Five Tips for Sales Team Integration for Acquisition or Merger

The excitement of an acquisition or merger is palpable, then the integration plans kick into gear and the challenge of bringing two teams together gets real. As a sales leader or CEO, if you haven’t been responsible for merging the sales teams of two small or mid-size companies, keep reading. I could write a book on the topic, but instead, let me give you a few steps that need careful planning and execution:

1. Plan - Make a sales integration plan. Sit down and write it out. The plan needs to consider not only how to merge two sets of salespeople into one team, but also how to merge the processes and the tools the teams use. There are multiple typical approaches:

· Acquired company will be required to adjust to the culture, people, tools, and processes of acquiring company. This may seem the easiest approach, but may not be the most effective, and may draw resentment from the team being acquired, but it’s a place to start if time and acquisition dynamics don’t allow for alternative approaches.

· Acquiring company sales leaders assess and choose the best people, processes, and tools that already exist from both companies, and implement a combined system.

· Develop new people, processes, and/or tools from scratch. Some acquisitions may be structured such that brand new sales teams and systems need to be created. I’ll save suggestions on that option for another blog.

2. Align – Once you have the master list of sales employees in the newly unified company, you will need to align their titles, compensation plans, duties, etc. The best first step is to make a table of variables and develop a structure to align the team with as much consistency as possible. You will need help from HR with this activity, so pull your business partners in early. An example table could include name, tenure, title, base pay, commission, clients/territory, function/specialty.

3. Assign – If you are lucky, the two teams won’t have any overlapping clients, but if they do, it’s time to reassign clients, targets, and territories. This will be a challenge, no way around it. Here are a few suggestions:

· Create your master list of salespeople with their respective clients and targets.

· Highlight all overlaps in current clients and target clients, tackle the list of clients who have multiple salespeople assigned. Does that client need two or more salespeople calling on them? If not, consider past sales success, personality or skill fit, relationships, etc., to reassign that client to one salesperson.

· If a client needs more than one salesperson due to geography, product/service specialization, or other reasons, document who owns what, how commission is earned, and roll that out to the overlapping team members.

· Create a master assignment list and distribute it to all key stakeholders, so that business partners in operations, HR, finance, manufacturing, and marketing know the assignments. If the list is evergreen, keep the list updated on an internal intranet site.

Reassignment will cause discomfort and business leaders will need to provide the rationale and opportunities the client reassignments bring to the team. I am of the opinion you put it out on the table and talk through it – be transparent in how the reassignment process took place and support those impacted.

4. Train - Decide on the sales methodology and sales processes for the newly combined team. Perhaps your company uses a particular sales call approach or methodology that is critical to sales success. Likely you will need to implement a training program to ensure consistency across the team. Likewise, if your company uses a distinct sales procedure with definitive steps and tools, that process will need to be trained, tested, practiced, and shadowed.

It’s important to define who will create training material, conduct the training, and coach the team. This may be an area where you can bring in an outside trainer or select a senior team member for this stretch goal.

5. Integrate – This is where the soft skills become critical. During planning, decide the culture you want, and the company needs. You now have a single sales team, and your leadership is critical during integration. Ideally, you will ensure the team culture is not an “us versus them” or “we versus they,” which takes a strategic approach to words and integration activities.

My best suggestions are to pay attention to a “we” mentality with your words and actions. Spend a few days together as a team, work through sales messaging, assignments, new duties, and territories. Make team goals with financial rewards for the team. Please be sure to plan fun and casual activities together during those initial days – building trust is key.

Ultimately, you will need to communicate individually with team members to ask for feedback along the way. You will also need to pull the team together often to review integration plans and accomplishments. Celebrate the people who lean into the process, who help each other, and who represent the attitudes and behavior necessary for success.

Please reach out and share your sales team integration tips and stories. I’ll add them to this blog. Let’s learn from each other!