7 Sales Leaders' Insights for Crushing Your Quota

Great sales leaders are made, not born. And the lessons they’ve learned along the way can be invaluable as you work to improve your sales process and increase the performance of your sales teams. Read on to see how sales leaders from Hewlett Packard, Corning, Wincor Nixdorf, Microsoft, and New Belgium Brewing Company motivate their teams to succeed, how they keep process running strong, and ultimately, how they crush their quotas.

Motivation
According to CSO Insights, only 54.4% of sales reps will make quota in 2015. Rick Hanson, VP of Worldwide Sales at Hewlett Packard, talks about how he used a new approach to sales contests, created by Adam Hollander from FantasySalesTeam, to motivate his sales reps:

Collaboration
Only 18.4% of companies use dynamic sales processes, according to CSO Insights. It’s one of the ways that team members can collaborate—and crush their quotas. According to Kai Klatt, head of Sales Excellence at Wincor Nixdorf: 

Process
Only 28% of sales managers see process as “important,” according to CSO Insights. Stuart Hoiness, SVP of Enterprise Networks at Corning Incorporated, talks about the need to use consistent, defined sales processes:

Leadership

Less than 10% of sales managers “exceed expectations,” according to CSO Insights. Is there a lack of skilled leadership in your sales organization? Esther Christoffersen, Global Industry marketing lead at Microsoft, shares her thoughts on what makes an effective leader:

Win rates

Less than one-quarter of all sales teams have win rates above 60%. Joe Menetre, VP of Sales at the New Belgium Brewing Company, knows what it takes to win:

Coaching

Only 25% of sales managers make it a priority to help their reps reach powerful decision makers. And while going after the right decision maker is certainly key, Hayden Stafford, VP of Global Enterprise Sales at Microsoft, wants his sales managers to push their teams in another way: 

Sales effectiveness

According to the latest research, only 8.6% of sales effectiveness initiatives met or exceeded expectations. Barry Trailer, Research Fellow at CSO Insights, who compiled this data, has this to say about how to become part of that 8.6%:

Mentorship

Managers spend less than 50% of their time selling with and coaching their sales reps. Adam Hollander, founder of FantasySalesTeam from Microsoft, encourages a leadership mindset that can help sales leaders inspire teams to crush their quotas.

Turnover

Sales teams experience a yearly 18.5% turnover rate. Joe Menetre at New Belgium Brewing Company discusses how to deal with turnover—by putting the right systems in place to minimize its impact:

In conclusion

No matter how great sales teams are, leaders know there is always room for improvement. Start by scoring your sales process maturity with the CSO Insights whitepaper. Then check out the webcast from FantasySalesTeam CEO Adam Hollander to learn how to build a more effective sales contest that can motivate the middle 50% of your sales reps.  

Chris Hare

See more articles from this author