Agile Sales Tips for Driving Better ROI

As the summer Olympics approach, you could be forgiven for hearing the word agility and thinking about the pending contest for gymnastics gold.

However, when a digital marketing agency talks about being agile we mean something even better than staying atop a balance beam. Being agile means to be self-organizing, light on procedure and policies, and focused on incremental accomplishments that move a project consistently forward. The agile methodology embraces flexibility, changing in response to customer need, and understanding what real-time data tells us.

Still, even those who recognize the tenets of agile marketing, may be surprised to see the words “agile sales.” Nevertheless, the agile sales approach is a great way to drive more ROI. Here are five important considerations:

#1 Agile teams are small teams.
A group of ten or less individuals is able to define tasks, estimate effort, ensure quality and evolve more effectively. After all, teams need to be able to adapt and react quickly to how the process is working for customers and other teams. Small teams, given an opportunity to self-organize, can become very efficient and successful with only minimal oversight.

#2 Agile requires team and independent thinking.
An agile sales team member is given the freedom to determine his or her necessary tasks. What does that individual need to be doing to achieve the best results? Yet, the effective agile sales contributor acknowledges he or she is part of a team. It’s a best practice to define everyone’s role.

#3 Agile sales teams stay in touch.
A key component of the agile method is scrum, a regular meeting in which everyone on the team gets together to discuss status, distribute tasks, and prioritize. Taking this initiative — daily or perhaps twice weekly, or weekly — helps focus a team and develop shared goals while creating a sense of urgency and enabling the sales manager to learn what impediments need to be cleared out of the way. Continually revisiting the process also provides opportunities to readjust for greater overall success.

#4 Agile sales acknowledges effort.
If meeting in scrum adds transparency and fosters team thinking, another essential strategy of the agile approach is acknowledging effort. The sales meeting is no longer all about who closed the biggest sale or most deals. Rather the discussion is around what progress is being made by the team to achieve the high level goals that will close deals in this quarter and develop new leads for the next one.

#5 Agile involves sprints and retrospectives.
Your team will need to determine the length of your sprint cycle. Is it a month? A quarter? Settle on a timeframe that makes sense with the goals of the team. Then, reflect on information gained in that sprint cycle to see what’s been accomplished, review impediments and determine what parts of the process should be retooled.

Sources:

• Bushee, W. (November 9, 2014). Optimizing Your Sales Teams with Agile Methodologies. https://bluemonkeydev.com/optimizing-your-sales-team-with-agile-methodologies/
• Leading Agile (May 29, 2013). Agile and Sales: Reflections on My First Scrum Sales Team. https://www.leadingagile.com/2013/05/agile-and-sales-reflections-on-my-first-scrum-sales-team-2/
• Waters, K. (February 10, 2007). What is Agile? 10 Key Principles of Agile. https://www.allaboutagile.com/what-is-agile-10-key-principles/
• Winton, W. (March 12, 2014). Agile Sales and Business Development. https://www.slideshare.net/wintonjkt/agile-sales-and-business-development