How to Build an Elite B2B Sales Team That Drives Revenue Growth - Mystrika

Building a stellar sales team that skyrockets revenue growth takes more than just hiring some slick talkers. You need a strategic plan around structure, talent, technology, training, motivation and optimization. Follow this comprehensive guide to construct a sales squad that dominates your market.

Page Contents

Define Your Sales Team Structure and Roles

Building an elite B2B sales team starts with defining its structure and roles. This provides clarity on responsibilities and expectations for each team member. Approach this step thoughtfully, as the right structure can set your sales squad up for revenue growth.

Determine Territory and Market Segmentation

One of the first decisions is how to divide up markets and accounts. Common approaches include:

Geographic territories: Assign each sales rep a geographic region to focus on. This works best if your customers are concentrated in specific areas.

Product or service lines: Allocate reps to sell specific products or services in your portfolio. Helpful if you have a diverse offering.

Account size: Dedicate reps to small, mid-market or enterprise customers. Match experience levels.

Industry verticals: Target reps to industry verticals like healthcare, manufacturing, etc. Requires specialized knowledge.

Customer lifecycle stage: Prospecting reps focus on new leads, while account managers handle existing customers. Optimizes focus areas.

Evaluate your sales landscape and needs. Are customers concentrated geographically? Is industry expertise crucial? Do small accounts require a different approach than large ones? Dividing markets smartly enables specialization.

Create Accountability with Clear Goals and Metrics

Defining individual rep and team goals is vital for accountability. Be specific on expectations and how performance is measured.

For each rep, set:

Sales quotas – Minimum sales targets for a period. E.g. $100K MRR by Q4.
Activity metrics – Track prospecting calls, emails, demos completed.
Lead and pipeline targets – Requirements on new leads and pipeline growth.
Customer metrics – Renewal rates, upsells, churn rate.
Compensation details – Commission rates and structures.

For the team, outline:

Revenue targets – Overall sales goals.
Market share goals – Increasing share in your addressable market.
Profitability metrics – Sales efficiency, customer LTV versus CAC.
Sales process metrics – Conversion rates, sales cycle length.
Growth goals – Targets for sales team expansion.

By aligning individual rep and team goals, you enable data-driven management. Regularly review progress on quotas, activities, pipeline health, and more using your CRM reporting. This accountability fuels achievement of revenue growth targets.

Pro tip: Establish tiered goals at threshold, target, and stretch levels. This incentives continuous improvement versus bare minimums.

Example Sales Team Structures

To illustrate options, here are two sample B2B sales team structures for a fictional company, Acme SaaS Inc:

Geography-based structure:

VP Sales
Sales Director, North America
Sales Reps x 6 (1 per region)
Sales Director, EMEA
Sales Reps x 4 (1 per major country)
Sales Director, APAC
Sales Reps x 3

This structure carves up major geographies with reps assigned to sub-regions. Sales directors act as managers.

Customer segment-based structure:

VP Sales
Sales Director, SMB
SMB Account Execs x 6
Sales Director, Mid-Market
Mid-Market AEs x 4
Sales Director, Enterprise
Enterprise AEs x 2
Sales Engineers x 2

Here sales reps are specialized by customer size. More tenured reps handle upmarket accounts, with sales engineers for technical expertise.

Assess your sales situation and tailor structure to your needs. Balance specialization with cross-training to optimize productivity. Now let’s look at building the squad within this framework.

Recruit & Hire Top Sales Talent

With your sales team structure and roles defined, it’s time to recruit all-star players to fill those positions. Hiring exceptional sales talent is crucial for revenue growth. Approach it as you would a sales process – map buyer personas, craft compelling messaging, and evaluate fit.

Identify Must-Have Sales Skills and Qualities

Build a profile of your ideal sales hire. Key attributes to look for include:

Communication excellence: Masterful listening, persuasive speaking, and negotiating skills.

Resilience and grit: Perseverance through rejections, motivated self-starter mindset.

Consultative selling skills: Asking insightful questions, uncovering pain points, providing solutions.

Adaptability and learning agility: Quickly acquiring new skills and information.

Organizational abilities: Juggling multiple tasks efficiently and tracking details.

Competitive spirit: Tenacity to exceed quotas and outperform peers.

