Practical Tips For Creating a Winning Sales Transformation Strategy

Selling is not an exact science. Gone are the days when salespeople were the only authority figures about what they sell; thanks to the internet, anybody can look up information about products and services. More importantly, people don’t buy products anymore—they purchase solutions. Instead of persisting with an outdated playbook, companies should take stock of the changing business landscape and undertake some serious sales transformation.

The Importance of Sales Transformation

Of course, there’s no single transformation that will suddenly vault your sales team above all others. Rather, sales transformation entails adjusting and acclimating your sales team to conform with industry upheavals as they come. Let’s consider a few ways this ongoing process can help your sales team.

Adapting to New Market Conditions

When market conditions change, your sales operations must be agile enough to go with the flow. Consider a recent historical example: during the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities severely restricted travel and face-to-face interactions to prevent the virus from further spreading. As a result, many sales teams had to learn about conducting online meetings via video conference. Even better, sales teams had to fast-track their web sales portals to accept and process online orders. Companies slow to respond soon found themselves losing customers to competitors with a more robust digital presence.    

Better Aligning Sales and Marketing Teams

Ideally, sales and marketing operate as two sides of the same coin. Marketing devises and develops campaigns and strategies that play to the sales team’s strengths; meanwhile, sales provides the field experience and data that marketing uses to develop sales materials. Making sure that both teams speak the same language and follow the same plan is critical to the entire company’s success.

The move to the digital marketplace is a great example of the need to align marketing and sales efforts. Sales teams pivoted to accepting online orders, and marketing had to simultaneously focus on online campaigns. Either leaving the other team to fend for itself during this shift change would have resulted in twofold disaster.

Improving Resource Allocation

Operating a successful company means knowing how to properly allocate budgets and spending wisely. It also means knowing when to boost spending to maintain sales momentum or cut back when campaigns aren’t generating the expected outcome.

In this respect, sales transformation entails optimizing how your company manages its resources in the wake of changing market conditions. Otherwise, sales teams will blow through their budgets with nothing to show for at the end of the quarter. At the same time, marketers who don’t recognize an ineffective campaign and initiate changes will find themselves in the red. Without an effective sales transformation strategy in place, teams won’t be able to pivot in time.

Boosting Sales Performance

On the other hand, a wildly successful sales program deserves increased support. If a campaign manages to attract new customers by penetrating a previously untapped segment, it makes sense to adjust strategies to accommodate the new market.

Consider also: if a new marketing campaign unexpectedly leads to an increase in audience engagement and customer inquiries, without a proper sales transformation strategy, sales and marketing teams will have a hard time aligning demand with supply or stocking the right channels. This failure to capitalize on heightened interest can prove detrimental in the long term.

Reinvigorating the Sales Team

Transformational changes can also boost the spirits of the teams involved. When established practices start producing diminishing returns, sales reps demand changes to sustain or even enhance their selling performances. If the market positively reacts to a company’s sales transformation process, it’s more likely that the sales and marketing teams will similarly feel rejuvenated.

Factors to Consider Before Implementation

Before subjecting your organization to a sales transformation process, consider mapping out your overall plan. Make sure your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. What is your main objective? Do you have a timetable? What areas are you specifically targeting?  Have you decided on the tools and tech stack to use? How do you monitor and measure your accomplishments?

Key Objectives

Getting your team to buy into the new program hinges on them first understanding and accepting its challenges. Accordingly, determining your key objectives or goals is a key first step in your sales transformation process.

However, the bigger challenge is communicating this goal and getting everybody on board. For example, shifting to digital sales and marketing means abandoning set practices and traditional methods. You’ll want to take the time to explain the benefits of the shift to these key players.

KPIs and Metrics

A SMART goal is always measurable. Otherwise, you won’t be able to tell the difference if your program actually made a difference. The most efficient way to monitor your goal’s progress is to assign Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics. For example, a shift to digital sales is expected to lead to an increase in generated leads. How much of an increase in sales revenue might your changes generate over time? Setting a realistic number as a goal can help team members focus on accomplishing that target.  

