Some sales teams have it. And some don’t. What makes some B2B sales teams great? In working with B2B sales teams for 25 years, I have discovered that there are three key qualities that set high-performing sales teams apart – the right goals structure, authentic camaraderie, and a foundation of trust.

Whether your sales team is consistently exceeding expectations, plateauing at meeting but not exceeding goals, or underperforming relative to their targets, there is always room for improvement. Of course, like anything else in business, increasing B2B sales performance requires both managerial support and individual initiative. Let’s talk about how sales managers can get more out of their team and retain their best salespeople as well as how B2B salespeople can sell better.

While new B2B sales trends have emerged over the past two years, it’s safe to say that we have now moved past “pivots” and temporary adaptations to what can only be described as a B2B sales revolution. An entirely new era of B2B sales has taken shape and is continuing to evolve, transforming everything from go-to-market strategies to strategic revenue planning at B2B organizations across the globe.

Buyers’ priorities and preferences have changed requiring that sales strategies adapt to keep pace. Understanding this, well-informed B2B companies are rethinking who they sell to, how they sell, and where they sell. The sales planning changes that have resulted both internally and externally are a clear indication that there is a new face to B2B sales these days. How will that fact shape what you do next?

Resources on the most effective sales compensation plans typically focus on maximizing revenue. The goal of these efforts is to incentivize salespeople to sell more to drive revenue growth. And while revenue generation is a goal inherently shared by all for-profit companies, a new goal is emerging these days. Today’s tight labor market has companies reconsidering their goals, causing them to prioritize employee retention.

Why is retaining employees emerging as a top business priority? The simple answer is that employee turnover is a growth killer. Churn is expensive and disruptive. High employee turnover costs money and time when new employees must be recruited, hired, and trained. It distracts management, pulling their focus away from other revenue-generating activities. It takes a toll on the loyal employees that choose to stay, making them more likely to burnout. It damages a company’s reputation, making it more difficult for them to attract top talent. For all these reasons, churn stalls growth initiatives.

In that light retaining employees is an intrinsic component of building and sustaining revenue. And yet, structuring your sales compensation plans to combat turnover requires a different approach than a revenue-maximizing approach.

Anyone who has ever been responsible for revenue generation at a professional services firm understands that their revenue model is fundamentally different than a product-based company because they are selling an intangible. And while it is a common misconception that their sales cycles are longer, services companies do face many distinct revenue hurdles that often lead to broken revenue strategies.

What kind of unique revenue challenges do professional service firms have?

How do their revenue strategies differ from other industries?

Can a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) add value to service firms?

“The ability to withstand unpredictable threat or change and then to emerge stronger.”

This is how the team at McKinsey & Company defines resilience in their recently published an article on what they call The Resilience Imperative. They elaborate further that resilience is going to be more important in the coming decade than ever before when they explain, “Catastrophic events will grow more frequent but less predictable. They will unfold faster but in more varied ways. Disruption is becoming more frequent and more severe.”

Resilience can be financial, operational, technological, organizational, or reputational in nature but the greatest resiliency comes when an organization can anticipate and respond to threats across all categories to dynamically adapt as needed. Obviously, this kind of resiliency does not just fall into place – it is the result of careful planning to develop a revenue resiliency toolkit.

The term “Revenue Operations” is soaring in popularity these days. In fact, Chief Revenue Officer, VP of Revenue Operations, and Director of Revenue Operations are among the fastest growing job titles right now on LinkedIn.

But what is Revenue Operations?

Does your business need it?

And, if you do, how do you establish a Revenue Operations framework?

Revenue Operations (or RevOps for short) is an approach that aims to align sales, marketing, and customer service teams to give them the tools and resources needed to drive predictable revenue. As Bhaskar Roy explains in an article on the rise of Revenue Operations, “RevOps treats revenue not as a fortunate outcome of a quality product, but like a mirror of the supply chain — a pipeline that needs to be powered by optimized business processes.”

Over the last several decades personality evaluations like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC test, Core Values Index (CVI), and PATH assessment have made managers more aware of the different types of individual personalities represented in their employees, and how best to unify them around a set of organizational goals. These assessments highlight an individual’s predominant characteristics and traits to better understand what motivates them, which types of roles they are best suited for, and how to interact with them for optimal results.

But what about personality types that stick out from the crowd dramatically – the colloquial “sharp edge of the circle” so to speak?

A recent Fast Company article highlighted a unique personality that they called the “Rare Breed.” They explain that these so-called Rare Breeds do not conform, are outspoken, rebel against the establishment, exhibit unparalleled drive, and obsessively strive for high achievement at all costs. The article goes on to say that while companies typically view these as vices, they are also what drives innovation, making this personality type integral for organizations that prioritize out-of-the-box thinking. However, their big egos, short tempers, and manipulation of those around them can also be damaging to an organization if left unchecked.

Do you know anyone like that at your company?

In 2020, B2B sales abruptly transitioned from a face-to-face game of relationship-building to a digital game that aimed to do the same. Sales representatives traded long drives and flights for their home offices as companies nationwide closed themselves off to non-essential personnel. Video conferencing and email became the new standard as processes and systems shifted. However, the need to develop and build relationships never faltered.

Now, as companies look toward the future, they need to make difficult decisions about when to move employees back into the office, while considering the needs of both their employees and their clients. The other big issue facing employers is the variety of protocols that will need to continue and be enhanced to bring people back in safely while accounting for the fact that not everyone is planning on getting the vaccine. Ultimately, control of COVID-19 and the rate of vaccination is going to affect the speed with which we return to the workplace.

The timeframe on this decision will be heavily influenced by industry segment. Companies that have an internal focus and can work in a bubble likely have not stopped going into the office, at least to some degree. For example, manufacturers never stopped going into the plant, instead they implemented strict protocols to keep their workforce safe and on the job. However, externally focused companies, like professional services firms, started going back into the office since the first of the year, but are not interacting with clients yet. Meeting with clients and partners is still being done virtually in these settings. Most other companies will likely be back by this fall, all things equal, but not in the same way as before.