How to grow your sales team without hiring more?

“Am I risking my money to hire you guys for this work?”

No CEO wants this thought to come in the client’s mind.

Meet Tony!

He runs a services company.

Super passionate about his company and people.

The best part is his people share the same passion to work.

But the indirect questions from clients to test the capability of his team bothers him.

He knows his team is capable.

He is aware of their intellect, passion, and out-of-box thinking.

But, the clients do not.

If his people share this goodness with the world,

On a day-to-day basis in the form of their approach to work.

Believe me!

The clients would come chasing Tony and not otherwise 😉

Do you want your clients to come chasing you?

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Consider this.

A company of 150 people with only 10 people in the sales team.

Maximum, how many people can they reach?

How much business, can they bring?

On top of that, many times the sales team find it difficult to convince people to buy-in.

When you see that the sales numbers are not increasing, you try things like:

  1. Hiring more people for sales.
  2. Hiring more experienced (this expensive) sales veteran.
  3. Giving sales training to your team from a third party.

But it feels frustrating when the numbers don’t budge.

Further, when your top talent leaves the company, you wonder.

What could have you done better to retain them?

You can’t expect strangers to believe in you when your own people do not.

VS this.

A company of 150 people.

Where each of these 150 believes in what the company does, the kind of services it offers.

They are not associated with the company just to take home the salary at the end of each month.

They go out of their way to wow their customers.

Because they feel the pain of customers.

They feel a sense of ownership in the company.

They know that their success is the company’s success.

Imagine, when they share their passion, intellect, and out-of-the-box thinking regularly in their professional networks,

The world would already be aware of their capabilities.

And the question: “Am I risking My Money to Hire You guys?” would never occur in the buyer’s mind.

The reach of 150 people VS the reach of 10 people is 15 times higher in magnitude.

Besides the reach the kind of trust and credibility that employees bring to the table is outstanding.

However, the bigger question is:

“What shall motivate employees to share about their day-to-day work in their professional network?”

Let’s reverse engineer our answer from the world’s most successful medium,

Where people share tons and tons of stuff about themselves – “Facebook”.

What makes people share about themselves on Facebook?

Today I tried this new recipe. -> Showcasing Cooking Skills.

Today I ran 10 km. -> Showcasing the effort to stay fit.

Today I created this artwork. -> Projecting oneself as an artist.

Sharing such stuff helps people create their personal brand.

Appreciation received over these posts in the forms of likes and comments motivates them to do better.

But, there is another level to it.

When people get influenced by you because of the kind of things you share.

Example:

Say, you are a group of people, who provide child counseling services.

You and your team blog about parenting regularly on Facebook.

You speak about how you have helped a lot of parents with behavioral issues with kids.

You share the strategy you used to handle a particular case and how the child got benefitted.

Parents testify that you are incredible at what you do.

A lot of parents follow you through social media and connect with your thoughts.

They even learn from you and benefit.

So, when any parent feels the need to contact a child counselor.

You/anybody from your team will be the first person to strike his mind.

And that’s what every company wants:

To be on top of the buyer’s mind while in need of your services.

Similarly, employees have the power to influence a lot of people.

All they need to do is share your day-to-day approach to work.

Following are a few examples of things they can share:

  1. Powerful insights they came across while working on a project.
  2. The joy of contributing to a very big project that the company worked on.
  3. His thought process/ideas that helped in success for a client.
  4. The recognition he/she received at work for bringing in innovation to improve the business process.
  5. The prize he/she won for a hack-a-thon/make-a-thon at work.
  6. His experience while they were being sent on-site, how company cared for them in a foreign place.
  7. How he felt touched when a letter of appreciation about him reached his parents.
  8. The happiness he/she felt to have a surprise visit of his/her spouse and kids at work.
  9. How she loved the gesture by the company on a woman’s day.
  10. The joy she felt to receive a gift from the company for her child.

The list is endless.

Social sharing by employees not only helps in attracting clients, but top talent too.

Hope you get an idea of what happy employees can do for the company.

