Growth Is a Team Sport: Why You Should Be Team Selling Today

In the high-stakes world of B2B sales, the lone wolf rep is an endangered species. Closing enterprise deals in today‘s complex buying environment takes a village. If you‘re not team selling, you‘re putting your numbers at risk.

The data backs this up:

• Deals are 258% more likely to close when there‘s at least one meeting that includes multiple participants from the seller‘s side (Gong.io)
• The number of stakeholders involved in a typical B2B buying decision has climbed to 11 (up from 7 just a few years ago) (Challenger)
• 70% of B2B buyers cite the number of people involved as the "new normal" (Forrester)

The message is clear – if you‘re not collaborating with your colleagues across the company to win deals, you‘re out of step with what it takes to succeed in modern B2B sales.

What is Team Selling?

At its simplest, team selling is leveraging multiple members of your company to collaborate on winning a deal. This usually involves people from different departments like sales, marketing, customer success, product, and leadership strategically engaging with the buyer at various points throughout the sales cycle.

The goal is to harness the collective experience, knowledge and relationships of the team to better understand the buyer‘s needs, craft a compelling solution, build trust and get the deal across the finish line.

The Business Case for Team Selling

Consider a typical enterprise deal: You‘ve got a buying committee with 6-10 (or more) stakeholders, each with their own priorities and concerns. There‘s the end users worried about how your product will impact their day-to-day. The technical folks need reassurances about security and integrations. Procurement‘s all about risk mitigation and pricing. And the economic buyer ultimately cares about business impact and ROI.

Can a single sales rep adequately address all those needs? Build relationships with each of those stakeholders? Have the knowledge and credibility to overcome every objection and concern? Probably not.

That‘s where team selling comes in. By strategically bringing in colleagues with relevant expertise, you‘re better able to:

• Connect with diverse stakeholders: A buying committee might include representation from IT, finance, procurement, legal, and business units. An individual rep will struggle to relate to all those different roles. But a selling squad that includes an engineer, a customer success pro, and an executive is well equipped to build rapport with each stakeholder.

• Solve complex problems: Today‘s B2B solutions often involve sophisticated technology, cross-functional impact, and integration with existing systems. Crafting a solution requires deep discovery, creative problem-solving and technical acumen. Tapping into your company‘s collective expertise helps you dig deeper into the buyer‘s challenges and devise a more compelling solution than a rep could alone.

• Provide a better buying experience: B2B buying is hard. 77% of buyers say their last purchase was very complex or difficult (Gartner). Having multiple points of contact guides buyers through the process, makes them feel understood and supported, and demonstrates the depth of your company‘s capabilities. That builds trust and confidence in your solution.

• Move deals forward: Team selling reduces risk by ensuring you‘ve got relationships with multiple stakeholders (not just a single champion who could leave the company). And with more feet on the street, you can maintain momentum, getting meetings scheduled and action items completed faster than a lone rep.

The proof is in the numbers. According to CEB (now Gartner), the average B2B deal now requires 27 touches from a vendor organization. That‘s simply too much for an individual rep. Companies using team selling report:

• 12-15% increase in win rates (Aberdeen Group)
• 10-15% increase in deal size (Forrester)
• 25% shorter sales cycles (HBR)

Who Should Be Part of the Selling Squad

While the usual suspects are colleagues from sales, pre-sales, customer success, and leadership, don‘t be afraid to look further afield. Some of your most valuable team members might come from less obvious places:

• Product Marketing: Can share competitive intel, battle cards, and product roadmap information to help address buyer concerns and make your case against the competition.

• Implementation/Onboarding: Can speak to what kickoff and the first 90 days will look like, giving buyers confidence in your ability to deliver quick time to value.

• Product Management: Can demo specific features, speak to future development plans, and even loop in engineering on a deep-dive technical discussion.

• Account Management: For existing customer expansions, key account managers can share stories of successful adoption and business impact to date.

• Executive Leadership: Whether a C-level sponsor or a VP, having a senior leader engage on strategic deals demonstrates the importance of the relationship and your commitment to the buyer‘s success.

The key is to be intentional. Consider your deal strategy and what voices will be most valuable based on the stakeholders involved, their priorities, and the size/importance of the deal. Then brief your colleauges on the context and align on roles so everyone‘s working in concert.

How to Make Team Selling Work

Implementing a team selling motion requires coordination, communication and the right incentives. Some tips:

1. Define the process:

• Map common buying scenarios and the typical stakeholder personas involved at each stage
• Define team roles and the expertise each member brings to the table
• Determine qualification criteria for which deals warrant team selling (deal size, strategic importance, etc.)
• Outline internal communication protocol (deal briefs, Slack channel, standing meetings)
• Establish success metrics

2. Enable team members:

• Train non-sales colleagues on effective discovery, objection handling, storytelling, etc.
• Create a library of talk tracks, slides, and other content your team can use in meetings
• Implement a deal collaboration platform (like Highspot or Seismic) to share information and track interactions

3. Align incentives:

• Implement a comp plan that rewards supporting players (bonuses, SPIFs, revenue share)
• Recognize and celebrate wins that come from team selling
• Make collaboration a key cultural value and highlight in company communications

4. Measure and iterate:

• Track team selling activity (participants, roles, # touches)
• Measure impact on key metrics (win rate, sales cycle, deal size, retention/growth)
• Gather feedback from buyers and internal team on what‘s working and what‘s not
• Continuously optimize your team selling plays

Team selling at Clari has been a game changer for us:

"By collaborating with my SC and Customer Success early on and bringing them into crucial meetings, I was able to speed up the technical win and address key concerns about ongoing support and adoption. This deal wouldn‘t have happened without my squad!" — Cynthia C., Enterprise AE

"My win rates have increased by 20% and I‘ve shaved 15 days off my average sales cycle since I started team selling on a regular basis." — Robbie S., MM AE

Never Go It Alone

I‘ll let you in on a dirty little secret – even if you think you‘re selling solo, you‘re not. There‘s always people behind the scenes enabling your success whether you realize it or not.

So why not be intentional? Why not recognize that winning big deals takes a village and strategically bring in your village to help you win?

In the past year, we‘ve seen a massive acceleration of pre-existing trends in B2B buying:

• Buying has gotten more complex and consensus-driven
• Buyers complete more of the journey independently online
• Deals are more heavily scrutinized by procurement and leadership
• Retention and growth have become as important as new logo acquisition

These shifts have made team selling an imperative, not a nice-to-have. Forward-thinking sales orgs are leaning in – formalizing team selling programs, enabling cross-functional collaboration, and doubling-down on an ethos of "winning together."

So what‘s holding you back? Fear of losing control of your deal? Concern about getting your colleagues to make time? Not wanting to share the glory (or the commission)?

Resist those urges and recognize that team selling isn‘t just the best way to win in today‘s environment – it‘s the only way. Challenge yourself to make "never lose alone" your mantra.

One of my favorite African proverbs says "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Never has this rung more true than in today‘s world of B2B selling. Team selling is your ticket to smashing your number this year and beyond.