To achieve revenue targets, you must make the most efficient use of your people and your time. This means that each member of the go-to-market team must understand their role within the revenue generation function of the business and how they work together to meet the required growth.
If your team is anything like most successful companies, you probably want to ensure that you deliver the highest quality products and services while providing a fantastic customer experience. You want to delight every customer, and you must in order to remain competitive today.
However, what happens when you and your team get distracted trying to do too many things, or worse, you are focused on the wrong things? What if you focused your team’s activities on only what is critical to be successful in their role? How would this impact your team’s effectiveness and your revenue-generating capabilities?
This article discusses how to create a rhythm for go-to-market teams, helping them improve revenue performance.
Establishing a High-functioning Rhythm
If you’re a go-to-market leader, your goal should be efficiency. And if you want to create an efficient team, you need to establish a high-functioning operating rhythm.
Having an operating rhythm is essential for organizations to assist their go-to-market teams. It drives the accountability that ensures your front-line teams focus on the activities required for repeatable success.
Most companies don’t have this kind of rhythm implemented. In most cases, leaders are focused on the most significant targets or logos, and they often ignore having a clear target customer profile that enables consistent, repeatable revenue generation quarter after quarter.
They also don’t have a structured way to consistently coach their people on how they engage customers most effectively for the optimal customer experience. This is why it’s so important for companies to create an operating rhythm that drives consistency and accountability throughout their go-to-market organization.
The operating rhythm is the result of a concentrated, coordinated effort. That means you’ll need to take deliberate steps towards creating one.
A successful rhythm needs to cover three key elements:
1. Corporate transparency: There should be no secrets among the team. The entire company should understand how the sales process works, the win rate, and how much revenue each deal generates. Individual accountability: Every salesperson should feel a sense of ownership over their book of business. They need to understand what’s working and what’s not. And they need to be able to identify areas where they can improve.
2. Talent and resource management: Your team should have access to the necessary tools and support from leadership, including coaching, training, and other resources to help them succeed at their jobs.
3. Strategic planning: The team should clearly understand the company’s strategy and how their efforts contribute to its success. They should also know their priorities and how they should be selling to align with those priorities.
When these three elements are in place, you can start to build the processes and procedures that will turn your go-to-market team into a well-oiled machine. Creating a successful operating rhythm is the first step in creating a high-functioning sales team.
Openness to Explore and Implement New Ideas
Sales, marketing and customer success teams are often very creative and willing to try new ideas. As a leader, it is essential to always be receptive to exploring new ways of doing things that might help your team improve performance.
This can be as simple as trying out a new strategy or process. It could also mean trying a different technology to help your team work more efficiently. Alternatively, it might mean changing how you manage your team’s performance by implementing new goals and metrics.
Team meetings offer an opportunity to set expectations, reinforce good behaviours, and inform salespeople about the team’s and company’s goals.
According to an HBR study, a weekly one-on-one meeting can increase productivity by 67%. Leaders can create a culture of innovation and excellence within their teams by being open to new ideas and willing to implement them.
Using a CRM
A CRM (customer relationship management) system is a must-have for any go-to-market team. It helps leaders keep track of their team’s performance and provides them with the integrated data across go-to-market functions they need to make informed decisions.
A CRM can also help teams stay organized and efficient. It can automate repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or scheduling appointments. This frees up time for your team to focus on critical, high-value activities, such as giving more time for your SDRs to make calls!
In addition, a CRM can help teams stay strategically aligned. Having all the data in one place allows leaders to easily see which deals align with the company’s priorities and focus their team’s efforts accordingly.
The bottom line is that a sales CRM is an essential tool for any go-to-market team. It can help teams increase productivity, efficiency, and alignment with the company’s strategy.
Strategic Planning and Revenue Goals for Growth
Strategic planning is vital for any business that wants to maintain a competitive edge and grow its revenue. But effective strategic planning requires more than just setting goals; it also involves ensuring that those goals are achievable and realistic.
Achieving growth objectives often requires the execution of long-term plans, which can be challenging to monitor and keep on track.
Align teams for more effective communication
There are several reasons why companies often fail to achieve their strategic objectives. One of the most common reasons is poor communication between departments.
When teams are fragmented, information gets bottled up in silos, making it difficult for employees to collaborate and stay focused on the big picture.
One way to combat this issue is to build and maintain high-performance teams that follow the proper operating rhythm.
Establishing clear communication channels and setting regular check-ins can help ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal.
Your company will be better positioned to achieve its strategic objectives with better communication.
Final Words
The Operating Rhythm is a set of activities, guidelines, tools, and success measures. The process creates a cadence around critical management activities.
This regular beat helps ensure that the company’s leaders proactively and effectively address the business’s most pressing issues. It also provides a framework for making decisions, setting priorities, and monitoring progress.
By establishing a regular operating rhythm, businesses can improve communication and coordination, focus on the most important tasks, and use limited resources better.
Ultimately, the goal is to create a more efficient and effective organization that can compete in today’s dynamic marketplaces.
