How to structure your sales operation for success

Depending on your startup goals, success can look different from one startup to the next. To some Founders it is revenue, profitability, customer satisfaction, employee retention or cultural change.

Despite the difference in the goals, the measurement of startup success can be defined by three categories.

  1. Sales strategy implementation
  2. Structuring your team to facilitate growth
  3. Onboarding process and adoption.

Sales strategy implementation

The implementation consists of a plan with the right focus, measurement, and discipline.

Crafting a winning sales strategy is the first step towards gaining clarity around how to deliver predictable revenue at your startup and, more importantly, how to do it quickly.

Without a strategy, sales teams and leaders make decisions based on what is best at the moment and fail to consider the big picture. In the current state of flux, your proposition, people and processes will be the thing that sets your startup apart from the competition.

The sales strategy requires input from the core team including: leadership, product, sales, marketing and customer success.

Structuring your team to facilitate growth

Once you are clear on your vision for the business and your sales strategy, you can start to communicate the plan to your employees and create a culture that supports and enhances this growth of a sales operation.

Once your team members are behind your growth strategy and it’s built into your company culture, it will be easier to grow and structure your team accordingly.

Companies that address their organisational weaknesses as they implement growth strategies give themselves an advantage when building sales operations.

Onboarding process and adoption

Don’t underestimate the importance of a solid onboarding process.

Onboarding is a prime opportunity for your business to set clear expectations for every new hire from the start. Good habits and a consistent, high quality approach should be established from day one with a uniform training schedule for both new and retained employees.

Setting clear expectations and committing to reviewing them regularly, enables you to get the most out of your employees. I’m sure we are all aware that under uncertain circumstances, employees are prone to jump to potentially damaging conclusions and may leave the company prematurely.

To sustain your scaling business you need to both trust and inspire your team to reach their goals and invest in the overall company mission. This should look something like balancing the right level of motivation and healthy competition amongst employees. What works for one will not work for the other, so your structure needs to accommodate all. One team may be driven by competition, another by commission and another by collectively achieving sales goals.

Find out more about how Sales for Startups builds successful sales operations for B2B Tech Founders by downloading our Winning sales strategy guide or booking a call with James Ker-Reid.

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