Sales and Marketing Strategies

Transformation will affect current sales and marketing strategies—updating old tactics, unlearning obsolete ones and introducing new policies as well. These changes should align with your stated goals. For example, any increase in digital sales should come with an increase in the use of digital tools, social media marketing and a more user-friendly eCommerce site. Otherwise, these adjustments won’t amount to anything except changing for the sake of change.    

Tech Stack

Changes will often require you to revisit your tech stack to see if your tools are still relevant. It’s not only about the end user platforms like content management systems, sales management or sales enablement software; your tech stack should also include data analysis software, analytics and even AI platforms to help your team monitor progress and stay on target.  

Budget

Finally, the budget also has a big say in how things get done. Program leaders should always make sure that each component has the necessary budget to operate during the sales transformation process. While overruns happen, you should keep accompanying data justify any additional resources. Similarly, shutting down unproductive programs should include plans on where to rechannel unused resources.

Building a Winning Sales Transformation Strategy

Coming up with a timely sales transformation strategy will need thorough planning. A well-thought strategy understands your current system, identifies its inefficiencies and knows the right upgrades to implement. Mapping out your overall plan can help ensure that all bases are covered before actual implementation.  

1. Identify Targets

Why is there a need for a sales transformation program in the first place? What do you hope to accomplish by changing the way your teams work? Once you identify the specific objectives, you’ll need an equally specific target in mind. If you’re looking to increase sales, how much revenue gain are you foreseeing with the changes? Remember, SMART goals can help your program stay grounded in reality.  

2. Review Current Processes

Changing established sales processes must have a reason. Whether it’s because of inefficiency, the availability of better tools, or budget constraints, your end users should be on board with why modifications are being made. Being transparent about proposed changes helps your teams understand the reasoning behind the changes, as well as the differences between current process and the proposed new ones.      

3. Focus on Customer KPIs

Focusing on institutional changes to the system can change how things work. Ultimately, however, changes that improve the customer experience can be more productive for the entire operation. Improving your operational efficiencies without affecting customer scores won’t help much in moving the needle. The real test of positive sales transformational changes lies in how customers respond to your changes. Ultimately, positive increases in customer metrics will lead to improvements in company sales and earnings metrics.

Some more desirable metrics involving customers include:

• Customer satisfaction score
• Churn rate
• Customer lifetime value
• Average purchase value
• Sales velocity

4. Support Your Team With the Right Tools

During the planning stage, make sure to devote enough time to identify your team’s tool requirements. Goals like increased efficiency and customer scores will need specific tools to accomplish and measure.

While sales management software and CRM tools are standard, sales and marketing teams can also use important tools for communication, collaboration and analysis. These not only allow teams to monitor their performances and compare them with benchmarks, but also improve how each employee interacts with teammates and customers. Some in-demand applications for this include analytics, project management and sales presentation software.

5. Gather Feedback

The best way to know if your sales transformation efforts are working is by asking the users themselves. Do they feel the positive effects of the changes? Is the new process more attuned to what customers and the market want? Are sales reps generating more leads or getting more positive feedback from customers? Positive reactions are a great indicator that applied changes are working as intended. Conversely, if things remain the same—or have turned for the worse—despite the changes, consider pausing the program for an in-depth review.

Ingage Helps Lead Your Sales Transformation Efforts

Successful sales transformation starts with the right communication methods. Frontline workers should understand the logic behind any proposed changes so that they can support them. Otherwise, even the most well-meaning proposals can encounter resistance due to a lack of information.

Ingage is cloud-based interactive presentation content management and collaboration tool.  The cloud system allows sales and marketing teams to collaborate on documents no matter where they are, while interactive features help users tell more in-depth stories compared to using static presentation software. Once finished, users can simply send a link to clients to view the presentation at their leisure. Additionally, Ingage also features powerful built-in analytics software that tracks viewer’s engagement levels for shared presentations.  

Sign up for a free Ingage demonstration today and see why more than 100,000 Ingage presentations are being shared monthly!

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