[Tip: Salesforce has launched the Sales Performance Accelerator, giving you the tools to tackle these three challenges.  See the Sales Performance Accelerator demo for more info.]

Growing revenue is always a challenge.  Whether you have a lack of pipeline, sales cycles that are too long, inconsistent win rates, or all the above.  There are three key factors to overcoming these challenges so your sales team can operate at peak performance:

• Resources & people
• Coaching & motivation
• Customer leads & data

Everyone loves a "hero" but when your sales success relies on the efforts of just a few heroes on your team, the opportunity for growth is limited. Motivating and empowering your entire team is the best way to grow sustainable revenue.  (Think: team of "A" players.)

1. The right resources and people, anywhere

Empowering every sales rep with the ability to access the information and people they need - anytime and anywhere - is the foundation of every high performing sales organization.  If we take a look at Nathan (a sales rep) for example, he lives to close deals. Before he even pours his first cup of coffee, he uses Salesforce Mobile to check on his opportunities and review his tasks, and his calendar, which is always synched in the background with Microsoft Outlook. He moves from his iPad at breakfast to his iPhone on the train. He notices that one of his opportunities could use guidance from product marketing and another needs to be reviewed by legal. He adds the extended team members to the conversations around the respective opportunity before he even reaches his desk. This is important because team selling is a huge part of his organization's success.

Nathan understands the advantage he gets from involving other reps in some of his opportunities.  This morning he realized that bringing in another rep would help him get to a key decision maker faster, so he split the opportunity.  They’re now able to share in the rewards based on their respective level of work in the opportunity.  And Nathan has put himself one step closer to closing.

Tip: Your reps needs tools that let them focus on their opportunities and collaborate with their team when and where they need.

2. The right coaching and motivation

Developing your sales reps to be "A" performers requires consistent coaching and motivation.  Nathan work closely with his manager to set goals that link up with the team’s overall goals.  The manager uses her reports and dashboards to track Nathan’s performance and the team progress.  She has immediate visibility into what Nathan is doing well and where he still has challenges.  

She’s noticed that Nathan is great at generating new opportunities, but he still seems to be having trouble closing deals.  They’ve worked together to create goals for Nathan that align well with those of the overall team, but are also designed more specifically to help him improve.  In addition to the contest and leaderboards she already runs with the entire team, she’s now directly coaching Nathan on developing a sense of urgency and getting to the right executive buyer quickly.  He sees his feedback every day when he logs in and as he reaches improvement milestones, his successes are shared with the entire team.

Tip: Clear and consistent coaching and motivation create better performers.

3. Clean customer leads and data

You've probably already heard that only 19% of companies are happy with the quality their CRM data. Nathan and his manager understand that all too well.  Nathan drills down his accounts to get to the right decision makers, grabbing their current contact information to save time getting in touch.    

Nathan also searches for potential prospects in his territory and pulls them in so he can start developing them.  With this change, he’s been able to shift his focus away from chasing leads randomly to building a pipeline which has a higher chance of closing. 

Tip: Richer, cleaner data keeps your reps focused on selling, not searching.