Interpersonal savvy: Building rapport and relationships with prospects.

Product expertise: Deep knowledge of your offerings and industry.

Cultural alignment: Shared values and collaboration focused.

Customer obsession: Going above and beyond to ensure satisfaction.

Ambition and drive: Eager to take on challenges and grow professionally.

Evaluate candidates thoroughly to confirm they possess these traits before extending offers. Use case interviews, role plays, and assessments during your process.

Use Referrals and Niche Job Boards to Source Candidates

Tap into your networks to source promising applicants. Employee referrals often yield excellent hires, since colleagues recommend candidates that fit your culture. Offer referral bonuses to motivate employees.

Niche sales job boards like SalesGravy and SalesJobs.com attract experienced reps looking for new opportunities. Social professional networks are another good resource – search for and engage passive candidates on LinkedIn.

Pro tip: Target sales reps from your competitors to hire industry experts. Avoid poaching attempts, but market to them organically.

Assess Communication, Persistence and Problem Solving

Sales requires specialized abilities around communication, persistence, and problem-solving. Assess candidates thoroughly for these core competencies:

Communication Skills

Listen actively – Probe with questions, recap conversations.
Speak persuasively – Tailor messaging, convey benefits compellingly.
Read body language – Note cues to build rapport and adjust approach.

Persistence and Resilience

Handle rejection – Brush off “no’s”, learn from objections.
Persevere amid obstacles – Seek solutions, creativity despite challenges.
Remain self-motivated – Exhibit tenacity and self-discipline without micromanaging.
Maintain energy and optimism – Bring positive, enthusiastic attitude daily.

Problem-Solving Skills

Probe on pain points – Ask questions to understand needs and issues.
Match solutions to issues – Map products and services to address problems.
Think creatively – Improvise solutions and approaches.
Make data-driven decisions – Leverage insights from CRM analytics.

Evaluating across these dimensions will help you select well-rounded reps. Utilize roleplay scenarios, work samples, and assessments to screen thoroughly.

Provide Competitive Compensation Packages

To attract top-tier sales talent, your compensation packages must be enticing and competitive. Offering commissions and bonuses on top of base salaries is now tablestakes. Some best practices include:

Benchmark pay against your industry and location using tools like Repvue.
Offer benefits like healthcare, retirement plans, and flexibility.
Structure commissions to reward growth and retention milestones.
Include tiered accelerators, SPIFFs, and contests to incentivize achievements.
Offer recognition and experiential rewards for top performers.
Share company equity through stock options or RSUs.
Provide enablement and learning opportunities.

Getting compensation right ensures you can recruit and retain ambitious rainmakers. Re-evaluate frequently and adjust to market rates to avoid losing people. With rockstars on your team, you massively boost revenue generation capabilities.

Enable Your Sales Team with Technology

Beyond top talent, sales technology is crucial for managing workflows, executing campaigns, and making data-driven decisions. Equip your team with solutions that maximize productivity and enable insight.

CRM Platforms for Tracking and Management

A CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot centralizes your sales data and activities. Key capabilities include:

Contact management – Database of leads, accounts and contacts.
Lead scoring – Assigning value to leads based on activities, profile.
Pipeline tracking – Visualize deal stages from prospect to customer.
Forecasting – Predicting future sales based on pipeline health.
Email integration– Tracking email communications with prospects.
Task automation – Workflows to nurture leads, update records, send alerts.
Reporting and analytics – Insights into individual and team performance.

With a Sales CRM, managers gain visibility into pipelines and forecasts. Reps manage their portfolio of accounts in one place. Ensure your platform is easy to use while providing reporting depth.

Tools for Outreach and Communication

Sales engagement platforms enable efficient outreach at scale:

Email tools like Outreach or Salesloft help craft and send customized emails and track responses.
Dialers like Groove or RingDNA allow calling multiple prospects without manual dialing.
Live chat solutions facilitate real-time website conversations to capture leads.
CRM plugins bring LinkedIn integration, email sequencing, and more.
Video messaging platforms like Vidyard or Loom enable personalized, visual outreach.

Equipping reps with these solutions optimize outbound efforts. They spend less time on manual tasks and more time selling.

