5 Challenges Sales Operations Teams Face Today

Some people compare sales operations teams to a car's engine. Although not seen by drivers, it's working away under the hood, powering the car to get from point A to point B. In the same way, sales operations teams are the people making sure the sales force is always moving forward successfully. They are responsible for leveraging technology and information to support sales, troubleshoot CRM issues, and design solutions that drive sales onward and upward.

Today, the average sales representative is so busy with routine tasks like emails and meetings that they spend less than half of their day actually selling. An awesome sales operations team can help those reps cut back on administrative work and provide the company with a huge return on investment.

While it's up to sales reps to keep revenue figures climbing up and to the right, the sales ops team must ensure everything is running smoothly on the back end — as well as face their own set of work-related difficulties. Here's a list of 5 common, but rarely-acknowledged, challenges sales operations teams face today:

1. Wearing too many hats

Sales reps have a very defined role: convert leads into buyers. Everything related to sales teams that is not defined within that sales rep role is usually relegated to sales ops. If you look at a typical sales ops job description, you'll find a range of responsibilities that include overseeing sales performance analysis, developing a sales incentive program, managing sales force automation and CRM, evaluating and designing sales force strategies, and providing technical support for sales functionalities and tools. This wide range of tasks, in addition to addressing the immediate needs of sales reps, can become overwhelming and taxing for sales ops teams.

2. Keeping up with evolving technology

The dynamic world of CRM, marketing automation, and predictive marketing analytics tools is forcing sales ops to constantly reevaluate their strategies to stay ahead of the game. With sales becoming more aligned with other departments like marketing and customer success, sales tools need to be able to integrate and connect to other business tools. Sales ops is responsible for making sure the tools in place are cost-effective and bring in measurable ROI.

3. Juggling ad-hoc requests

Because a huge part of sales ops involves supporting and managing the sales force and corresponding tools, it's impossible to plan out when requests are going to arise. It's difficult to keep a consistent, predictable workflow in an environment where sales strategies and technologies are constantly changing. Work management and instant messaging platforms are becoming more popular across sales ops teams to stay on top of requests and communicate quickly.

4. Adjusting to the shift in customer interaction

Currently, consumers have access to more information about a product than ever before. With blog content, videos, tutorials, reviews, and free trials all being thrown into the lap of a potential buyer before they even speak to a sales representative, it can be difficult to find a reason to get them on the phone. It's up to sales ops and managers to determine how to engage with potential customers when they already know so much about the product, as well as how to shift the sales conversation from "what" to "how and why."

5. Reaching larger, long-term company goals while keeping up with immediate sales needs

Sales ops' top priorities are accelerating revenue and sales growth. But new lead-gathering strategies outlined by executives, combined with input from the full sales team, can be overwhelming. Unless there is a clear, continued understanding between executives, marketing, and sales on how to identify high-value prospects for sales reps, the sales funnel will flood with uninterested leads and general inquiries. And while sales ops may be focusing on reaching their lead conversion goal for their quarterly OKRs, sales managers could be pushing their reps to focus on target accounts — which could mean fewer overall conversions, damaging the sales ops' perceived success.

What other challenges have you seen arise in sales ops teams?

As sales operations become more common in organizations, it's important to recognize when these challenges start turning into full-blown barriers to success. Once resolved, your sales team can focus less on administrative fire drills and more on closing deals!

What are some of the other challenges facing professional services firms and sales ops teams? Share with us in the comments!

