CEO Stories 092: How to Build a Sales Team

Want to make more sales? Maybe you need multiple salespeople on your team. For Kelly Roach, it’s been invaluable as she built a business both online and offline. She shares her insights on building a solid sales team to increase her client pipeline and her consistent revenue. The hybrid model of building online and offline is key to Kelly.   Kelly says the biggest problem is that people do not talk to the current customers, talk to their past customers, or touch base with the warm leads that did not buy anything but showed interest. The quickest way to build your business is to talk to the current people that you have.  Build true relationships so that they refer you to another client. Put on the calendar one hour a week for you or your team to follow up with your inner circle for referrals and up sales.   The people who have already paid you are the most likely people to pay you again. Each team member of Kelly’s has a list that they are responsible for reaching out to.  Custom message, tests, emails, calls, or notes are sent weekly. Do things to surprise and excite people.   You need to make the investments in your customers, even before they make the investment in you. Be human.  Be friendly and enjoyable to talk to while adding value wherever you can. People have people in their audience sphere right now.  Use them to help you innovate and create. Just being a friendly, open, human goes a long way these days.  People want to deal with a confident human being that actually cares.     Her team goes every week business to business to bring by marketing material with a food goodie.  They then follow up with these businesses on a regular basis to make the sale. This helps the balance of in person and online clientele both going strong. You have to be both proactive and reactive.  This means having a balance in your portfolio to adapt to change.   They leverage social media every single day by using podcasting and webinars.   The last two programs that she launched she uses a pop up group on facebook for a 5 day challenge.  It took a lot of stress off the team with little barrier of entry. People are done with the automation.  They want to see you, feel you, and touch you.  It makes the sale. Kelly plans to spend a lot of time in the next year on live streaming.   She built her model around virtual coaching.  Lately her team has been closing a lot of in person business sales that she is able to go in and teach face to face.  It is very refreshing. Each team member has linked in accounts that they are to touch base with, the company sends emails weekly, Kelly speaks weekly, each team member is required to get a certain number of referrals each week, podcasts, and livestreams all help keep the business running. Every year she accesses how many new clients came in, what source brought them in, and how much time they spent in each of those areas.   Every week they go over the top 8 areas of client sourcing.  It helps keep everyone focus on all 8 areas and not just one thing at a time. Be out front and build a team.  Rip down the barriers and get in front of the people in your circle. Leverage live streaming, and then a team will help you grow in scale.