How To Build an Effective Sales Team: Functions and Tips

As you grow your ecommerce business, it can be challenging to manage all of the tasks on your plate. Developing a valuable product or service is just the beginning. What’s the use of having an amazing offering if you can’t sell it?

Sales can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of any business—finding qualified leads, converting them into paying customers, and managing ongoing relationships with existing customers takes a lot of know-how and finesse.

Having a trained and dedicated sales team can streamline the sales process and pay big dividends. This article explores what a sales team does and how to build an effective one to boost sales. 

What is a sales team?

A sales team is a group of employees dedicated to turning leads into paying customers and driving revenue growth for your business. By closing deals for your company, their goal is to increase revenue growth for your business. Sales development representatives find and qualify new leads, account executives manage ongoing relationships with customers, and sales managers oversee the entire process by guiding strategy, coaching the team, and ensuring targets are met.

Sales teams are crucial for business-to-business (B2B) companies and industries with long lead times and expensive purchases, like software-as-a-service (SaaS) or service businesses. For business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce businesses, sales teams may work on procuring larger bulk orders and coordinate agreements with retailers. 

On-the-floor sales teams are also fundamental to brick-and-mortar retail, where sales associates and managers help customers in real time. 

Sales team functions

From finding prospects to closing renewals, your sales team needs to cover these seven core functions:

1. Lead generation. This involves identifying potential customers. Sales team members collect important customer data and then qualify which of these leads are most likely to purchase a product or service by analyzing their behaviors, interactions, and demographic information.

2. Outbound sales. In an outbound sales initiative, a sales rep initiates contact with a lead by making sales calls, sending cold emails, and/or conducting product demos or presentations. The goal is to reach out to new customers who may be unaware of your business but need your product or service.

3. Inbound sales. Inbound sales occur when customers approach your business through inbound marketing strategies like word-of-mouth referrals or advertisements via channels like social media and search engines, or content marketing efforts like blogs. A sales and marketing team that works hand in hand makes this function effective.

4. Negotiation. Depending on the business, sales teams are also responsible for negotiating terms with clients—agreeing on price, payment terms, and delivery dates. This function is particularly important for B2B businesses and other companies that deal with large, complex transactions.

5. Managing customer relationships. Sales professionals work alongside customer success teams to build trust with existing clients. Customer success teams aim to increase customer satisfaction and earn repeat sales from loyal customers. For example, suppose a company is coordinating a renewal for a subscription service. The sales team handles contract terms, while customer success might troubleshoot communication challenges for both sides.

6. Sales strategies. Senior sales executives set the team’s objectives and goals, outlining strategies to employ.

7. Onboarding. Sales managers onboard new hires, set sales targets, and ensure teams are on the same page about new sales strategies, products, or services.

Characteristics of effective sales teams

A strong sales team is essential for maximizing conversions. An ideal sales team member should be: 

• Resilient. A high-performing sales team understands that rejection is a consistent part of sales. Dealing with lost sales and moving on to new leads without becoming discouraged is part of the job description.
• Adaptable. Effective sales executives can adapt to changing markets, customer trends, and new sales techniques to stay competitive. For example, if customers consistently prefer online demos over in-person presentations, an adaptable team puts together online decks and pitches to convert interested parties.
• Communicative. Successful salespeople need strong communication skills to handle customer interactions across channels, including phone, email, and in-person. 
• Goal-oriented. Sales teams need clear sales goals to measure their performance and remain accountable. These goals often include hitting monthly revenue targets or increasing conversion rates. Teams track progress through CRM dashboards, weekly pipeline reviews, and regular performance check-ins.
• Well-informed. A high-performing team knows its offerings, business, and customer base inside and out, entering sales interactions with a comprehensive understanding of product features, customer data, and market trends.
• Collaborative. Sales team members collaborate with each other, openly sharing information and resources where needed. For example, an account executive might share insights about a prospect’s challenges with a sales development representative so they can tailor their outreach, or reps might swap successful pitch decks and talking points to help each other close similar deals.
• Technologically proficient. Sales teams rely on prospecting tools, communication software, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track leads and automate follow-ups—reps who can’t navigate these tools waste hours on manual data entry.
• Customer-focused. Successful sales teams prioritize customer needs by soliciting valuable information about what’s most important to their target audience and focusing sales communications on how a product or service can benefit the customer.