#WordOfCaution:

We are not advising employees to share company’s content!

We just want them to create their personal brands.

This shall automatically bring indirect credits to the company.

Just like the credits for a child’s behavior are given to his parents/teachers for right upbringing.

But they would share all this if they really feel connected to the work they do.

Wish creating this connection was like following the recipe.

Get the ingredients. Follow the method and Bam!!

Deliciousness Ready!

But it’s not.

It’s like a routine that needs to be repeated every day!

It’s a strong culture that you need to build.

You nurture your kids without any expectation that they will take care of you when you grow old.

You know that following 5 things can make your child feel loved:

  1. Hugs and Kisses.
  2. Spending Quality Time.
  3. Giving Gifts.
  4. Serving them good food, tucking them in bed, or walking them to school.
  5. Appreciating them.

But, Will it be enough to do all these for just one day?

And your children will keep feeling loved forever……

No.

You need to keep doing it every day.

It’s like a (emotional) tank, which has an open outlet, it gets empty if you do not keep refilling.

Similarly, For Employees, You got to keep their tanks filled.

You got to genuinely invest in their growth.

If you keep doing the following 5 simple things on a regular basis.

Rest Assured.

Employees shall develop a better connection with the company and work.

  1. Transparent Decision Making.
  2. Rewards and Recognition.
  3. Sharing Insights and Learnings.
  4. Question from One? Answer it to everyone.
  5. Crowdsourcing the solutions to Problems.

Transparent Decision-Making:

Even the smallest decisions you take at the company when shared with its people.

People build trust in the company.

They feel important and cared for.

Example:

You made a decision to procure new laptops.

Choosing the right configuration mapped to employee needs is the best thing you did.

But, it’s even more important to share the thought process behind buying decisions with them.

This shall make them feel that their needs are important to the company.

OR

You decided to reduce the office space and give more work-from-home opportunities for your people.

It’s an amazing decision.

It also shows that you trust your employees.

The feeling of being trusted motivates people to do even better.

It makes them feel more responsible to deliver more than what’s expected of them.

Rewards & Recognition:

When a child wins a race.

He feels motivated to take part in the next race.

That’s the power of reward.

So, when an employee is rewarded with an “Individual Excellence Award”.

He feels like contributing even more towards his work.

This holds true, not just for an individual, but for teams too.

When a team is recognized for their win with the whole company.

Other teams feel motivated to win that recognition too.

Sharing Insights and Learnings:

When people share their learnings with each other, means they want their peers to succeed too.

And, not otherwise.

This is a clear indication of a great team spirit.

To facilitate such sharing practice.

Email chain with “One learning” as a part of the subject line is the simplest and most effective way.

Learning can come from anywhere.

While dealing with the client or while reading a book or listening to a podcast.

Or while interviewing people.

Let’s say you were interviewing a candidate and one of his answers not just surprised you but impressed too.

Sharing his answer with the team and who knows, it might have the power to touch their heart.

Question from One? Answer it to everyone:

Let’s say you receive an email from one of the employees about a concern at work.

Address that concern and communicate it to everyone at the company.

There is a good possibility, that someone else had the same concern too, but could not raise it.

Indirectly the care gets shown for more people.

The effect of response gets multiplied.

The concern could be small or big.

Example:

Request for certain books, courses, certifications etc.

Hygiene, Work-Life Balance, Women Safety.

Just anything.

Crowdsourcing the solutions to Problems:

Whenever there is a problem faced by the whole company at work.

Share it with everyone at the company.

Invite them for help to solve that problem.

Let them use their problem-solving skills.

Discuss and work out the best solution brought to the table.

When people see that their ideas are given importance and implemented at work.

It gives them a great sense of pride.

Hope, with these insights, you shall be able to positively engage your people at work.

Build a strong culture.

And as a result, each of your employees will automatically be part of the sales team.

You would grow your sales team even without hiring more people 🙂

Pro tip: If you need 30 standout SaaS growth hacks to attain double the growth for your SaaS business, fill out the form below!

You are reading this article is a sign that you really care for your people.

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