When it comes to enabling and motivating your go-to-market team in the current economic climate, there are numerous challenges SaaS companies will be facing. One of the main thing’s employers need to be aware of is that it is currently a candidate-led market due to the global talent shortage, so employee retention is just as important as employee attraction.
To ensure you keep your GTM team motivated, there are various factors to consider to ensure your workforce isn’t tempted elsewhere in the current challenging economy.
MAKE PIPELINE BUILDING AS EASY AND STRAIGHTFORWARD AS POSSIBLE
If your salespeople are struggling to build or maintain their pipelines, they could require simple guidance and advice, or possibly additional training to bolster their own processes. How do you currently enable your existing team to build a pipeline of customers or clients? Do they have multiple streams of leads coming in from marketing and direct sales activity? Are there tools they are currently using that they need to utilise in a more effective way?
The best way to determine if your team needs guidance on how to maximise their pipeline building is to ask for feedback from your most successful team members. What are they doing that other members of the team could be doing? Are they mapping effectively? Is their mentality right when it comes to the importance of having a constant pipeline in place? Get feedback from your employees to discover how and where pipeline building can be made easier.
IMPROVE TIME MANAGEMENT AND PRIORITISING TASKS
When it comes to sales enablement, one of the most straightforward ways to empower your GTM team is to ensure they’re using their time effectively. Anyone working within a SaaS company knows that no two days are the same and keeping on top of the volume of tasks at hand can be a challenge.
In order to service customers in the most impactful way whilst also staying motivated, your team members need to possess the skills to prioritise their tasks and manage their time. If they lose track of where they are up to, over time this can lead to burnout. Review your current reporting processes, ask your salespeople if the tools they are using are saving them time, and review the entire sales process end-to-end to see where time can be saved. It may simply be that your team members need to use a project management system that is more streamlined to be able to stay on top of their work - the best way to find out is to communicate with your team members and ask where they need help.
SHORTEN THE SALES CYCLE TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY
Similar to improving time management and prioritising tasks, when it comes to increasing productivity amongst your team members, asking them for feedback is invaluable. They are the people using the tools available and processes they have learnt in training to complete their daily tasks. So, if something can be improved to shorten the current sales cycle and increase what they can achieve on a daily or weekly basis, they will be the ones who can tell you what needs changing.
Create a survey and send it to your GTM team asking for feedback on the current sales cycle and what they think needs to be updated, improved, or removed altogether to help them be more productive. Analyse the general feedback and implement any improvements needed to keep your team feeling motivated, and most importantly, listened to.
OFFER INCENTIVES BASED ON THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS
Salespeople aren’t strangers to KPIs and targets, but unless they’re the kinds of targets that will keep them motivated, they will soon become uninterested in maximising their sales.
Review what is currently in place and suggest a variety of new incentives for your team members and ask them which they would prefer. Simply offering a quarterly bonus, a team night out or gift vouchers based on their performance might not be the way to go - after all, different people are motivated by different things.
PROVIDE YOUR GTM TEAM WITH RECOGNITION
It might sound obvious but providing your employees with recognition is a vital tactic when it comes to keeping them motivated, particularly during challenging times.
A 2020 survey conducted by Kelton Research found that when asked about ‘expressions of appreciation for their loyalty during times of organisational difficulties’, employees wanted verbal recognition for their performance (32%) and company-wide recognition for their accomplishments (24%).
Whether it’s during team meetings, via email or as part of a company-wide presentation, providing your employees with recognition is a key factor in keeping your salespeople feeling motivated and appreciated for their hard work.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLAN
One of the biggest challenges for SaaS companies when it comes to retaining staff is losing their employees to organisations with a structured career development plan in place.
Your team members will want to know how they can effectively do their job, what they can do to earn more money, what their future at the company looks like, and how they can develop both professionally and financially. Having a clear understanding of what is required of them to be promoted, and what the next steps in their career will specifically look like, is one of the most effective motivational tools an organisation can provide.
After all, unless your GTM team knows what is expected of them, what they are working towards, and what they are provided with to achieve these goals, it will be difficult to stay motivated and keep productivity moving in the right direction.
SUPPORT IN DEVELOPING A BEST-IN-CLASS GTM TEAM FOR YOUR SAAS COMPANY
Here at Strive, we source top tier sales talent for scaling and hyper-growth tech companies. To learn more about how we can help your business scale, contact our team on 0203 983 0770 or email hello@scalewithstrive.com.
