Unleashing the Hunters: A Manager's Guide to Building a Thriving New Business Team

As a sales manager, you know the importance of a strong new business pipeline. But how do you transform your team from order takers to assertive hunters, consistently closing deals and driving growth?

One of the most important first steps is understanding your team.

Understanding your team’s talents and how they work with your managerial talents is one of the most effective ways to know what you have and how to press the levers of talents to get the most out of your team.

A predictive assessment that can give you insights by job role into the talents of each seller and candidate can provide powerful insights into innate ability, and that does include hunter vs. farmer sales roles.

Sharpening the Hunter's Toolkit: Essential Tools & Skills

• Sales Playbook: A sales playbook is an essential tool to ensure that all your sellers are selling at the level you expect, with documentation for every step and stage in the sales process. A sales playbook should be rich with talk tracks, battle cards, company values and benefits, expectations for CRM usage, sales process, and follow-up.

• Prospecting Prowess: Help your team master the art of identifying and qualifying high-potential leads. Techniques like social selling, industry research, and attending relevant events can fill their prospecting funnel.

• Value Storytelling: Equip them to craft compelling narratives that showcase your product/service's unique value proposition and impact on the prospect's business.

• Depth of Contact: Encourage your sellers to continue after they find a buyer and to grow the depth of contact within an organization.

• Objection Obliteration: Prepare them to anticipate and effectively address potential objections with clear, confident responses that move the deal forward. Role-playing exercises can hone their objection-handling skills.

• Building Rapport: Successful salespeople connect with prospects on a human level. Encourage your team to actively listen, build rapport, and understand the prospect's specific needs and challenges.

Leading the Hunt: Strategies for Success

• Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Collaborate with your team to create a clear picture of your ideal customer – their industry, size, pain points, etc. – to guide prospecting efforts.

• Set SMART Goals: Establish Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals for prospecting activities and lead generation. This provides a clear roadmap and motivates the team. This also eliminates uncertainty in expectations. Revisit these SMART goals with your sellers 1/1 weekly.

• Embrace Technology: Leverage Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and sales automation platforms to streamline prospecting tasks, track progress, and measure results.

• Coaching and Mentorship: Invest time in ongoing coaching and mentorship sessions. Share best practices, offer constructive feedback, and celebrate wins to keep your team motivated.

Fueling the Fire: Fostering a Hunting Mindset

• Celebrate the Journey, not just the Close: Acknowledge and appreciate the hard work invested in prospecting activities, not just closed deals. This reinforces the importance of consistent effort.

• Meaningful Activity that Matters: For example, setting reasonable and attainable goals for sellers and tracking activity that matters. Ensure your sellers are being productive and not just busy.

• Knowledge is Power: Encourage continuous learning. Share industry trends, competitor insights, and successful prospecting case studies to keep your team informed and inspired.

• Adaptability: The ability to adapt to situations that arise in the sales process is crucial for successful sellers.

Conclusion