Team of Teams: What an Agile Sales Team Looks Like

We started Heresy to help solve the problems we saw in sales: bad working environments, no collaboration, and low team morale.

In most sales teams, team dynamic is badly damaged. If you were to ask the public the words most associated with sales teams, the answers would be competitive, cut-throat, individualistic, and stressful. No one would say supportive, cohesive, and collaborative. Yet, if you want any team to work well and succeed, those are obviously the qualities you need.

In traditional sales teams, the goal is not common. Everyone has an individual target and are working like crazy to hit it. If towards the end of the month they are missing quota, their stress levels will skyrocket and they'll try and hide their problems. If they are above quota, they'll want to win, so they won't share the secrets of their success.

Every month some people will win and some people will lose. But every month, the team will definitely lose. Problems won't be solved; success won't be shared.

The heretical part of Heresy is to get sales teams working as a team towards achieving one shared common goal. To do that, we want to build agile sales teams.

Small scales
Small teams fix these problems. Or rather, better team dynamics fix these problems, and you need small teams for better team dynamics. The ideal sales team size is 5-6 people.

There are three roles in these agile sales teams:

The Team Member (AKA the Sales Person). The Team Members are the ones doing the work and closing deals. But instead of being individually focused reps, working towards their own goals, they are team members, focused on the team goal. They aren't told what to do by the Scrum Master or Product Owner, but work as a team to prioritize their own dealflow.

The Scrum Master (AKA the Sales Team Lead). The Scrum Master is really the heart of the operation. They are a player-coach, someone who already excels in sales and can use that experience and knowledge to lead their team. They are the person driving cadence each week and keeping the team motivated.

The Product Owner (AKA the Sales Manager). In software development, the Product Owner is the key stakeholder, the person that cares most about the product. In agile sales, the Product Owner is also a key stakeholder, but what they care about is team performance. They coach Team Members on their sales techniques and fix any systemic, long-term problems that the team are facing.

These roles don't perfectly parallel those in agile development. But the point isn't a 1:1 representation. Instead, we want to take the best aspects of team focus and a common goal and adapt them to the sales environment. By keeping teams small and as cohesive units, everyone can work and learn together.

Head over to the full article on the Heresy blog to find out which other best practices you should be using in your sales team.