Sales is a complex beast. There are so many aspects to it, and it’s unpredictable. However, that’s not the reason many SMBs have sales teams with something to be desired.
It’s the underlying nature of small business that makes creating a high-performing sales team difficult. For instance, most small business sales teams lack the rock stars they companies have. The reason is pretty simple; they can’t afford true rock stars. This leaves SMBs working with B-level and C-level players yet trying to create an A+ sales department. 
You can get a lot of sales experts to tell you the easiest way to create a high-performing sales team is to get better salespeople. Recruit better and train better. It’s a good plan to start with the type of talent big companies can bring in if it’s in your budget. For most small companies this is not a viable option, so what do you do?
You create a system that works for B-level and C-level salespeople. You don’t overinvest in sales training because, many times, it doesn’t “stick” with C-level salespeople. You can spend a year and thousands of dollars training up a salesperson that’s never going to improve via training.
The better way for SMBs to create a high-performing sales team is to focus on everything but the people. For instance, creating a companywide proven and repeatable sales process will improve the performance of every salesperson regardless if they are A quality, B quality, or C quality. Improving workflows, automation, and leverage of CRM benefits the company and the sales team but costs a fraction of the lifetime salary of a rockstar salesperson.
Once these two improvements are in place, you can demand better accountability from the sales force. This will drive them toward high performance. Then add a layer of one-on-one coaching for the team, and you will have the high performance you’ve always desired.
Don’t know where to begin, audit your entire sales ecosystem here.