Analytics for Data-Driven Decisions

Advanced analytics and business intelligence empower sales leaders to act on insights. Look for:

Sales performance dashboards displaying KPIs and trends.
Data visualization through graphs, charts and custom reports.
Cross-functional data like marketing campaigns, product usage, and customer success metrics.
Predictive analytics to model outcomes and identify risks.
Reporting automation to schedule delivery of key reports.

With analytics capabilities, managers spot patterns and trends to inform strategies. Reps gain insights to refine tactics. And executives can track health and progress towards goals.

Bringing It All Together

An integrated sales tech stack enhances productivity, provides visibility for leadership, and enables data-driven decisions. Yet, be wary of tool overload. Evaluate must-have functionality, ease of use, and impact on rep time. Invest in adoption and training to drive proficiency. With the right technology approach, your sales squad will operate optimally.

Train Your Team for Sales Success

Even all-star sales reps need continuous training and development to excel. Offering a robust sales enablement program sharpens your team’s skills and elevates performance. Approach sales training as an ongoing initiative versus a one-time event.

Product and Industry Knowledge

Start with ensuring your team has expertise in your offerings and market landscape:

Onboard with deep product demos – Review key features, use cases, technical aspects, and differentiators.
Create playbooks – Compile details on buyer personas, common objections, competitive intel, pricing tiers, and FAQs.
Send new collateral – Circulate updated marketing materials, new case studies, product releases.
Share win stories – Have reps share what worked with successful deals.
Test knowledge – Conduct regular quizzes on product specs, customer segments, and competitors.
Discuss market trends – Cover news, research reports, and events in team meetings.

With strong understanding, reps can hold nuanced conversations with buyers and address questions confidently. Product mastery establishes credibility.

Consultative Selling Techniques

Moving from transactional sales to consultative selling boosts deal values and conversions. Key concepts:

Asking insightful questions – Probe on pain points, goals, challenges. Move beyond surface issues.
Actively listening – Let prospects speak 80% of the time. Identify hints and needs.
Conveying expertise – Provide informed perspectives on needs described.
Co-creating solutions – Collaborate with prospects on potential ways to address wants and issues. Bring fresh ideas to the table.
Communicating value – Quantify ROI, outcomes, and long-term benefits of proposed solutions.
Maintaining objectivity – Offer recommendations focused solely on customer needs, not bias or assumptions.

Practice these techniques through roleplaying exercises. Record calls for feedback. Observing consultative sales mastery in action is invaluable.

Digital and Social Selling Skills

Buyers spend a lot of time online researching options before engaging with sellers. Ensure your team has digital and social savvy:

SEO and keyword research – Optimize LinkedIn profiles and outreach messaging for search visibility.
Content creation – Generate engaging posts, articles, and materials for social media and nurture campaigns.
Hashtag strategy – Identify relevant hashtags to expand reach on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tools training – Provide platforms like Outreach, SalesLoft, HubSpot and teach how to leverage them effectively.
Social engagement tactics – Comment on posts, share content, join industry groups. Provide value before pitching.
Sales cadence training – Establish number of touches and optimal sequence for social and email.
Buyer persona nuances – Tailor tactics and messaging to different digital channels your ideal customers use.

Digital selling opens new lead generation avenues. Your team should embrace these to engage modern buyers.

Leadership and Team Development

Beyond hard sales skills, enable your team leaders and reps to level up professionally:

Coaching workshops – Train managers on motivating, developing and counseling reps.
CRM and analytics – Upskill on leveraging data to spot trends and make decisions.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) skills – Improve self-awareness, empathy, conflict resolution.
DEI workshops – Foster understanding of biases and practicing inclusivity.
Process optimization – Identify areas to streamline workflows.
Time management – Assess schedules, eliminate inefficiencies, prioritize high-impact activities.
Presentation skills – From crafting killer pitches to delivering confidently.
Negotiation tactics – Counter pricing objections, craft win-win solutions.
Leadership development – Support manager potential with books, events, mentoring.

Investing in continuously developing your team drives exponential growth in expertise, productivity and morale.

Motivate and Recognize Top Performance

To inspire your sales team to bring their A-game daily, leverage motivation strategies along with recognition and rewards. This fuels the passion, engagement and sense of purpose that drives results.

