One of the best things about working in sales ops is that you get to do new things all the time. If you enjoy a challenge, you’re unlikely to get bored in sales ops.
But the fact that you’re doing new things all the time can also be one of the worst parts of a job in sales ops. On occasion, everyone in sales ops receives assignments that they really don’t know how to tackle. And if you’re new to the job or part of a small team, it can feel overwhelming.
As a SellingBrew Playbook subscriber, however, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time a new challenge pops up. We have a host of resources that show how other B2B firms have handled similar issues. These best practices guides are a great place to get started when you really have no idea where to begin.
And to make things even easier, we’ve put together a list of some of the common questions sales ops folks face and the best resources for finding answers to those questions:
- How do we come up with a strategy to improve customer retention? The training webinar How to Retain Your Key Customers offers seven proven strategies that leading B2B companies are using to keep and grow their current accounts.
- How do we equip the sales team to do a better job in negotiations? Negotiation is a perennial issue for sales teams. The Negotiating Profitable Deals webinar can walk your team through the basics and help them counter the tactics procurement staff use to drive down prices.
- How do we pinpoint where we can optimize our sales funnel? Watch How to Optimize Your Sales Funnel to learn how small tweaks can lead to big performance boosts. It will teach you how to visualize your sales process as a system and how to locate opportunities for improvements.
- How do we design a sales comp plan that we won’t regret down the road? Your sales comp plan is one of the most effective tools you have for modifying the behavior of your sales reps, so make sure you’re getting it right. The express guide to Designing Sales Comp Plans That Actually Work gives you ten things to think about when creating or modifying your pay structure.
- How do we demonstrate results of the sales ops function? Sales ops is a relatively new function at many B2B firms, which means that many sales ops teams find it necessary to prove their worth. Demonstrating the Value of Sales Operations explains how to quantify your contribution and effectively communicate it to the rest of the firm.
- How do we determine the sales metrics that we should be analyzing? You could measure literally hundreds of different things related to your sales process. The express guide to Sales Metrics Sales Leaders Should Be Managing explains which ones really matter
- How do we develop sales tools and messaging that will help sales win more often? Just because your internal people think a given message is great doesn’t mean that it will be effective with prospects and customers. The Crafting Effective Strategic Value Messages explains how to create a message that will not only resonate with your prospects but also move them buy.
- How do we grow sales with the customers we already have? Increasing your wallet share with current customers is often a more efficient way to increase revenue than going after brand new prospects. The Generating More Sales from Existing Customers webinar details what leading firms are doing to capture more of their customers’ business.
- How do we respond correctly to our competitors? It’s not enough to say that your product is the best—you have to prove it by showing exactly how your solution tops the competition. The tutorial How to Develop Real Competitive ‘Kill Sheets’ gives step-by-step instructions for arming your sales team with a kill sheet that will help them win more deals.
- How do we diagnose the right steps to improve our sales close rates? Increasing the win rate is at the top of the to-do list for most sales teams. Check out How to Improve Your Close Rates for proven strategies and tactics that other B2B teams have used to close more sales.
How to Retain Your Key Customers
When you lose business from existing accounts, the sales team must acquire even more new business to compensate. In this on-demand training session, learn about seven innovative strategies leading sales operations are using to minimize revenue attrition and customer defection.
Negotiating Profitable Deals
Everything comes to a head when your sales team negotiates a deal. You want to win, but you don't want to leave money on the table. So, how do you help your sales team to become better negotiators, so they win the deals they should, at the right price?
How to Optimize Your Sales Funnel
With so many different variables involved, improving sales performance across the board and at-scale can seem like a daunting task. But with a different perspective on your sales funnel, you can generate huge improvements much more easily and with far less risk.
Designing Sales Comp Plans That Actually Work
For driving salesperson behavior, your sales comp plan is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. But any incentive you offer can have disastrous unintended consequences. In this guide, learn about four pitfalls to avoid and ten things to consider when designing your comp plan.
Demonstrating the Value of Sales Operations
As a relative newcomer on the corporate landscape, Sales Ops often struggles to secure resources and investment. In this on-demand webinar, learn about quantifying and communicating the impact and contribution of your Sales Operations team.
The Metrics Sales Leaders Should Be Managing
You need to track and manage sales metrics, but which metrics are the most important? In this guide based on research from Vantage Point Performance and the Sales Education Foundation, Jason Jordan reveals the ones that really matter.
Crafting Effective Strategic Value Messages
This tutorial shows you how to get beyond the platitudes and develop compelling messages that highlight your differential value.
Generating More Sales from Existing Customers
Many B2B companies struggle to identify untapped sales opportunities and maximize revenue from the customers they've already acquired. In this four-part recorded training session, learn what leading sales operations are doing differently to grow share-of-wallet with existing customers.
How to Develop Real Competitive "Kill Sheets"
Competitive kill sheets are a great tool to help salespeople in the field. But most so-called kill sheets are nothing more than glorified competitive profiles. In this concise tutorial, learn how to develop real, strategic competitive kill sheets that highlight and reinforce the competitive differences that actually matter to prospects.
How to Improve Your Close Rates
Trial and error with something as important as your close rates is risky. How do you know which strategies and tactics you should use to improve? In this on-demand training webinar, learn effective strategies and tactics for improving your sales team's ability to win---at scale and with less risk.
