7 tips for building a sales team to help your business grow

7 Tips for Building a Sales
Team to Help Your
Business Grow
By Small Businesses, For
Small Businesses


Knowing your audience and what they need can really help separate you from your
competitors. Many enterprise companies have dedicated teams constantly parsing and
refining data in order to gain this knowledge. While small businesses and startups don’t
have the same kind of resources or budget to dedicate to customer insights, they can crib
some plays from the enterprise playbook in order to arm their salespeople for success.


1. CRM is the Key

CRM apps can increase sales by up to 29%, sales productivity by
up to 34%, and forecast accuracy by 42%. CRM helps to expand
and convert leads by organizing them, tracking and managing
them, and sending important details to in-house users.

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2. Utilize Call Lists
We’re doing a lot of intelligence around call lists. For
example, if a buyer watched a webinar, our sales reps
can use Pardot insights to talk to them about that
webinar. If they downloaded a white paper, they can talk
to them about the subject matter covered by the white
paper.

-Roy Keely, VP of Market Strategy, Xcentric

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3. Make the Most of Your Cold Email
You'll see a lot of cold emails with sentences like,
"Let me know if I can help.” What exactly does that
mean? Don’t beat around the bush. Be clear and
direct about what you’re asking the recipient to do or
consider. Instead of, “I’d love your feedback,” ask,
“When’s a good day this week for a 15-minute call to
discuss ...?” And no more than one question or call
to action per email.
-Aaron Ross, Founder & CEO, Predictable Revenue

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4. Always Be Hiring

If you don’t constantly hire reps, you’ll never grow the top line as fast as you could. You need to
Always Be Hiring Sales Reps. Once you have an engine going, have faith. Have faith they’ll generate
and close the leads. And they will — if they’re great. If your sales team is understaffed, you’ll leave
money on the table. A little overstaffed is better. Do that, and you’ve got a chance to exceed your
current plan.
-Jason Lemkin, Managing Director, Storm Ventures

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5. Align With Marketing
All leads aren’t created equal, so, in
practice, you should only be responding
quickly to the best leads. Sales teams
should partner with marketing on a regular
basis to identify their most valuable
customer profiles, then identify a solution
that will push the best leads at the top of
the lead response queue.
-Howard Brown, CEO, RingDNA

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6. Lean Pipeline = Healthy Pipeline

You’d think that a healthy sales pipeline is one that’s full of leads.
Research suggests otherwise: lean pipelines generated 48% more
revenue than fat ones. The key to a healthy pipeline: disqualify bad leads
early, freeing up time to dig deeper with good leads.
-Michael Boyette, Executive Editor, Rapid Learning Institute

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7. Leverage
Social Media
Social media provides an indepth look into buyer
behaviors beyond simple

preferences and
demographics. One way we’
re capitalizing on social
media is enabling our reps to
proactively research
customers’ statuses and their
propensity to purchase via
their social profiles.
-Paul Leary, President, Bespoke
Collection

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Thank you

Want more sales tips to grow your
business? Download the free e-book →