No hiring. Minimal Travel. Restructuring. Economic uncertainty.

Cutting costs might keep the lights on temporarily, but it won't fuel growth. There's no way to cut your way to long-term success. If you're serious about growth, your focus must be on transforming your revenue generators, starting with your sales team. A high-performing sales team, equipped with the right tools, support, and AI technology, will consistently deliver results, quarter after quarter, year after year.

Here are five critical steps to driving growth and sustaining revenue:

1. Executive Ownership and Alignment

This seems obvious, but it's often overlooked. We frequently see executive teams where each member is absorbed in their own priorities—HR on policies, the CFO on numbers, the CIO on systems, and the CEO on managing stakeholders. When the sales team underperforms, it's the VP of Sales who gets the blame—or worse, loses their job. For real success, every executive must be engaged in the sales strategy and aligned to support it. Best-in-class companies have their entire senior management team actively engaging with clients. Does your HR leader join sales calls? How about your CFO? When your leadership team is directly connected to your customers, the entire organization becomes aligned with what truly matters to them.

2. Implement Both Sales Process and Sales Methodology:

Every buyer follows a process, from recognizing a need to evaluating options, resolving concerns, making a purchase, and implementing the solution. Your sales team must be trained to understand each stage of this buying process and how to align their selling process accordingly.

Recent data from McKinsey shows that companies with a formal sales process aligned to the buying process can achieve up to 28% year-over-year growth.

Furthermore, organizations where sales managers spend over five hours a week coaching and inspecting pipeline opportunities experience 15% more growth than those with less dedicated coaching time. It's not just about inspecting CRM data; it's about meaningful coaching that improves how reps manage opportunities. Additionally, the integration of AI-driven tools has become a game-changer. AI can take on some of those hours each week analyze buyer behavior, predict trends, and provide insights and coaching to enable sales teams to act more strategically.

A unified approach to the sales process, coupled with AI technology and a strong methodology for managing opportunities, is essential for accelerated growth.

3. Align Rewards and Recognition:  

Both the economic and psychological paycheck drives behavior—period. What gets recognized gets repeated.  If your sales compensation model isn't aligned with your business goals, it will hinder your ability to drive critical success factors like channel management, cross-selling, margin improvement, and segment penetration. Review your sales compensation plan annually and your recognition approach to ensure it rewards the right behaviors. What behaviors are you driving?

4. Focus on Account Management

If your client retention rate is below 93%, you're holding your sales team back. Happy, loyal customers are the foundation for revenue expansion and new client referrals. Implement proven Account Management processes and tools to assess and manage client risk. Just consider the impact on your P&L if you never lost a client. Moreover, AI can play a crucial role in account management by identifying at-risk clients before they churn, enabling your team to take proactive steps to retain them.

5. Overcommunicate

Remote work, dispersed teams, constant market adjustments - these factors make communication more critical than ever. We often hear executives express frustration that their sales teams aren't following the company's strategy. The root cause? A lack of clear and consistent communication.

Your sales team needs to fully understand the strategy, the game plan, and the daily actions required to achieve results. From day one, make sure your sales professionals are crystal clear on what’s expected. Use every communication channel available—conference calls, newsletters, one-on-ones and agreements to reinforce and measure their understanding.

If you recognize gaps in any of these five key areas or want to explore best practices for transforming your sales force, Butler Street is here to help. Our Client and Talent Development approach is rooted in years of sales success, leadership development, and proven strategies that any organization can implement.Additionally, our AI coaches are in place and ready to drive growth for your team despite the economic headwinds!  Contact us and let's start the conversation.