How to build an effective sales team

• Hire the right people
• Establish a sales training program
• Standardize your sales process
• Set clear sales targets
• Invest in the right software tools
• Monitor key sales metrics
• Provide incentives

Building a strong sales team starts with intentional structure and strategy:

Hire the right people

Define your business needs and what type of sales representative positions your business requires—whether it’s an experienced sales leader to manage your team, a sales development representative to focus on identifying qualified leads, or both. 

Write comprehensive job descriptions that include educational requirements, necessary skills, and level of experience. Aim to find fits for your unique company culture by looking for candidates whose communication style, values, and work habits align with how your team operates, as well as the type of customer experience to deliver. Hire people who are both driven and personable. 

Establish a sales training program

Sales training programs equip teams with the information, skills, and resources they need to successfully sell a product or service. These can include in-person workshops, mock presentations, meetings, virtual training, or online courses. Sales training may include modules in various categories, including: 

• Soft skills. Brand positioning, sales techniques.
• Hard skills. Using the company’s software, data analysis. 
• Product and service specs. Knowing the ins and outs of the product and the market.
• Management. Managing multiple accounts, prioritization, goal setting.

Standardize your sales process

Develop a repeatable sales process your entire sales team can follow and reference throughout the sales cycle. Write a sales playbook that breaks down how they should move through each step of the sales process—from prospectingpotential customers through presenting your product or service, handling objections, and closing the deal. 

In your sales playbook, define a buyer persona describing your ideal customer, explain how sales reps should position your company through messaging, and highlight what types of sales techniques suit your business. 

For example, standardize sales calls using the SPIN (situation, problem, implication, need-payoff) selling technique, where sales reps ask prospects a series of open-ended questions to get customers to arrive at the conclusion that your product or service offerings can solve their pain points. Hold regular team meetings with your sales force to check in on how techniques are working and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Set clear sales targets

Define clear goals with quantifiable performance targets that demonstrate your sales team is hitting sales targets. Analyze your sales funnel and write goals using the SMART framework—crafting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals.

Evaluate your overall company objectives and choose sales goals that align with those overall objectives. For example, set a sales goal of increasing your average order value by 30%, inspiring sales reps to focus on upselling opportunities and supporting your company’s overall revenue goals.

Invest in the right software tools

The right tools save your reps hours of manual work every week. Sales enablement tools improve efficiency in your sales process and help close more deals. Choose a customer relationship management (CRM) system to manage and improve relationships with prospects and customers. A CRM prevents the chaos that kills deals—lost follow-ups, duplicate outreach, and forgotten conversations. When a rep leaves, their relationships and pipeline history stay with your business instead of walking out the door. 

Other sales tools to consider implementing in your sales process include automation tools to save time with data entry, automated email software, and prospecting tools to identify qualified leads based on purchase histories. For example, Shopify merchants have access to Shopify Email—a built-in tool that sales teams can use to send automated abandoned cart emails or promotional emails to bring prospects into the sales pipeline.

Monitor key sales metrics

Collect and track measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate your company’s sales performance. These metrics provide valuable insights into your sales productivity and highlight areas for continuous improvement. Here are some of the most relevant sales KPIs to use when evaluating sales team performance:

• Average sales cycle length. Your average sales cycle length measures the amount of time it takes to convert a lead into a paying customer.
• Customer acquisition cost.Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total amount of money your business has spent on acquiring a single customer, including sales, marketing, and overhead costs.
• Customer churn rate.Customer churn is the percentage of customers who stop using your product or service over a given period of time. This metric provides critical information about how well your sales team can retain customers. 
• Lead conversion rate. This KPI measures the percentage of leads that become paying customers, highlighting how well your sales team is driving conversions.
• Monthly sales growth. Monthly sales growth measures the momentum of your sales team’s performance month after month, represented by an increase or decrease in sales revenue.

Provide incentives

Businesses often establish compensation plans to incentivize sales team performance. Depending on your specific business and product or service offerings, you could opt for a full salary structure, bonuses based on performance, or a commission-based structure where sales reps earn a percentage of sales on top of their base salary.