5 Strategies to Increase Sales Performance

In the end, it all comes back to sales. Whatever your product or service, the ability to sell it is the ultimate goal, enabling your business to profit, expand, recruit and advance into the marketplace. You might trust your team’s intentions and attitude. But for many business leaders, there are barriers to improved sales. Perhaps the day-to-day demands of the business are stopping you focusing on sales strategies and new initiatives. Perhaps there’s a lack of business processes which restricts your sales data analysis. Or maybe your current resources and team structure are halting the strategic shift needed to smash the glass ceiling.

That’s where Firestarter comes in. For the last 10 years, our sales improvement consultants have supplied the people, skills and tools to improve your bottom line. We work with businesses from multi-national corporations (who need extra bandwidth and support to redirect their sales strategy) to smaller operations (who are over-dependent on a handful of key individuals). With a full suite of made-to-measure services, we’ll get stuck in with the necessary resource to put Firestarter’s guiding concept of rhythm and rigour at the heart of your business, driving sales now and into the future.

Here are 5 strategies you can undergo to increase sales performance.

Ideas to improve sales performance

1. Identify the problem

When analysing how to improve company sales performance, it pays to be objective and pinpoint the issues holding you back. This could be clear-cut: do you need to retrain your sales team, for example, or sharpen your proposition planning? Or could there be more complex operational challenges, like a lack of ‘clean lines’ that means the sales process is disjointed and individual-led, instead of unified and company-wide? If you’re too close to spot the problem, turn to Firestarter’s sales improvement consultants. We’ll start with a deep company assessment that identifies the unique issues limiting your sales performance, then suggest the bespoke services to help you move forwards.

2. Take the pressure off key individuals

At Firestarter, we’ve seen many businesses struggle to deliver their sales potential by relying on the CEO and other senior staff to take charge of the sales leadership and performance (alongside their other duties). This dependence on a handful of key members might seem the only option when there’s no budget to recruit a dedicated sales director. But Firestarter’s sales performance management consulting has another solution to relieve this pressure, embedding our experts in your team – typically for between six months and two years – giving you the additional horsepower you need and helping establish a sales process that is structured, logical, effective, scalable and repeatable. Rest assured, we’ll leave you with the team structures, methods and culture that mean new hires fall into step with your new-found rhythm and rigour.

3. Rhythm and rigour beats one big push

An effective sales strategy doesn’t mean a short-term drive that leaves your team exhausted and demoralised. At Firestarter, we believe in selling as a continuum and you’ll often hear our sales improvement consultants talk about ‘rhythm and rigour’: this core philosophy focuses on the concept of ‘little and often’ with regular and consistent actions to deliver results. Get in touch and we’ll show you how to embed the discipline and structure needed to keep your sales team focused on regular ‘inputs’ that will drive consistent growth in your sales pipeline, meaning you’ll always thrive, whatever the future throws at you.

4. ‘Grip’ the stales tools at your fingertips

When it comes to sales performance, knowledge is power. Plenty of CEOs try CRM systems and data analytics tools like Salesforce – but don’t have time to learn the deeper functionality or interpret the data correctly, which can often create additional problems. At Firestarter, our sales strategy consulting helps you ‘grip’ your sales data and analysis tools, helping your business harness data more effectively and feed this into an ongoing sales strategy. From gap analysis to spotting current opportunities and crunching target figures – we’ll go as far and deep as you like, whether that’s daily managing and reporting on your team, or becoming your long-term sales performance consultant.

5. Try Firestarter’s three flexible service options

Your business is unique, and at Firestarter, our flexible service options ensure every customer can improve their sales performance on their terms. For an efficient and highly effective solution, the Firestarter Academy provides a range of online training courses that will get you up to speed fast. From Better Business Development to Effective Sales Management or Practical Business Planning, each course covers five key modules in five weeks, with a combination of group activities and 1:1 sessions to deliver the key skills you need to take your business forward . Alternatively, our range of standalone facilitation products provide the ultimate in flexibility, letting you pick the most relevant services, from sales management to proposition development or strategic planning.

Or, to really harness Firestarter’s complete sales performance management consulting, try the full Firestarter Programme, with a customised selection of sales performance modules built around you. With senior level, hands-on tactical and strategic support over a longer period of time, we’ll deliver a blend of services to guarantee progress and remove dependency on key individuals. With processes including senior grip, sales proposition development, sales process improvement and organisational development, we’ll even plug in the additional resource you need to ensure that activity happens week in, week out. It’s your proven path to sales performance improvement that evolves alongside you – and ROI you can see in your books.

Firestarter’s team is ready to ignite your sales performance. Get in touch today and let’s get started.