Competitions, Contests and SPIFFs

Friendly competition can spark the competitive spirit innate in salespeople. Contests, leaderboards and SPIFFs (Sales Performance Incentive Funds) boost performance through short-term goals.

Contests – Reps compete on specific metrics like calls made, demos scheduled or pipeline generated in a period. Winners receive cash, prizes or experiences.
SPIFFs – Cash bonuses for closing particular products or upsells. For example, $500 for selling a premium support package this month.
Leaderboards – Display individual and team rankings based on revenue, activities or other KPIs. Recognition motivates those lagging.

To be effective, make competitions team-based as well as individual, transparent, and tailored to your goals like accelerating pipeline or closing complex deals. Reward creativity too, not just sales numbers. Conclude with a fun recognition event.

Individual and Team Bonuses

Variable compensation tied to great performance is highly motivating. Bonus structures include:

Quota attainment – % of commission earned for achieving set sales targets. Goes up with higher tiers achieved.
New business – Bonuses for landing new logos or launching new products.
Profitability – Earned when achieving sales efficiency and customer LTV goals.
Customer retention – Reward maintaining and growing existing accounts.
Perfect attendance/submission – Smaller bonuses for basic expectations like submitting expenses.
Referrals – Bonus for bringing in new hires.

To maximize motivation, pay bonuses quickly after achievements rather than waiting for longer periods. Communicate eligibility criteria clearly.

Public Recognition and Rewards

Acknowledge exceptional efforts and results by calling them out publicly:

Sales meetings – Give shoutouts for wins, milestones, and records broken.
Email announcements – Recognize top performers company-wide.
Sales leaderboards – Display stars ranked by KPIs visible to all.
Sales conferences – Have executives publicly highlight rockstar reps on stage.
Swag and gifts – Reward outstanding performers with experiences, gift cards, merchandise.
Job promotion – Growth opportunities for consistent excellence.

Recognition is most impactful when timely, specific, and varying to maintain uniqueness. Praise publicly, provide constructive feedback privately.

Foster a Collaborative Sales Culture

Beyond individual brilliance, a thriving sales team requires a culture based on collaboration. With mutual support and collective responsibility for success, your squad becomes an revenue-generating, deal-closing juggernaut.

Promote Teamwork and Information Sharing

Instead of each rep working independently in their own silo, encourage working together:

Share wins and losses – Review deals in team meetings, highlighting successes and lessons learned.
Cross-sell assistance – Have reps support each other with introductions to related contacts in their network.
Co-strategize on challenges – Brainstorm creative approaches to tough prospects or competitive scenarios. Fresh perspectives spark new ideas.
Shadow top performers – Less experienced reps learn from watching peers prospecting calls and discovery sessions.
Mindshare best practices – Celebrate when reps “lift each other up” by exchanging useful knowledge.
Discuss goals openly – Increase transparency on individual quotas and progress. Peer encouragement follows.

With a teamwork attitude, your squad bonds together and capitalizes on collective strengths.

Encourage Creativity and Innovation

Empower your team to challenge convention and try new things:

Allow creative prospecting approaches – Don’t restrict cold calling or social selling tactics. See what works.
Solicit process improvement ideas – Reps closest to customers often spot friction points.
Support beta-testing new technologies – Leverage rep eagerness to experiment with latest tools. They become evangelists.
Feature different go-to-market strategies – Present case studies on unique product launches, partnerships, etc.
Ask “what if…” questions – Seed imaginative thinking by proposing scenarios, trends, and possibilities.
Set innovation KPIs – For example, require 2 ideas per rep each quarter to promote ideation.

With an entrepreneurial environment, you gain fresh concepts that may provide competitive advantage.

Provide Mentorship and Growth Opportunities

Growing sales careers ensures your superstars stick around. Tactics for professional development include:

Set learning goals – Require reps to acquire specific knowledge or skills each quarter through mentorship, books, conferences, or classes.
Formal mentor matching – Pair junior reps with tenured teammates for regular guidance.
Job shadowing – Let ambitious reps observe managers to gain leadership perspective.
Stretch assignments – Develop talent and skills with special projects like recruiting, writing a newsletter, or planning an event.
Demo Day – Reps present what they’ve shipped to the team. Perfect for confidence building.
Lunch & Learns – Host sessions for reps to teach their peers valuable skills.
Toastmasters – Sponsor joining this organization to improve public speaking abilities.

