In my role as an Outsourced VP of Sales, I work with clients and their sales teams on how to improve sales. Surprisingly, I find there seems to be a shortfall of sales teams who are asked and honestly answer these two key questions:
- When we WIN – Why do we Win?
- When we LOSE – Why do we Lose?
As a best practice – taking just 15-20 minutes in your team meetings to reflect on these two questions – can pay dividends beyond your wildest dreams!
True Sales Excellence comes from a full 360° vision of your business. This includes your sales team stopping to gather and share critical data on a regular basis – every month or quarter.
Knowing why we WIN:
This is key to True Sales Excellence for the team. As a sales tool, sharing this data openly among the sales team allows for other sales team members to learn from successful sales engagements – and then quickly replicate them in a specific vertical market or segment. Also, you have the ability to give other company teams great feedback on what’s working and the sales strategies that are driving results!
Knowing why we LOSE:
This feedback is even more strategic. Wouldn’t you like to keep your sales team out of deals they don’t belong in – early and quickly? You bet! Knowing why we lost the opportunity is just as critical as an ongoing sales training tool and sales excellence metric. Again, you have the opportunity to share this key data with other company teams that support your sales team on engagements.
So, always ask the sales team these two questions: “When we Win – Why do we Win?” … ”When we Lose – Why do we Lose?”
What you hear will be worth its weight in gold!
