3 ways your sales organization can shift toward agile methodology
With increasing frequency, customers are looking to buy from trusted advisors who bring experience and knowledge in addition to their product or service. As a result, the sales process is rapidly evolving, and sales organizations are realizing that a collaborative approach best serves their customers.
Mirroring a software development approach, agile sales breaks rigidity and focuses the process on shorter iterative goals. The approach empowers sellers to collaborate within their team and with other parts of the organization, focusing on solving their customers’ problems.
Adopting the agile methodology requires buy-in throughout the organization and a significant cultural shift. Here are 3 ways you can begin that process:
Initiate daily standup meetings
Daily standup meetings align goals, create accountability, and foster a collaborative culture. They provides opportunities for the sales teams to initiate in-person discussions and build meaningful relationships.
A standup takes about 10-15 minutes and each team member is asked 3 primary questions:
- What goals did you accomplish yesterday?
- What are your plans today?
- What do you need to in order to be more productive?
Meetings should be short and remain focused, but members should be encouraged to continue conversations afterwards.
Divide large objectives into smaller milestones
Break long-term objectives into specific goals that can be achieved in 2-6 weeks, giving team members a sense of accomplishment as they meet their milestones. This ‘sprint’ approach provides opportunities to course correct, allowing your team to adapt to changes.
For instance, your sales team might aim to close a 1K new accounts within the next 6 months. This objective can be broken down into first achieving 10K leads which can then be divided into weekly cold calls and monthly conference visits. You might then split your cold calls by industry and first start with collecting contact information.
Ideally, each sprint details a specific objective that is discussed in advance between manager and employee. Sprints can increase the quality of deliverables and help employees deal with change.
Collaborate with marketing and beyond
A single sales person likely can’t provide all the expertise a customer needs. But a collaborative approach can pull in the right resources to maximize the customer relationship.
Designing sprints and conducting daily standups create opportunities for personal interaction within the sales team. However, collaboration with marketing, product, and other groups is essential too. This can be fostered through:
- Cross-functional meetings/socials: engaging with other groups helps build relationships and empowers your sales team to communicate across the organization for help
- Focused content management: a central repository where sales presentations and other knowledge is curated helps ensure all groups are aligned; encourage feedback to continuously optimize content
