Scaling your sales team — growing it to meet your company’s increasing demands and replicating the same success at each new level – will come with challenges. That’s unavoidable. But it also gives you the opportunity to create an all-star team that’ll deliver closed deals and peak sales numbers for years to come.
The good thing is that you can build and train your sales team to fit the needs of your organization. Based on the goals you target, your strategic approach to turn your team into sales experts will vary, but the end goal is the same: to scale your sales team successfully, thus exponentially growing your business.
But that’s not always how it goes. Instead, sales leaders and managers get lost in the process, and they lose their ability to align teams around common missions.
In this blog post, we’ll tackle some of the most common scaling problems and discuss effective tips for scaling a sales team.
- 8 Key Ways to Prevent Common Scaling Problems for Sales Teams
- 1. Only hire top talent
- 2. Put more effort into training your team
- 3. Create a structured sales process
- 4. Let data guide your performance standards
- 5. Break the barriers of communication
- 6. Don’t get stuck in the admin work vortex
- 7. Avoid poor compensation
- 8. Include deep discovery questions in your sales process
- Bonus: 3 Pro Tips to Set Your Sales Team Straight
8 Key Ways to Prevent Common Scaling Problems for Sales Teams
Getting back on track after your attempt to scale your sales team goes wrong is easier said than done. Still, it’s far from impossible. All you have to do is understand your problems and then start fixing each one of them strategically.
Start with these seven solutions.
1. Only hire top talent
You could have the best playbook filled with quality tips about how to scale your business, but it won’t mean much with a subpar sales team.
The employees you hire are your major investment.
Rather than settling for average applicants simply because they understand the basics of insurance sales, go the extra mile in your search for exceptional candidates.
Sometimes, finding the best talent requires you to broaden your search beyond your local area, particularly if you have plans to go global. By expanding your horizons, you may have a better chance of finding a perfect match rather than simply settling for a convenient hire.
When you define your hiring process and search criteria, it’ll be easier to find a driven team member who fits your company culture, isn’t just after a paycheck, and understands your business goals.
Plus, they remain committed during challenging times and give their best to help rather than seeking alternative opportunities.
It benefits your team and your bottom line to skip the shortcuts and take your time to find the right, high-quality fit.
2. Put more effort into training your team
After you bring on a new sales rep, you might be tempted to throw them into the deep end right away, but that’s a scaling problem you always want to avoid.
Here’s what lies in the balance if you don’t train your reps but still expect them to succeed: team morale, employee retention, and sales numbers.
Without proper training that helps them navigate roadblocks, your sales reps won’t feel empowered to push through challenges, and you won’t see the results you’re looking for.
- Shadow more experienced reps on sales calls.
- Conduct mock calls and roleplay difficult scenarios.
- Study product knowledge bases and demos you provide.
- Practice outreach with company email templates and sales scripts.
If you ease your reps in slowly, they’ll learn how to close faster.
While they’re in training, new hires should learn more about your product, culture, sales process, software, and more — this may seem like a lot of time to dedicate to onboarding, but it’s a worthwhile investment of resources.
To successfully scale your sales team, create a comprehensive training program for new reps.
3. Create a structured sales process
Consistency is key — no defined sales process means no close rate gains.
Don’t reinvent the wheel for each new prospect your reps contact. Instead, develop a simple, repeatable sales process that’s built to streamline sales activities and improve productivity. You should also have tools and systems that support your process and your reps as they try to deliver results.
An essential aspect of scaling your sales team is to create measurable and trackable processes.
If you don’t want your sales reps to waste their efforts on the wrong prospects and revenue-generating activities, create an organized sequence of steps to follow that you track and refine consistently.
💡 Pro tip: This scaling problem is similar to undefined sales roles — for a smooth and speedy sales process, spell out duties and roles across your team.
4. Let data guide your performance standards
What benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPI) should you set for your sales team? Should you close 20% or 30% of sales-qualified leads?
After you build some steam with the scalable business channels that best complement your business goals, rely on patterns in the data you measure to highlight which realistic targets to aim for. Remember: Well-defined KPIs take your sales process from basic to iconic.
