Winning the Team Sale: Chapter 2 - The Organizer

Playing the Organizer role for a selling squad is, in my experience, one of the heavier lifts for most salespeople.  It takes project management skills, advance planning, attention to detail, and patience.  Did I mention these things are a challenge for many salespeople?

Ever been to a mess of a sales meeting or pitch?  Perhaps you have seen the following happen:

• Moments before the start, the salesperson is crawling around under the conference table searching for the dongle to hook up the projector.
• Everyone is present and accounted for, but the pitchbooks are MIA.
• The pitchbooks arrived, but one of your team members didn’t.
• Presentation materials include typos and mistakes.

Organizing a selling team engenders confidence among your colleagues, and for customers, it creates the look of a focused and cohesive team at a sales meeting.  Being a strong Organizer will also enhance your a Recruiter for future selling team efforts.  Not to mention avoiding 11pm runs to the UPS Store the night before a pitch, or embarrassing mistakes during a customer meeting.

5 Ways to Organize Your Selling Squad

So, regardless of how organized you generally are, how can you play the Organizer role successfully for your team?  Here are five best practices to help:

1. Share information: Great Organizers facilitate information-sharing among team members so that they all have information that is current and that will help them perform their roles at the sales meeting.  The areas to focus on are:  the customer organization, the existing relationship, the opportunity that’s on the table, and the customer’s attendees.
2. Identify collective work: One of the reasons you pull together a team of professionals is to produce an outcome that would be impossible to attain on your own.  What are those areas where collaboration would produce a stronger outcome?  These might include brainstorming the design of your solution and alternatives, meeting objectives, presentation materials, and key themes and differentiators.
3. Plan your work: Collective work takes coordination.  Plan for the following:  prep calls or meetings; design, production, and delivery of presentation materials; game-day logistics and responsibilities; and a team debrief following the sales meeting.
4. Monitor progress: A good project manager keeps the project on course in the face of competing demands for team member attention.  Think through how best to monitor and communicate progress in completing the group’s collective work to team members.
5. Find support: Being your team’s Organizer can feel overwhelming, especially as you move other opportunities through your pipeline, and project management may just not be your thing.  Be sure, then, to recruit a contributing member to help you or to play that role.

The Bottom Line

Organizing your selling team effectively allows you and your colleagues to arrive at a meeting or pitch focused and ready to connect with your customer, and to execute the game plan you designed.  It instills customer confidence and puts you ahead of disorganized competitors who fumble their way through their pitches.  Best of all, being (or recruiting) an effective Organizer puts you on the optimal path to winning and strengthens your ability as a Recruiter for future pitches.

Sound daunting? Leading a team in an effective sales call is straightforward when you approach it methodically. This eBook will show you how playing each of these five roles effectively can help you win more deals when teams are required.