5 Ways to Build a Winning Sales Team for Your Catering Business

By Jim Rand

If you’ve ever crossed paths with a good salesperson, you probably recognize that it’s hard to brush him off. Sales is an art, and some people can do it magnificently. Good salespeople learn the product so well they can tactically market it while chatting up prospects about sports and family. They can persuade customers that the product is in perfect harmony with their needs and wants. Customers who come in contact with them are convinced that they’re much better off for spending their money.

It’s this type of trained professional that you’ll need to lead a sales team for the catering arm of your multiunit restaurant company. Let’s talk about finding that ideal salesperson.

1. Pick a Sales Leader with the Right Traits

Make sure you hire a trained sales professional for this role, not just a brand ambassador from your company. Great sales leaders have the following traits and skills:

• A natural independence to find sales opportunities
• Insight to identify and solve a customer’s problems
• Tenacity to turn a customer’s initial “no” into a sale
• Passion for educating customers on products and services
• A pleasant and relatable personality to build trust
• Fluidity to adapt to the situation
• Great communication skills
• Emotional intelligence to get buy-in
• Interpersonal skills to manage different personalities
• Passion for mentoring and training individuals

2. Hire Experienced Sales Professionals

Finding a seasoned “catering salesperson” can be a challenge because this is a relatively new specialty. But there are many talented short-cycle sales professionals from other industries who can adapt their sales experience to your catering business. In the end, you want a sales leader with a track record of building relationships with customers and staff. Fostering trust in customers is good for sales.

3. Create Shared Company Goals

As I mentioned, salespeople are naturally independent, and some might place their own goals first. You can’t let that happen. Even in a large organization with multiple restaurants and divisions, everyone across the board — operations, finance, marketing, sales, and so on — needs to focus on the same goals despite their different roles. Hire sales leaders who get that. Then, make sure your sales leaders understand what they specifically need to pull off to help you fulfill those goals.

Click here for more.