With visibility into advancement opportunities, your rockstars stick around to grow into sales leadership positions.

Continuously Improve Through Data Analysis

With your elite revenue squad built, the work doesn’t stop. Ongoing optimization based on data analysis and insights further elevates performance. Make a habit of continuous improvement baked into your sales culture.

Utilize Sales Dashboards

Centralized sales dashboards provide visibility into key metrics and trends. They consolidate data from your CRM, sales engagement platform, and other systems into one view.

Dashboards enable sales leaders to:

Monitor individual and team progress versus quotas and forecast.
Compare performance across regions, products, campaigns.
Spot fluctuations in pipeline health and conversion rates.
Identify productivity changes in activities or outcomes.
Assess results from investments, campaigns, initiatives.
Drill down into details behind high-level trends.

Equipping managers with real-time dashboard visibility facilitates rapid, data-driven decisions and course correction when needed. Don’t keep them flying blind.

Track Key Performance Indicators

Incorporating the right KPIs in your dashboards is crucial. Beyond vanity metrics, focus on numbers that indicate business impact:

Pipeline KPIs: Optimize your sales funnel.

Lead velocity – Time from prospect to closed deal
Sales cycle length – Average time in each funnel stage
Win rate – Percentage of proposals won
Lead conversion rate – Percentage becoming sales qualified

Revenue KPIs: Hit your targets.

Sales revenue – Total income
Recurring revenue – From ongoing subscriptions
Average deal size – By rep, product, segment
Customer lifetime value

Sales Efficiency KPIs: Ensure profitability.

Customer acquisition cost
Quota attainment – Percent achieving quota
Revenue per sales rep
Gross margin return on investment

Activity KPIs: Get more done.

Daily prospecting calls
Sales qualified leads sourced
First response time
Customer contacts per month

Market KPIs: Assess share.

Market penetration
Customer retention rate
Share of wallet

Assess Trends and Patterns

With routine data tracking, you gain perspective on performance trajectories. Assess areas like:

Individuals – Who are consistent rockstars? Strugglers? Rising or falling?
Segments – How do different products, regions, industries stack up?
Campaigns – Which initiatives deliver ROI? What fizzles?
Economic factors – How do shifts in market/economy affect us vs. competitors?
Forecasts – Are early pipeline projections on target or do they require adjustment?
Processes – Where do we see friction – leads cooling, deals stalling?
Skills gaps – What abilities need development based on losses and setbacks?

Uncovering themes, variances and early signals provides advantages you don’t get from admiring vanity metrics in a vacuum.

Identify Areas for Optimization

The end goal of analytics is continuous optimization. With insights from the above, target areas for improvement:

Underperformers – Coach struggling salespeople. Realign responsibilities or part ways if needed.
Segments – Double down on your fastest-growth, most profitable segments.
Pricing – Adjust price points based on willingness-to-pay signals. Offer targeted discounts.
Messaging – Refine messaging, collateral for segments showing poor conversions.
Incentives – Shift SPIFFs and commissions towards desired behaviors and outcomes.
Activities – Reduce low-value activities and reallocate time to high-impact ones.
Processes – Identify and fix chokepoints slowing velocity. Enhance hand-offs between teams.
** Tools** – Swap out technology failing to deliver ROI.
Training – Address skill gaps with appropriate coaching and development.

Strive to make improvements at least each quarter to stay ahead. Even the top-tier teams can’t stand still. Consistent optimization is key to maintaining elite status and outcomes.

Keep Customers at the Forefront

When building a high-performing sales team, it’s easy to get caught up in quotas, competitions, and internal metrics. But remember, none of that matters without delighted customers who stay loyal for the long-term. Keep their needs front and center.

Understand Customer Needs and Pain Points

Equip your sales reps to truly comprehend customer challenges, goals, and desires:

Personas – Create detailed buyer personas based on real data to map motivations and pain points.
Empathy training – Teach reps to listen fully and perceive issues from the customer’s perspective.
Questioning skills – Ask insightful questions to uncover the root problems vs. surface symptoms.
Active listening – Let customers do most of the talking during sales discussions to learn what matters.
Research – Study your clients’ industries and scenarios to relate better to their realities.

