As a business, if you rely on a sales team to bring you the bulk of your success, you will want to make sure that you have the best sales team possible. Beyond being responsible for the formation of this team in the first place, it might feel as though the rest is out of your hands and into theirs’.

This might not be the case, however, and it could prove beneficial to work on the basis that encourages you to help each other in order to achieve the best possible results. The sales team wouldn’t exist without you, and you would struggle to push your services without them, so it’s imperative that you see the two of you as a combined business instead of two distinct entities.

Making Efficient Use of Time

Time is money, this is something that you’re likely very aware of in your position. Interpreting this phrase in the right way can be the difference between failure and success, however. For example, trying to constantly micromanage your employees in order to achieve this end could quickly backfire as they become frustrated, compromising their work performance or just outright encouraging them to seek employment elsewhere. Instead, you should trust that your employees are doing the best work possible and help them to achieve this end by promoting a communicative and trusting relationship between you. Sometimes good work can’t be rushed, and your employees need enough time to thoroughly process their workload in their own time without distractions. 

So, how can you make the most efficient use of time in regards to your employees? Well, if they spend a lot of their time in regards to making sales traveling to and from destinations, that is time that you could aim to cut down. That’s not always going to be possible in ways that involve stopping the journey from happening, as it might be an integral step in the sale, but you can instead focus on cutting down the length of the journey to make it as concise as it can possibly be. You can try to make this happen by giving your team access to software that automatically plots their route, giving them the most efficient means possible to go out and do what they do best, uninterrupted by problems that could have been easily avoided.

Help Them to Work on Their Technique

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Equally, while each member of your sales team has likely been trained up over their time with you by yourself or other members of your staff, there still might be some blind spots that they want to improve. As mentioned previously, working with them to create a trusting relationship can go a long way to improving how they feel about working with you, so it’s important that you actively help them in improving their sales technique instead of just expecting them to improve on their own without providing any means of assistance. Going about this might help your employees feel as though you’re an employer who is ready to put themselves out there to achieve the results they want, instead of putting all the work on them. Sometimes it’s as simple as rehearsing their usual approach with you and trying to strengthen areas that need attention, something that can be done with a spare few minutes in the office. 

This can also be achieved by trying to help the sales team as a whole. After all, they are a team, so the better that they can work together, the better the result may well be. It’s difficult to understand how best to do this at times, especially if each team member requires something different to improve. However, sometimes it might be this very lack of communication that is causing problems. Perhaps some staff members are newer and therefore not as experienced, which potentially leads to the more senior members not wanting to put themselves out there to get the newer employees up to speed. Getting involved at this point could help you act as the bridge between them, and it might help them start communicating more with each other as a result. Failing that, talking to each individual member of staff in order to get a broad sense of what each person is struggling with can help you figure out a solution that best fits everyone.

Creating a Trusting Relationship

Although previously highlighted, it’s worth emphasizing just how much of an impact a positive work environment can have on employee performance, and this case is no different. While creating a trusting relationship is perhaps the most prominent way to create a relaxing and positive work environment, it can be enhanced by aesthetic qualities such as a clean workspace with natural light and perhaps some house plants to allow them to feel more connected to the outside. The core of it, however, does remain how they feel about you. If your employees have a problem, you need to be confident that they’ll come to you with that without feeling as though you’ll react badly. Being open and communicative is a far more productive way to be than demanding that they improve at every turn, so it’s important that you show some empathy and understanding wherever you can.

Showing a genuine interest in their career can help you with this as well, as it can lead to situations where you might offer them opportunities for training that can benefit both of you. Not only will it help your staff to further their own skills and position with you to a point where they might be more successful and challenged in their role, but it will help you to create a workforce that is more qualified and better equipped to handle difficult situations. Developing this kind of relationship with your staff can help you understand how much easier your job can be when your employees work with you rather than simply for you.