Why Sales Productivity is Critical for Company Growth

If you are sick of wasting time placing dozens of cold calls, emails, and scanning lists, it is time for your business to consider its sales productivity.  

If you are focused on revenue growth like most SMB companies, industry trends and analysts will tell you: change is necessary. Forbes and Brainshark found C-Level executives, in particular, to know that sales productivity is paramount to enabling a company to grow; around 70% ranked it as critically important. 

Product Research

Product research is an easy feat to tackle these days. Sales teams cannot afford to sit back and pretend it was 10-20 years ago.

Influencers and decision-makers are solving their own problems, answering their own questions, and making their own decisions about who is worth talking to using resources such as:

• Search Engines
• Blogs
• Webinars
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• SlideShare
• Podcasts

Pretending as if this isn’t happening is ridiculous and akin to an ostrich burying its head in the sand when it feels threatened.

The modern buyer can get information about your product, price, and competitors even if they are not getting it from your website. The question is: What value do sales professionals still have?

Trusted Advisor Status

The goal of all sales professionals should be to figure out a way to get trusted advisor status. It is not enough to simply think you have trusted advisor status; the sales opportunities you are working with, and your clients need to see you as a trusted advisor. If you think you have trusted advisor status, you need to validate it to ensure your content for buyer personas and where they are in the buyer’s journey supports this.

The goal with all of this is for the salesperson to become the buyer’s subject matter expert. The salesperson must position themselves as a trusted advisor, add value to become a leader in their space and anticipate the buyer’s next move.

Ultimately, people buy from people they trust; scale education, and scale trust building. If you follow the new sales methodology, you will become a trusted advisor in no time.

Positioning Yourself to Build Trust

Nobody is getting up at 2 a.m. in a cold sweat, worrying about whether they are talking enough to salespeople.

Your sales job title should be seen as nearing extinction. Think about what is in your email signature, on your business cards, and on your social media accounts. There are so many synonyms to be used in lieu of sales that are much more effective than branding yourself as a sales professional.

The synonym you use should reflect the actual value you add as opposed to the value you are demanding. Synonyms include:

• Advisor
• Consultant
• Expert
• Counselor
• Specialist

How is your company tackling sales productivity? Is your sales strategy meeting your revenue goals? Let us know in the Comments below. 

To learn more about sales productivity, the modern buyer’s journey, and how to position yourself and sales teams as leaders, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.