Do you want to sell more? Make your team less competitive, no more | Entrepreneur

As someone who has coached different sales teams over the years, I have seen how traditional competitive sales environments leaders run down. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of managing this specific group of personalities is that they are extremely competitive. This competitiveness can be both a blessing for your company (for example, the sale will continue to come) and a burden for you (you try to prevent high-drivers from not acting aggressively or impulsively).

I have seen the top sales artists collide with areas and wage war with each other. Their sales manager must then focus from strategic leadership to constant conflict solution. The stress is overwhelming, not only for the manager, but also for the entire organization.

This experience led me to explore alternative approaches to structures of sales team and to study companies that had successfully devised their sales cultures. The organizations that I have observed transformed their sales department by breaking down traditional silos and changing their compensation models to reward collective success in relation to individual performance. These models showed me that there is a better way ahead.

Related: How cooperation can help stimulate growth and push your company to new heights

Why collaboration sales work for everyone

The natural bewit of your sales team is an advantage for you, but when they are at odds, it is a drain in their time. If your sellers constantly try to surpass each other, they will not be so focused on surpassing the competition. They will also have trouble working together to achieve shared goals.

One way to solve this is to change your internal sales framework and go to one that rewards collaboration. When they work together, they can bundle their talents and have a better chance of beating the competitors.

But beware. You can’t just say that you are going to work together and then let the discussion end. Instead, you must re -view different aspects of your sales culture to stimulate more cooperation in a systematic way that you can still measure and control. You can start with the following suggestions.

1. Allow sales representatives to have more flexibility

Are your sellers assigned to strict areas, verticals or product lines? This can cause unnecessary tension between your sellers and their customers. Sometimes this friction may come from team members who feel that certain assignments are less favorable than others.

Think about ways to drop some of your barriers to increase the cross-division synergy. Nexus Power Bucks, for example, the traditional sales model by organizing itself in five Divorce but cooperation distributions About 11 Western states. Instead of just stimulating each sales team for the products for which they are directly responsible, their sellers have the opportunity to use the expertise of each division when the needs of the customer need multiple product categories or need specialized knowledge. This approach not only offers a more seamless customer experience, but also positions the sales team as the “go -to” source of the customer for all their needs.

To implement this concept, you map your current territorial or product barriers and then control a “Flex Territory” program with which cross -bound cooperation with qualifying deals is possible. Prepare clear protocols for sharing income and regular sessions for sharing knowledge between divisions.

The most important thing is that you adjust your compensation structure to reward the collaboration in addition to individual performance, so that you ensure that helping a colleague close a deal to the committee of no one punishes anyone.

Opening more opportunities for your sellers does not mean that your stressors will disappear. However, you do not have to play the role of referee between unfortunate sellers.

Related: A guide for hiring the right type of seller for what you sell

2. Include a group committee in your compensation model

Conventional sales component structures that have been built almost completely around individual quotas can suffocate cooperation. That is why 91% of the companies said that they will adjust their stimulation plans this year, according to the Alexander Group 2024 Survey of sales compensation Trends.

A proof of Pfizer, whose 4,500 American customer-oriented colleagues are mapped in seven business lines and hundreds of micro-territories. Each territory rolls up in a regional collective, and as soon as that region crosses 100% of the objective, the entire cohort takes part in the worldwide Pfizer performance plan, an annual bonus pole that adds approximately 20% of the basic wage on top of individual stimuli. Areas are mapped again every quarterly to keep the workload and opportunities in balance, so nobody feels briefly changed, but everyone has been invested in pushing the region above goal.

Related: How you can create a wage structure that promotes team and business growth

3. Vote the sales professionals able to edit their unique skills

Another way to stimulate cooperation is to give your processes a complete overhaul. For example, you can use a test such as the Clifton Strengths assessment to determine What each of your employees is best when doing. You could then use the data to find out who is a rain maker in your team, a relationship builder, a closer, a specialist, etc.

After you have determined the strengths of your team, you can then position them to shine. Perhaps you allow your networkers to have it rain and then you pay to your communication notes who can build connections. By getting the most out of the skills of your current team, you can help everyone to reach more – make sure that your new compensation model matches these shuffling roles.

A nice side effect of changing your team into a coherent unit is that you can see any holes. If you do that, you can fill those gaps with the right talent. Moreover, you can easily adjust your team to market changes because they work together.

You have enough stress. Instead of continuing to work as usual, consider the benefits of trivializing competition and encouraging cooperation for you and your team.