Seamless integration of HR with the sales and marketing team can help businesses improve their overall effort toward achieving organizational goals. Too often, HR teams act as though their activities are mutually exclusive with those of the sales team and marketers in the company.
However, closer observation shows that the roles of the HR, sales, and marketing teams are interwoven and can be strategically harnessed to drive growth, attract more qualified talents, and close more sales. While they all have their individual roles, HR can support sales, and marketing can equally support HR, and, most importantly, sales.
In this post, we’ll discuss five ways your human resources department can support the sales team to drive increased sales.
Know the Different Sales Roles
Sales can be tedious and tiring sometimes. But with the right talent and resources, success can come with a little or much less stress. It often begins with hiring the right talent for the job. Ideally, there are different sales roles, such as account executive, sales development representative, sales expert, customer success representative, sales manager, etc. Each of these roles, though sales-oriented, does require different skills and experiences and, in some cases, completely unrelated skillset.
By knowing these roles, the HR department can recruit more appropriately, bearing in mind that not all sales talents can fit into all sales roles. This way, the chances of new hires excelling in their sales roles are higher, and the sales department as a whole is better for it. Cross-department training is an effective way to harness the productive force of your HR, sales, and marketing teams.
Provide Adequate, Continuous Training to Sales Teams
Most times, HR focuses more on recruiting, initial training, and onboarding and often neglect the need for training for sales staff who have been with the organization for longer times. It is perfect for providing sufficient sales training to new hires, but to retain them for the long haul, HR should also ensure to provide continuous training materials and resources to middle sales team members and top managers in the sales department.
Regardless of their exposure on the job, sales staff need continuous learning and improvement as new strategies emerge. This will enable them to stay on track with trends and bring their ‘A-game’ to the job every time. The same goes for marketers and human resource executives in the organization.
Support the Sales Team with Motivation
Another important aspect where human resources play an important part in driving better performance from the sales team is motivation. And by motivation, I mean adequate and competitive compensation, as well as using a transparent reward system to recognize top-performing salespersons. Companies may be tempted to use employee surveys to gauge work performance and the perception of the staff about compensation.
The interesting thing is that, with sales, compensation is slightly different. Since they work with quotas, the metrics that define success for other staff members may come up short in doing the same for your salespeople. While some salespersons prefer above-market base pay to rewards and recognitions, others may prefer more promotions and recognitions, as long as they get competitive remuneration. Pay and performance are a bit more complex in sales, but they are integral components of sales force engagement and motivation.
In order to keep your sales team motivated and performing optimally, the company’s management should design a competitive compensation program and ensure that HR managers and recruiters use the plan to motivate current and prospective sales employee talents effectively.
Create a Diverse SalesForce
We can go on and on talking about diversity and inclusion in the workplace because it is central to productivity, and sales is not an exception. Having a diverse sales team creates an opportunity for different strategies, marketing plans, insights, and opinions. Ideally, a diverse team comprises professionals of different ages, backgrounds, experiences, political exposure, skills, gender, culture, etc.
Market research has shown diverse sales teams can be very beneficial for multinationals, as localization and interpretations become core sales and marketing needs. Having salespeople who can speak multiple languages and relate with prospects and customers across different cultures is a major plus for international business. We have some practical tips that HR can use as a guide for improving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.
Work With Sales the Team to Understand Hiring Recruitment
Instead of recruiters bringing in new talents to fill sales roles all by themselves, a smart move would be to involve the sales team in the process. This way, everyone is on the same page. Human resources understand the exact requirements for the roles, and the sales team can easily bring the new hires up to speed as they start. Sales departments must be able to articulate or clearly specify job role requirements so that HR can source the right talents for the job.
Final Thoughts
The tips I have provided here are not exhaustive on the subject. However, they’re key action points for organizations that still view HR, sales, and marketing as totally independent of one another. Need more professional HR tips like these ones or more tailored strategies to improve your HR management? Reach out to us at Mission.
At Mission, our mission is to provide small businesses with top-notch HR solutions and best HR practices to scale their businesses. We bring our years of experience and rich insight to the table, helping you easily navigate top HR issues, especially if you’re looking to expand your business. Mission also provides your business with answers to all your bugging HR outsourcing questions. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have further questions about improving the performance of your HR team.