Learning to captain a ship through rough waters is one of the most challenging parts of leading any team, but, as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”
For sales teams, last year’s winning pitch might flop in today’s environment. Customers are facing new problems, and it’s not easy to get someone to approve an expense if their business is trying to cut costs.
For agile leaders, though, these new problems are also opportunities. Sales teams are adapting to the changing market by listening to their customers’ evolving needs and adjusting their messaging — and even product offerings — accordingly. They are tearing down internal silos to share resources between team members so everyone can succeed. They are also keeping up-to-date with the cutting edge of industry trends and leveraging data to get a better understanding of how their strategies are performing.
To set reps up to achieve their goals, some companies are finding ways to incentivize adaptability, encouraging their reps to test new approaches and bring fresh ideas to the table.
Built In Los Angeles connected with sales leaders from Crexi and Route to hear how they’ve adjusted their tactics to meet shifting market conditions and supported their reps to keep them on top of their game.
Crexi is a real estate marketplace and data platform.
Remaining nimble and responsive is critical for a successful sales team. What are some ways your team stays on top of trends or market conditions?
We’re fortunate that Crexi’s product is designed to help our customers — and therefore our sellers — stay on top of changing conditions with real-time trends and market data across the country.
However, the data is only a piece of the pie. What truly impacts our team’s ability to navigate new waters is sharing the conversations we’re having with our customers every day. Whether in scheduled team meetings or real-time over Slack, our reps are given the floor to share the perspectives they’ve gained from clients and help one another face and overcome new challenges together. Additionally, our sales and marketing teams work together to bring in industry thought leaders to share their experiences first-hand with our team.
What truly impacts our team’s ability to navigate new waters is sharing the conversations we’re having with our customers every day.”
How do you know when it’s time to shift strategies?
We are diligent about measuring and tracking what makes our team successful and identifying opportunities to pivot as they present themselves. Our tech stack and the insights provided by our revenue operations and data science teams help us to make thoughtful and educated decisions about any shifts in our approach and when/how to course correct.
That said, a big component of developing and molding our approach comes directly from our reps. We pride ourselves on removing hierarchy and encouraging everyone to share what is or isn’t working with leadership. Our culture puts our people’s and our customers’ voices first, and we allow that to drive our business forward.
What are some ways your team has adapted its sales strategies recently in light of market shifts?
Across the board, our team has adapted to getting comfortable with the uncomfortable and embracing change as opportunity. As leaders here, we don’t pretend to have all of the answers but we can help our reps adjust, reset and face new challenges with confidence. We encourage flexibility and reward reps for getting creative and thinking outside of the box to push business forward. The best example of this is how we’ve opened the doors for reps to present business cases on structuring unique deals to meet the needs of customers during this time.
What impact are these new strategies having on the success of your reps?
We’ve seen a tremendous positive response from our sellers who feel more autonomous in their dealmaking and in their personal growth as salespeople here at Crexi. Not only do we celebrate each other’s successes, we learn from and replicate those successes so our team wins together.
Route is a post-purchase platform connecting e-commerce merchants and their customers.
Remaining nimble and responsive is critical for a successful sales team. What are some ways your team stays on top of trends or market conditions?
E-commerce is a fast-growing industry that’s quickly evolving in exciting new ways. At Route, we do a lot to help our sales team stay nimble — efforts like sharing regular updates across each of our departments so that we can stay on top of competitors, learning from our merchants and quickly adapting to any challenges that arise.
However, one tactic that has been very impactful for the sales team is our transparency into our outreach sequences. We have a committee of sales team members who help develop high-performing sequences and regularly monitor their performance to ensure that all reps are using our best content. This committee is very creative and constantly does market research to stay up-to-speed with the industry. The creativity and transparency the committee brings to the table help ensure we pivot to messaging and strategies with the biggest impact on pipeline growth. It also helps us avoid siloing the tools that can help make the entire sales org more successful.
What are some ways your team has adapted its sales strategies recently in light of market shifts?
Recently, it has become more difficult for e-commerce merchants to land and retain customers. As more and more brands enter the ecosystem, customer acquisition costs have increased while customer lifetime value has decreased. If a consumer doesn’t like the product or how they’re treated throughout the purchase process, they can easily go somewhere else.
In order to best help our merchants and ensure Route is delivering the most value, we pivoted our messaging to focus on how Route’s products increase LTV. Through the Route app, customers can access features like real-time visual package tracking and shipment protection. These improvements to the post-purchase experience help drive repeat happy customers while reducing overhead costs for our brands.
In order to best help our merchants and ensure Route is delivering the most value, we pivoted our messaging to focus on how Route’s products increase customer lifetime value.”
To ensure Route was in the best position to help merchants increase LTV, we focused on helping their customers. We added to our core platform by launching a couple of new products, then adjusted our messaging and trained the sales team on how to effectively pitch the message. The results have been worth the effort and are keeping us at the forefront of our category.
What impact are these new strategies having on the success of your reps?
As a result of the new strategy, we’ve been able to reopen deals that were lost and position our offering in new ways that increased our win rate. I’m most proud of the impact this strategy has had on differentiating our revenue streams to help us grow faster.
