How to upskill your sales team in 2024
In the ever-changing world of the TSP industry, the success of your business is heavily dependent on how you adapt to changes and stay ahead of the game. In particular, ensuring that your sales engine is evolving with these constant changes is essential.
Whether you are a team of one or have a well-developed sales organization, here are some actionable tips you can take to help upskill and prepare your sales engines for success.
Leverage training and coaching sessions
A new year means new sales trends, new products, new ways to talk to consumers, new threats, and more. For your sales teams to be successful, they’ll need continued training on how to take advantage of these changes and turn them into wins.
For that reason, MSPs should consider requiring reps to complete certifications in relevant areas and connect with cyber experts to coach their sales reps on creating opportunities and closing deals from these changes.
Some examples of this would be bringing in an expert from one of your vendors and training your reps on how to sell a new product that you just brought into your portfolio, or hosting more general trainings, such as cybersecurity trends in 2024 and how to capitalize on them. Many vendors even have programs that will regularly provide these trainings for you, such as the ConnectWise Partner Program™.
Have a clear and defined sales process for your team to follow
No matter how large or small your sales team is, having a clear and defined process for them to follow is essential for the success of the reps and your TSP. It’s important for your sales team to have a defined set of steps that align with how your clients move through their buyer journey, ensuring that your reps know how to manage the opportunity at every step—from prospecting to a closed deal and beyond.
A sales framework should be documented and standardized for your team in the same way you document processes for your service delivery teams. In sales, there are well defined frameworks and processes from Sandler Sales, MEDDIC, Miller Heiman, and many others. The intent is to align expectations for your team and the prospect to move professionally through the process.
The sales framework allows for structure and clarity of deal and pipeline management for your team. It can be a simple as understanding a few key points (MEDDIC):
- Why are they looking to buy now?
- Who decides?
- Why are they considering our company?
While these may seem simple, not having clarity on these will impact your team’s ability to close business. You’ve probably witnessed a sales person that came back from a prospect meeting, very excited and stating the deal is done once they send the quote, and then they never hear from the prospect again (ghosted). Adding structure, metrics, and clear expectations will help your team win more business while reducing the time they spend on non-productive opportunities.
B2B companies with a formalized sales process saw 18% more revenue growth than those who did not have a process in place for reps to follow. If you don’t have a process in place, or if you feel your process could be refined, get started now before the new year!
Invest in a high-quality CRM
Although implementing a CRM may seem like just another tool to add to the long list of to-dos for your reps, it’s truly the key to maintaining relationships as your business grows and becomes more complex. Having a CRM offers an abundance of benefits to a sales-led organization, such as allowing reps to access information on-demand in one place, helping all client-facing roles stay organized and informed on the status of deals or accounts, and even improving your sales process. With a good CRM, reps will never forget how they initially contacted a prospect or when the last time they spoke with a client is, because that information is all automatically logged in the CRM system. And operations can be streamlined even further with a professional service automation software that connects your business end-to-end, such as ConnectWise PSA™.
Ensure sales and marketing collaborate
Sales and marketing go hand-in-hand to help each other be more successful, so it’s important that efforts in each area should work in tandem, as the goal of both teams is really to drive revenue in the end. As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that marketing comes before sales. We can debate that later.
With that being said, some key areas where marketing and sales can really come together are content and events. If there are trends your reps are seeing while selling, like compliance in certain industries, consider hosting an educational webinar or creating an info sheet that you can provide to prospects and clients that would help inform them of why they need your services.
For example, we have seen TSPs who have clients in the finance or real estate industries host educational events around cybersecurity insurance to ensure their clients are staying compliant with industry requirements. Additionally, many of our partners utilize content on HIPPA to inform SMBs in the healthcare spaces on what cybersecurity solutions they need to have in place to be compliant and secure.
Upskill your sales team with the ConnectWise Partner Program
While there are many things you can do to help upskill your sales team, it can be challenging to devote the time and resources necessary to do so. The ConnectWise Partner Program offers support, resources, training, and industry expertise tailored to help increase cybersecurity success. Learn more about how you can benefit from the Partner Program when you visit our website.
