Using emotional intelligence to unlock the potential of the sales acceleration formula

When you are seeking to ignite sales, it pays to be creative. You need to use strategies to engage customers and increase sales, employ great people to put those strategies into action, and make sure that the whole team is working with the same proven successful sales methods.

When he was employed by HubSpot, the hire of Mark Roberge was both creative and innovative. Roberge is an engineer by trade. Putting him in charge of sales was a stroke of genius. He analyzed needs, market, and customers, and designed what he calls the ‘Sales Acceleration Formula’. Within seven years, HubSpot’s sales had rocketed, and HubSpot had passed the $100 million valuation.

In this article, you’ll learn about the sales acceleration formula, and we’ll investigate the first three steps of this formula to help you ignite your organization’s sales.

What is ‘The Sales Acceleration Formula’?

The Sales Acceleration Formula has five steps, taking you from hiring through to snowballing and supporting sales through innovative technologies. These steps are:

1. The Sales Hiring Formula – identify your successful salespeople and employ their doppelgangers
2. The Sales Training Formula – give these people the benefit of the same training and coaching in sales techniques every time
3. The Sales Management Formula – Ensure that your salespeople follow the same sales process and are accountable to it
4. The Demand Generation Formula – Make certain that your salespeople benefit from consistent quality and quantity of leads
5. Technology and Experimentation – use technology to enable the sales process, reaching customers more easily and selling to them faster

Following such a formula for sales is akin to how a leading shampoo brand doubled its sales. Lather, rinse, repeat. That last word was the one that exploded sales. Repeat. In other words, when you find a successful formula, repeat it:

• Hire the same person time after time.
• Give that person the same training, time after time.
• Stick to the same processes, and ensure the salesperson is responsible.
• Innovate the process with technology to reach more customers and speed up sales.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

How do you find the same salesperson time after time?

To hire the same people again and again, you must first identify who your best salespeople are. What are the characteristics of your top salespeople? How do they measure up in self-awareness, and how well do they empathize with clients? Are they coachable self-starters? Do they collaborate with the team, or are they loners?

Once you have identified these characteristics (and they won’t be the same in every organization, which is why previous success isn’t necessarily an indication of future potential), you need to devise ways to test the characteristics of candidates against the characteristics of your people. An emotional intelligence assessment could help you in this process.

Training your people to sell with integrity

Once hired, your people must be trained to perform at the same level and in modern sales methods. Today’s informed customers can make sales more difficult. You need new sales strategies and to sell collaboratively with a win/win mindset. The new dynamic in sales training is to build behaviors based on neurosciences and emotional intelligence. Instead of selling features and benefits, sell to beliefs, values, feelings, and need.

Create the perfect process and repeat with every customer

Every buyer travels a similar customer journey. Once this is identified, you can create a process that supports the customer along this journey. The salesperson will gather information from the prospect to inform their understanding of need, so that the ideal solution can be discussed. All the while, the salesperson is building rapport and trust, creating a collaborative partnership.

As you can see, success in these first three steps is predicated in emotional intelligence and behaviors:

• An organization should know what character traits makes their people successful to identify potential future hires
• These salespeople should have a high level of emotional intelligence to inform their behaviors and identify how to deal with different customers
• The behaviors will ultimately determine success in sales, as the salesperson and process support the customer journey

Contact us today, and discover how we could help your sales team to manage themselves, their prospects, and ignite sales, as your sales processes benefit from creativity and innovation.