As Businesses Adapt To Cope With The Impact Of Coronavirus Restrictions On Physical Movement, So Too Must The Development Of Your Sales Function
Organisations currently implementing disaster recovery plans and operating in crisis management mode will soon begin to think longer term about adapting their business strategy to accommodate new realities.
Physical and social distancing, travel restrictions and, no doubt, employers’ duties of care are already driving businesses, and of course sales teams within them, to embrace new ways of working. Innovative organisations will seize this opportunity to create competitive advantage and to place themselves in a position where they can thrive in this ‘new normal’. Among those many changes that organisations will need to reconsider is how they develop their salesforce when traditional face-to-face training courses are no longer an option.
In addition, experience shows that in a downturn employees will seek safety in the familiar and tend to take the view that it is ‘better the devil you know’ when it comes to who they work for. This, of course, makes it much harder to attract great salespeople into your business. In these circumstances you need to maximise the talent you have and it is crucial to leverage the very best sales performance from everyone in the sales function. The success of your business will be greatly affected by the quality of training and development that you give your sales team.
Whilst you may know who your top performers are, do you really know what sets them apart from the rest? And can you identify and develop these attributes in others?
Our easy-to-use online Acuity 360 Talent Audit tool gathers feedback against 9 key sales capabilities. These capabilities are proven to deliver enhanced sales performance of up to 23% more in revenue per month. By collating the views of those who know a salesperson best- their manager, peers, wider stakeholders and even clients – the Acuity 360 Talent Audit is able to provide comprehensive and detailed feedback to both the individual and their manager on where their strengths and development areas lie, and what they need to do to maximise their sales performance.
Enhanced data analytics within Acuity enables you to track individual progress over time. You will have clear metrics on the impact of your training and development support for each member of your team. Group level reporting highlights themes across the whole function, as well as variances between different teams for example at a regional or local level. You will be able to target your support where it is needed most and will have most impact.
Better yet, because the Acuity 360 Talent Audit is delivered entirely online you can be assured that you will benefit from business continuity no matter what physical restrictions may have been placed on those who are participating.
Discover how the Acuity 360 Talent Audit enabled broadcasting giant, Global, to identify the opportunity to deliver a 23% uplift in sales performance and download our whitepaper to reveal the 9 key capabilities that drive sales success.
Jim Bloomfield is a Director of Bloojam Consulting with 20 years’ experience of using business psychology to develop salespeople and leaders. He is a member of the Association of Business Psychology (ABP) and the British Psychological Society (BPS) and has successfully helped some of Britain’s best-known businesses exceed their sales goals.