What Is Team Selling – And How Do You Utilise It?
As Michael Jordan famously said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”.
Team selling is a powerful opportunity when used correctly and can bring great results to your business and sales efforts.
But what is team selling? And how does it work?
In this article, we’ll look at:
- What is team selling?
- How does team selling work?
- Who should be involved in your group?
- The planning involved prior to your team selling efforts.
What Is Team Selling – And How Do You Utilise It?
What Is Team Selling?
Team selling is the act of working with other departments or team members, to coordinate an approach together to close more sales.
Depending on your business size, there may be people within your organisation that can help you win a particular client; depending on their skill sets, experience, or relationships with the prospect that may be able to be leveraged.
When various departments get together to leverage their individual skills to close a sale; this is called team selling.
How Does Team Selling Work?
As mentioned, various members of your organisation may have unique abilities that can be leveraged to close the sale.
The way team selling works, is everyone needs to be transparent regarding who you’re targeting for the sale.
Does anyone within your organisation know the individuals you’ll be speaking with? If so – what do they know about them from a rapport building/ intelligence point of view?
Perhaps a past of your sales process involves presenting your idea via PowerPoint or something similar? If so; who on your team has excellent design skills that can help you craft a presentation to win the sale?
When a number of team members work together to close the sale, you have a great recipe for team selling towards a common goal.
Alignment within different departments is crucial to your business’s success.
Who Should Be Involved In Your Group?
When team selling, you’ll need to put together a group of like-minded individuals who are keen to win the sale.
This way, everyone will put their equal effort into wanting to win the sale, because they’ll all be aligned and understand its importance.
The trick to understanding who should be involved in your group for team selling, is to understand the key strengths of your team before you start meeting with prospective clients.
- Who knows the prospect you’re meeting with?
- Can anyone on the team craft up the material for the presentation?
- Have you got information about what may be affecting the industry that your prospect sits in; and what pain points you can solve that they may be facing?
- If so – who on your team may know this information, or who can you contact for this information?
It’s also crucial to ensure when team selling, that marketing and sales are both aligned with the same goals and outcomes.
As per this article on Hubspot, misalignment between sales and marketing technologies and processes costs B2B companies 10% of revenue or more per year.
Furthermore – is there anyone from management that can help train and coach staff with their sales efforts, to land the sale on a consistent basis?
Sales training is a crucial part of the team selling ecosystem, because when everyone knows how to sell – everyone moves in alignment.
Related article: 5 X benefits of online sales training
What Should You Do Prior To Your Team Selling Efforts?
Prior to arranging your multi-department efforts, you’ll need to focus on three key factors.
Firstly, you’ll need to identify your potential clients (prospects) and figure out who on your team can help as a team to bring them on as clients.
Who knows them, their industry, or has tools and expertise to help you towards the sale?
Secondly, ensure marketing and sales are aligned. A good and important step is ensuring everyone is across the marketing plan, and what their tactics and strategies are.
Does your company have a sales strategy in place? Make sure people involve din your team selling activities are across the sales strategy, so they can all work together by complimenting it with their unique and leveraged skills.
Related article: Marketing strategy 101 – what you need to know
Related article: Sales targeting strategy – your complete guide
Final Thoughts
Team selling is an excellent opportunity for people within your organisation, to come and work together for a common goal – which is winning the sale and serving more clients.
A great activity for you to do now, is think about who within your organisation can help you be a part of your united activities activities?
What unique skills, experience, or network can be leveraged for more sales?
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
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