Leadership 5 min read

10 Tips to Build a Top-Notch Sales Organization

Over one trillion dollars are spent annually on sales organizations. That's a 13-figure number, and no small matter for our economy. With so much money going into the field, shouldn't we make sure we're putting in every effort to ensure our sales teams are equipped to do their best work? We asked sales and business leaders for their tips on building a top-notch sales organization. Read on to see what they had to say and learn how you can help lead your sales team to success. 1. Sales boils down to People, Processes, and Systems Sales operations and management are all about putting the right combination of elements together to make your organization successful: people, processes, and systems. The interaction between your sales talent, technology, and management expectations can make or break your goals. As a sales leader, you hire sales people who are goal-oriented, hungry, have great communication skills, and can represent your products and company appropriately. Then you hand them a compensation plan and technology tools to drive and manage their behavior. —Cassie Dennis, Director, SocialRaise 2. Build processes for every possible situation your team will encounter The most important part of building a leading sales organizations is creating systems and processes. You not only have to be able to scale, but you also have to know what is working. You cannot have 10 people selling your product in 10 different ways. You have to build out systems for everything from sales process to handling objections. —Adam Dailey, CEO, funlyevents.com 3. Hold people accountable with KPIs You must have metrics to hold people accountable. You have to establish easily-measured KPIs that the entire team understands and follows. —William Bauer, Managing Director, Royce Leather 4. Continually coach & support your reps Sales management has to be able to oversee what is happening in the sales process to coach and focus the rep's efforts. Creating a system that supports and enables your sales people AND processes can make all the difference. —Cassie Dennis, Director, SocialRaise 5. Address the elephant in the room: fear Fear must be addressed. It is the single most-discussed issue relating to sales reps. The fear of rejection, failure, cold calling, contacting the Upper Crust buyers and sellers, and much more. It keeps salespeople from picking up the phone and going out to connect with buyers and sellers. —Jonathan Kendall, CCP, CPS, CMCT, President & CEO, PopUpSelling.com 6. Teach your salespeople how to develop relationships with customers In the new economy, selling requires individuals that understand they are in the marketing business, can control the discussion, and build a relationship. Customers are smarter today and have more access to information. Today’s sales individual has to be able to develop a relationship, since 88% of consumers will only work with people they know and trust. —Drew Stevens, Ph.D. 7. Show reps how to sell to customers from varied backgrounds and situations Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are naturally motivated to buy (and in the case of the sales team, sell) in very different ways. The one-size-fits-all sales and training methodologies, and the singular revenue-based sales management style, are outdated. The sales person needs to be led and taught to connect and sell to everyone, in any generation. —Jonathan Kendall, CCP, CPS, CMCT, President & CEO, PopUpSelling.com 8. Train reps to suit their learning style, not yours You need education that is focused on the learning style of the sales person. If the person is visuals-focused with a hard-charging, aggressive sales attitude, a touchy-feely approach will not work (and vice versa). In fact, it might demotivate them. Too many programs do not modify the process to meet the exact needs of the individual. Most are too focused on soft skills and the "I'm OK, you're OK" approach. Customization to the personal modalities of the individuals' brain is critical to the success of the program. —Jonathan Kendall, CCP, CPS, CMCT, President & CEO, PopUpSelling.com 9. Recognize the success of individual sales personnel using a great CRM tool Successful salespeople want to be compensated for closing sales, but they also want to be recognized. It's not just about how much they're paid, but about the thrill of victory and recognition. To make the most of this drive, you'll want to have a top-notch system where performance can be tracked. The challenge here becomes how to attribute team accomplishments as well as individual accomplishments. You want to enable people to take ownership of their achievements without being too territorial. It's important to set up a dual set of metrics to encourage pride in the team alongside pride in individual accomplishments. Good CRM software is crucial to managing this kind of information. It enables a company to clearly track involvement in different stages of the sales process, and enables you to reward employees accordingly. —Marc Prosser, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Fit Small Business 10. Automate repetitive tasks Don't do your own busywork. Use a third party tool to automate or hand off your repetitive tasks, such as building a list of leads, gathering contact information, researching potential clients, cleaning up CRM data, running drip campaigns, etc. —Joe Leon, Co-Founder, Steward More tips on building a sales team primed for success If you're serious about improving your sales team, the learning doesn't stop here. Read these posts next to see how you can turn your sales team around: 15 Stats You Should Know to Improve Your Sales Team How the Best Sales Teams Collaborate to Get Better Results 5 Challenges Sales Operations Teams Face Today Better teams use better tools Thousands of sales organizations rely on Salesforce to manage their client relationships — but how do they manage relationships with other departments? The Wrike + Salesforce integration allows your sales reps to communicate with other internal teams without leaving Salesforce. See how sales teams are already using Wrike + Salesforce, and then start your free 2-week trial of Wrike.