When reps grasp customers’ worlds, they gain credibility and trust. This leads to long and successful partnerships.

Provide White-Glove Service and Support

Deliver exceptional experiences that exceed expectations:

Onboarding – Walk customers through getting set up, addressing concerns. Make it easy and pleasant.
Education – Proactively inform and train customers on getting the most from your product.
Success planning – Define key milestones and results customers aim to achieve. Craft plans to reach them.
Check-ins – Consistent cadence for contacting customers to assess satisfaction, address issues, offer guidance.
Evolution – As needs change, collaborate with customers on opportunities to increase value.
Appreciation – Send thank you notes, small gifts, gestures to show you value the relationship.
Advocacy – Rally internal teams to deliver for important clients when special handling is needed.

When customers feel important, appreciated and supported, loyalty naturally follows. They become fans!

Seek Customer Feedback and Testimonials

Solicit input through:

Surveys – Periodic satisfaction surveys give quantifiable data on health of the relationship and areas for improvement.
Reviews – Monitoring online reviews provides candid feedback on customer sentiment. Address negatives quickly.
Interviews – Have sales or CX reps conduct QBRs and interviews to uncover deeper, nuanced feedback.
Communities – Host online communities for idea exchange and requirements gathering.
Testimonials – Gather compelling advocate stories and success metrics that can be used in your marketing.

Customers provide the most genuine perspective on how you’re doing and where you can progress. Let their voice guide your path forward.

By mastering these three customer-centric competencies, your elite sales team builds bonds that translate into an unbreakable competitive advantage.

Key Takeaways

Building a high-performing sales team takes work, but pays dividends through increased revenue, market share, and long-term customer relationships. Keep these best practices in mind:

Define roles and goals that align to company objectives and facilitate accountability. Divide territories and segments strategically.
Recruit top talent by identifying must-have sales skills and competencies. Offer competitive compensation and growth opportunities.
Enable with technology like CRM, sales engagement tools, and data analytics for insights.
Train continually via onboarding, ongoing learning, manager coaching, and peer mentoring.
Motivate peak performance via competitions, variable pay, recognition, rewards and a collaborative team culture.
Optimize through data by tracking KPIs, uncovering trends and areas for improvement. Adjust strategies and investments accordingly.
Focus on customers by understanding needs, delivering exceptional service, and soliciting feedback.

With the right structure, people, technology and processes in place, your sales team will gain an elite edge and drive consistent revenue growth. Use these tips to build a sales force that dominates your market.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most important factors in building a high-performing sales team?

The key factors are hiring exceptional sales talent, providing training and technology enablement, setting clear goals and expectations, motivating top performance through compensation and recognition, and promoting a collaborative team culture.

How do you structure a sales team effectively?

Common sales team structures include by geography, product line, customer segment, or sales process stage. Choose an approach aligned to your business needs and sales environment. Define territories and accounts appropriately.

What sales skills should you look for when hiring?

Key sales skills include communication, listening, problem-solving, resilience, self-motivation, consultative approach, customer focus, and the ability to build relationships. Assess these competencies thoroughly during the hiring process.

How should you train and enable a sales team?

Robust training should include product knowledge, selling technique, objection handling, account management, team leadership, and software proficiency development. Provide ongoing coaching and manager mentoring.

What technologies boost sales productivity?

CRM for pipeline visibility, sales engagement tools like email sequencers and dialers, analytics for data-driven decisions, and sales operations software. Integrate systems for complete insight.

What sales incentives effectively motivate reps?

Short term incentives like SPIFFs, contests, and accelerators. Rewards and experiences for top performers. Public recognition. Team events and outings. Promotion opportunities. Competitive base plus commission.

What are important sales metrics and KPIs to track?

Core metrics are sales revenue, win rate, conversion rates, deal size, sales activities completed, goal and quota attainment, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, and more. Assess often.

How can sales managers encourage team collaboration?

Foster information sharing, group strategizing, shadowing top reps, sharing wins and losses, peer mentoring, and contributing ideas. Celebrate collective achievements.