Part 8: Thriving Amid Market Dynamics: Building an Adaptable Sales Team

A sales manager is not only impacted what is happening in his team and by his own policies and products, but also from the fast-changing market dynamics. In such times of uncertainty and change your team will look towards you for guidance and solutions. Your ability to read these changes and prepare yourself and team will be crucial towards yours and team’s performance.

Staying Informed

Are you just an executing Sales Manager or you have the ability to think and adapt as well? First step towards being adaptive id being informed and staying ahead wrt industry developments, new techniques, new competition and changes in way everyone in market is behaving. You need to make sure that you survive the downturns and irde the uptrends to deliver better results effectively.

• Industry News: Stay In tune with the industry you are working with. Being ‘well read’ is not just about reading anything, here it will also means reading the market; trends, competition, consumer etc

• Networking: Engaging with peers and competition through formal conferences, events and informally through interactions help keep you up to date. Ans yes, it works both ways, to be informed you will need to share information as well.

• Internal Feedback: Client interactions are one of the best tools to know about the changes. While you depend on your team to bring this feedback, ensure that you meet the clients regularly to keep yourself updated with latest in the marjet.

• Sales Metrics: Monitoring your metric closely will also help you know if there are some shifts happening. A quick RCA on any major shift can lead to certain finding changing the course of action.

Adapting Sales Strategies

It is not just about being informed or staying connected. How you act on the information and adapt to the changes defines how your team performs. Keep your strategies flexible enough that you can make changes to respond to the market needs, a tight policy with no scope for change will not work well, especially when there is a need to be agile

• Adjusting Targets: Be ready to make changes in your priorities and targets. For eg, when Jio launched, Airtel was no longer working on revenue growth as target, their aim wad to maintain market share and not let SIM deactivation or MNP happen

• Tailored Approaches: Now you may need to tweak one section / segment not the entire process, one needs to be prepared and address specific segments of the market. Revisit your product, pitch and the chanel for sales. Sometimes a repackaged product works.

Enhancing Team Skills

Is your team in line with the changes in market. For eg, how equipped is your team with Gen AI, Chatgpt, do they know the potential and how they can use the same to further their goals and also help clients. Ensure that you address your team’s anxieties clearly, an overperforming team might just start struggling suddenly, they need to be equipped to change, learn new skills as needed.

• Role-Playing Scenarios: A bit difficult to execute, but creating different conditions and playing them out within the team, makes them better prepared to handle client queries. This will also help them being nimble and think fast. Such situation based training helps in quick knowledge dissemination as well.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: bring in experts and seniors from other departments within organization and from other organization as well to discuss the change. Encourage experts and others to ‘work the market’ with your team.

• Continuous Training: encourage team to read, and share. Being updated helps. This can be done through workshops, online courses, and mentorship.

Managing Risks

You might still be at risk after doing all you can to mitigate the same. Do you have a plan B of your own, or you only depend on HO to give guidance, the ones who prepare for downtrends end up being the leaders themselves

• Scenario Planning: Create different scenarios and anticipate potential changes to develop plan B with your team. Preparing your team for various outcomes and uncertainties.

• Proactive Problem-Solving: Address issues before they escalate. Encourage team to table issues within the group so that early trends can be captured easily. If some problems is faced by several team members and is known, resolution can be brought about faster.

Endgame

• Stay Informed: Keep up with industry news, network, and gather internal feedback.

• Analyze Data: Monitor sales metrics, customer feedback, and conduct market research.

• Adapt Strategies: Adjust targets, tailor approaches, and implement agile methodologies.

• Enhance Skills: Continuous training, role-playing scenarios, and cross-functional collaboration.

• Manage Risks: Scenario planning, and encourage proactive problem-solving.