Building the Best Sales Team to Grow Your Agency

Want to know what you need to do to build the best sales team to grow your agency and bring in new clients? Looking for a new cold call strategy? I’ve got all you need to know.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Understanding and overcoming common sales team problems.
• A NO FAIL cold call strategy for agencies.
• Building the best sales team: finding, hiring, managing, and paying them.
• #1 tip for crushing your sales goals.

My guest on today’s show is Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer. Wes spent a decade in the Air Force and another in commissioned sales before starting his business as a sales coach and trainer. He shares some great tips for cold calling, as well as strategies for hiring and managing great sales people. His advice is totally practical and will help you develop a killer sales outbound strategy.

Common Sales Team Problems

Wes says most salespeople don’t fully understand the value of the resources and expertise they bring to the table. This causes 2 major issues:

1. Discounting prices – Salespeople undervalue the service they represent and are therefore willing to discount the sale price. Doing this conveys a bargain mentality and undercuts the agency’s level of authority, which also destroys the client’s confidence.
2. Talking too much – Similarly, salespeople who undervalue their agency also end up overcompensating by talking too much, instead of listening. If you’re talking instead of listening you aren’t hearing the needs of your prospect. You can’t fix problems if you aren’t hearing them.

Wes used the example of a heart surgeon: The surgeon is selling heart surgery but he doesn’t have all the answers, he is connected to a team and has confidence that together they can solve the problem. He has confidence in his team of MRI techs, anesthesiologists, etc. He knows he is connected to all the right people to solve his patients’ problems.

The solution for the best sales team for your agency: Sell on the fact that you are connected to all the best people in the industry. Be confident in the value that you represent and the fact that your team can solve the challenges and problems your clients face. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Be the best sales team out there.

A No-Fail Cold Call Strategy for Agencies

People say the old-school cold call is dead but Wes says in B2B, it’s still alive and well. For a successful cold call, you need to find a common connection or mutual relationship – someone or something they know or heard of – then use that as your opening.

Define your dream 100 list and go for it. If you can’t find mutual interest to get a foot in the door, you will have to go old school which can be hard in our technology driven society, BUT…

[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t let your prospect hide behind voicemail, caller ID and email with this strategy.” quote=”Don’t let your prospect hide behind voicemail, caller ID and email with this strategy.”]

You’ll get the best response from a multi-media, multi-touch approach and circle them like a shark.

Develop a nurture series of reaching them via email, voicemail and social media, such as LinkedIn or other industry social communities.

Do your homework first.

Know WHO you’re talking to, WHAT they’re doing and HOW they’re doing it. In your multi-media messages cite case studies and specific examples of what you understand their challenges to be and how you are equipped to solve them.

Create a series of messages (voice, social and email) that are on-point and provide specific information. These can be scripted and follow a template, but you must customize them for this specific prospect. No one wants to hear a generic speech or receive a form letter. Say things like: “I’ll call you at 10AM on Tuesday” then actually follow-up on at that exact day/time.

Using this strategy you will prove that you are unique, thorough, consistent, creative and professional… a refreshing change from the usual cold calls they get.

Do’s and Don’ts for a great initial call:

• Don’t hit them over the head with everything your agency has done and can do. Listen to what they need and determine how you can help meet those needs.
• Do be calm and collected. Speak as though you are talking to your friend or neighbor, not like you’re speaking to someone who’s about to hang up on you 🙂
• Don’t bombard them with a bunch of stats and facts about you. Initial calls aren’t about you – they’re about them.
• Do more listening than talking. This is the best way to understand their issues and figure out how your can help solve them. Remember, whoever talks the most loses.
• Don’t insult. If you looked at their site and think it’s crappy, keep it to yourself. No good can come when your prospect is immediately put on the defensive.
• Do compliment their current digital advertising. Tell them how great their site is and comment on how well it must be performing. Let them tell you what’s not working.

Finding, Hiring & Paying Great Salespeople

Always, always be recruiting. Don’t just look for great sales people when you have the need but focus on building the best sales team for your agency. Keep your eyes open and notice great skill when you see it. Just like college football recruiters, make room for an all-star even if you aren’t in need of one at the time.

To find exactly the right candidate, write an ad with some specific instructions on how to apply. This weeds out the people who can’t follow direction. To further screen people, put them through a really rigorous process and see how much they push back, even respond to their interview answers with “that was a terrible response” just to see if they’ll take it or defend themselves. Little things like this can give you real insight into their personality type.

When hiring salespeople be clear on duties, expectations and how you’ll measure success. In general, a salesperson should prospect, qualify and build relationships but the agency owner is the best closer.

#1 Tips for Crushing Sales Goals

Wes’s best advice is to manage activity and pay on results.

He says to start by breaking down the numbers. Know your annual sales goal and back out what that means monthly, weekly and daily. Also, track and measure your pipeline in 5-6 stages and know how many prospects you need in each stage to stay on target.

Manage sales activity by knowing how many prospects are in each stage of the pipeline at all times. Pay your sales team based on actual conversions. For an example Account Manager commission structure, check out my #AskSwenk advice here.

Agency Tools You Need to Check Out…

There’s a couple pretty fantastic tools that all agency owners need to check out with some amazing deals just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners…

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It’s cloud-based software allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Cashflow or bookkeeping issues? FreshBooks is the solution. FreshBooks makes ridiculously easy­ to ­use cloud accounting software for agencies that will help you work smarter, become more organized, and most importantly, get you paid quickly.

Check out FreshBooks.com/SmartAgency and enter SMARTAGENCY in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” section for a FREE 30-day, unrestricted trial.

What Are Your Agency Concerns?

So we’ve covered how you can build the best sales team for your agency but these might not be the only concerns you have for your business.

It doesn’t matter if you have been an agency owner for a while now or have just taken the leap and started a new agency, I have covered topics from the struggles you may face within your agency to leveraging Youtube in your marketing for your agency marketing strategy.

Learn more about me or you can check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

Are videos more your thing?  Don’t worry! You can check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.