Collaboration 5 min read

How the Best Sales Teams Collaborate to Get Better Results

There are sales teams, and then there are world-class sales teams. What sets the highest achievers apart from the average Joe? We looked at research around the web and, of the many factors that help a sales team run like a well-oiled machine, we were most interested in one particular finding: high-performing sales, sales operations, and sales enablement teams are better at collaborating. To create a world-class sales team, your organization must capitalize on collaboration within your team (from individual to individual), as well as between teams (from sales to marketing, IT, support, etc.). We're sharing stats we found online that show why your team needs to focus on collaboration if you want to keep things moving "up and to the right." World-Class Sales Organizations Collaborate Within Their Team A yearly study conducted by the Miller Heiman Research Institute reports the best practices of identified high-performing sales organizations versus average sales organizations. We compared results from their 2015 study to the results from their 2013 study to see how the trends in sales collaboration are changing. Sales organizations were asked to rate the performance of their teams based upon the following statements: On collaboration between management and team members: "Our management team is highly effective in helping our sales team advance sales opportunities." World-class teams are continuing to focus on collaboration between managers and team members, as other teams pick up on the trend. On collaboration between top performers and their colleagues: “We know why our top performers are successful.” Building a world-class team comes down to not only HAVING top performers, but also knowing WHY they are top performers so you can educate the entire organization on successful practices. "We leverage the best practices of our top performers to improve everyone else." (only reported in 2013) High-performing teams take time out of the week to teach the winning behaviors of top performers to the rest of the company, so everyone can perform better. World-Class Sales Organizations Collaborate with Other Departments Stats on cross-department collaboration including the sales organization from the same studies done by the Miller Heiman Research Institute: On collaboration between sales and other departments via shared tools: "Our CRM system is highly effective for enabling our organization to collaborate across departments." (only reported in 2015) With the rising popularity of CRM tools, world-class sales organizations focus on adopting a tool that enables collaboration between teams, instead of siloing their information within one team. On collaboration between sales and marketing: "Sales and Marketing are aligned in what our customers want and need." World-class and typical sales teams are both focusing on aligning with their marketing team to deliver better results. And it's not only the Miller Heiman Research Institute reporting findings that cross-department collaboration helps sales teams perform better. Together, Salesforce and The TAS Group reported numbers on the benefits of aligning your sales and marketing teams: Where sales and marketing are aligned on their initiatives and goals: — Sales win rates increase 15% — Company revenue can increase as much as 25% — Salespeople are 57% more likely to be high-performers And if your sales and marketing teams work together to take your leads from day 1 to the end of a sale: — Email marketing has 2X higher ROI than other channels (Direct Marketing Association, via Smart Data Collective) — Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (The Annuitas Group) Is Your Sales Organization Collaborative? The trends are clear: collaborative sales teams perform better. So how would you classify your sales organization? Are you highly-collaborative, or do you still have room to improve? Share your team and cross-department collaboration wins in the comments, and help other sales, sales operations, and sales enablement teams learn more about what really works. Thanks for sharing your wisdom! If you're ready to improve team and cross-departmental collaboration for better business results, see how Wrike can help with a free Wrike trial.

Leadership 3 min read

15 Stats You Should Know to Improve Your Sales Team

As a driving force in our economy, a lot of research has been done on the world of sales. What do sales orgs need to do to drive profit? What leads to a successful sale? When is the best time to call someone, and how many times do you have to call? If you're trying to improve the performance of your sales organization, check out these stats on what works (and what doesn't) when you're trying to close a deal. If you want to learn more, check out this post: 26 Sales Process Statistics & Best Practices. 15 Statistics to Help Improve Your Sales Performance What have you done to improve your sales team? You can't only rely on stats and figures if you want to improve your sales org. You also need experience, and a knowledge of how other departments can help your sales department, including how to interpret what are leads in marketing. Share how you've improved your sales team in the comments below, and we can all learn from one another.

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5 Challenges Sales Operations Teams Face Today

1. Wearing too many hats

2. Keeping up with evolving technology

3. Juggling ad-hoc requests

4. Adjusting to the shift in customer interaction

5. Reaching larger, long-term company goals while keeping up with immediate sales needs

What other challenges have you seen arise in sales ops teams?

Brianna Hansen

Related articles

10 Tips to Build a Top-Notch Sales Organization

How the Best Sales Teams Collaborate to Get Better Results

15 Stats You Should Know to Improve Your Sales Team

5 Challenges Sales Operations Teams Face Today

1. Wearing too many hats

2. Keeping up with evolving technology

3. Juggling ad-hoc requests

4. Adjusting to the shift in customer interaction

5. Reaching larger, long-term company goals while keeping up with immediate sales needs

What other challenges have you seen arise in sales ops teams?

Brianna Hansen

Related articles

10 Tips to Build a Top-Notch Sales Organization

How the Best Sales Teams Collaborate to Get Better Results

15 Stats You Should Know to Improve Your Sales Team

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