Besides assessing your reps’ performance with current objectives, you can also conduct research to scope out the industry norms.
For example, according to HubSpot, sales organizations in the computer software industry have an average close rate of 22% compared to the biotech industry and its 15%.
5. Break the barriers of communication
Communication is crucial for any kind of relationship, including the one you have with your sales team. That’s why this #1 rule has no exceptions: You’re never too busy to communicate with everyone in your sales organization.
If you are, you’d better have a management staff that helps keep your company in tip-top shape; otherwise, introduce a communication cadence ASAP and then maintain it.
You can meet with your team daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Still, these group and one-on-one chats give you a chance to boost team harmony around processes, motivate your reps through positive reinforcement, and ensure everyone understands KPIs and key goals. Still, these group and one-on-one chats give you a chance to boost team harmony around processes, motivate your reps through positive reinforcement, and ensure everyone understands KPIs and key goals. Moreover, these chats will also allow employees to voice their concerns and suggestions, be it about their project, their salary pay stub, or some personal issues. Creating an open dialogue around these topics fosters a culture of transparency and mutual respect.
Plus, your reps can voice any feelings or concerns, which always goes a long way in employee satisfaction.
6. Don’t get stuck in the admin work vortex
The truth is that something as simple as data entry is a scaling problem that could hold you back.
Why?
Because it’s so time-consuming!
Administrative tasks, like record keeping, are black ice to the speeding car that is your sales process — if you’re not careful with them, you can spin out and lose control of your end goal.
The key to getting your sales reps to focus more on sales calls and business development is to outsource, i.e., automate your workflow or hire a sales support employee.
With machines or hired help that’ll ensure these important (but albeit exhausting) activities are executed accurately, you’ll also make it easier for sales reps to do what they do best – sell.
7. Avoid poor compensation
To solve this scaling problem, all you have to do is care about your sales reps’ personal lives as much as you want them to care about growing your sales.
One way to do that?
Align your pay structure with the quality of work you want your sales team to produce.
A misaligned compensation plan can negatively impact the productivity of your sales team. To prevent this, regularly check your plan and ensure it’s in agreement with quarterly business goals.
That means when you adjust your needs, like expanding quarterly priorities, you should shift your compensation structure, including bonuses, to reflect those changes. If you want to encourage prospecting, for example, think about offering $100 to every rep who gives more than their weekly demo quota.
8. Include deep discovery questions in your sales process
Don’t let your sales reps fall into the trap of “spray and pray” tactics, where they pitch to anyone and everyone without understanding their specific needs.
Research shows that a staggering number of sales reps still rely on this outdated approach, which fails to gather crucial customer intelligence and proves ineffective for closing larger, more complex deals.
Over time, it can also damage the organization’s reputation as clients grow weary of generic pitches that don’t address their unique needs.
Instead, teach new salespeople the art of asking strategic questions that go beyond surface-level needs and delve into the client’s broader context.
Equip your team with a set of targeted discovery questions designed to uncover the root of a prospect’s pain points, goals, and decision-making processes.
By actively listening and engaging in meaningful conversations, your reps can tailor their approach to each individual prospect, building trust and demonstrating a genuine interest in finding the right solution.
Remember, a well-informed, personalized sales pitch is far more likely to resonate with potential customers and lead to successful conversions, especially for those high-value opportunities.
By focusing on insightful questions that explore the customer’s overall goals rather than just the immediate problem at hand, you provide your sales team with valuable resources for building strong relationships and closing deals.
This approach not only helps them gain a deeper understanding of the market from the customer’s perspective but also positions your company as a trusted partner invested in their success.
Bonus: 3 Pro Tips to Set Your Sales Team Straight
Even if it feels like scaling problems have gotten the best of you and your team, they haven’t, and you’re not as vulnerable to them as you may think.
You have tons of options to get your sales team back on the right path, including these bonus three:
🎯 Get in alignment with marketing.
🎯 Give your team the same quality and quantity of leads.
🎯 Be intentional every step of the way.
No matter how you build your sales team, don’t forget the importance of growing a foundation in your business that supports future scaling and opportunities to steadily earn more revenue.
