees will think twice about following through with ideas or suggestions because they don't want to put themselves out there when there might be repercussions from doing so—and rightfully so!

4. The leader of the team is inspiring, knowledgeable and helpful

The sales team leader is a good example of the company's values. When you join the team, you are joining a family that has shared values and goals. You want to work with someone who lives by these principles and understands how important they are to your success at work. When the sales team leader is knowledgeable about everything from product knowledge to  career development skills for each member of their team and is able to answer any questions you have about anything related to sales or marketing strategy, and if not immediately, then quickly enough so as not to hinder progress happening in real time across various departments within each organization where various parts may overlap when it comes down things is crucial. The sales team leader must motivate others around him/herself because we all need someone who believes in us even when we don't believe ourselves sometimes...or maybe even most times!

5.They have access to the right tools to be successful-like CRM software

There are many things that can help salespeople be successful in their jobs: the right tools, access to management, and co-workers who support them. One of the most tangible things is having tools that match the speed and need of operations of the sales team is crucial and it starts with having a robust CRM system in place.

A CRM software is one of the most important tools for any salesperson. It keeps track of all the information that goes into making those big deals, like contact information and notes from meetings with clients. It also allows them to pull up past conversations so they can easily reference issues they've discussed with each client before--and it lets them schedule follow-up calls or emails when it's time for another chat about moving forward on an agreement (or closing). This tool should not only be available on someone’s desktop computer; it should also be accessible via mobile device so reps can use it on the go if needed!

Case study

WeightWatchers' Transformation of Enterprise Sales with HubSpot

Challenges:

WeightWatchers' enterprise sales teams faced significant hurdles due to a lack of automation and efficient CRM tools. The manual processes were time-consuming, involving repetitive data entry and cumbersome email marketing efforts. Their old system also failed to provide the necessary insights and customization for effective sales forecasting and customer journey tracking.

Solutions:

To address these challenges, WeightWatchers implemented HubSpot's integrated sales and marketing solutions. HubSpot provided automated workflows, a streamlined deal pipeline, and end-to-end visibility of the sales process. This allowed the sales teams to focus on high-quality leads and improve the customer experience significantly.

Results:

The adoption of HubSpot led to remarkable improvements in productivity and sales effectiveness. The sales close ratio improved dramatically, and the company saw a substantial increase in annual contract value. HubSpot's automation features freed up sales reps from administrative tasks, allowing them to concentrate on engaging and winning customers. The integration with other tools further enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process.

6.Their manager understands what they need to do their jobs well and empowers them to make decisions on their own (when possible)

Salespeople don't want to feel like they're being managed. They want to be empowered and trusted to do their jobs well, even when it means making decisions on their own. A manager should be able to explain the role and responsibilities of the job, as well as what makes it unique from other sales positions in the company. He or she should also be able to explain the company's values and culture, so that you know whether or not it matches with yours. Finally, he or she should be able to explain why your position exists in terms of its goals within this larger vision.

7.The sales incentives are distributed fairly and recognize individual accomplishments as well as team wins

Incentives are important because they help motivate sales reps to sell more and sell better and incentives form a considerable chunk of the compensation structure for most sales reps. Having said that, incentives should be distributed fairly and recognize individual accomplishments as well as team wins. They should also be given out as soon as possible, frequently, and in a timely manner. In other words, you shouldn’t have to wait weeks or months for your sales commission check—that would make it feel like the company doesn’t value your contribution enough!

Having an incentive automation tool that helps the sales reps and sales managers keep a track of their performance and incentive real time, empowers them to redeem their rewards of choice and a tool for sales managers to motivate their sales teams with nudges is crucial. Complete incentive automation softwares like Compass do just that

8.They're provided with learning and development opportunities so they can continuously improve their skills, knowledge and/or sales process over time.

In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s important to provide your sales team with learning and development opportunities so they can continuously improve their skills, knowledge, or sales process over time. Learning and development opportunities can be formal or informal in nature. They can also be provided by the company or by the employee—or both!

Learning and development is an ongoing process that begins when a new employee joins your company (either as a fresh-faced college grad or after years of experience) and continues throughout their career at your firm. When an employee comes on board, they start in what we call “the sandbox” where they're given a chance to explore different aspects of their role and learn what works best for them individually before moving into more structured training programs designed specifically for them based on their individual strengths/weaknesses along with feedback received during regular check-ins between management level staff members.

Case study

Global High Tech Company Enhances Salesforce Competence

A global high-tech company realized that their sales force was underperforming because they were not effectively engaging with high-level executives, which limited their ability to close deals and expand their market reach.

Challenges:

• Sales reps lacked the skills to engage effectively with top executives.
• There was a gap in understanding how to identify and communicate the business value of their products to senior decision-makers.
• Only 29% of sales representatives were engaging at the executive level, leading to missed opportunities.

Solution:

The company collaborated with Wilson Learning to implement the "Sales Advantage Series", a tailored training program designed to teach advanced sales strategies and techniques. This program focused on enabling sales representatives to:

• Communicate credibly and persuasively with executives.
• Develop comprehensive business solutions that clearly demonstrate value.
• Strategically expand their engagement within target organizations by calling "higher, wider, and deeper."

Results:

Three months post-training, the impact was significant:

• 75% of the participants started engaging at the executive level, a substantial increase from the initial 29%.
• 94% of the trained sales reps identified new business opportunities.
• 62% reported closing at least one new deal as a direct result of the skills and techniques learned.

Conclusion

There are many things that go into deciding whether or not to join a new company, but having a great product helps! The quality of your product directly affects both customer satisfaction and employer satisfaction too: if customers aren't happy with what they get from using what you're selling then there's little point in being out there trying to convince them otherwise; likewise if bosses are unhappy with what their employees are doing then no amount of money or perks will make up for that lack of respect (and perhaps even resentment). 

The best companies to work for are those that value their employees, give them room to succeed and recognize their achievements and are empathetic about how comfortable and happy their sales reps are they just does not end with a coffee machine but with things like on-time disbursal of the correct amount of incentives and Compass can help you empower your sales teams. Ultimately, these are the types of companies where salespeople will want to stay a long time and find fulfilling careers.