Essentials for Building a High Performing Sales Team

Globally, sales systems have evolved from intuition-led approaches to data-backed, tech-enabled systems. Modern sales now rely heavily on e-commerce, CRM platforms, and analytics. High-performing teams must keep pace with technology, understand customer needs, and communicate value clearly.

To gather practical strategies, we spoke to subject-matter experts who shared hands-on insights into building and sustaining high-performing sales teams.

Building the Right Foundation

African startups face a talent gap: the candidates available in the hiring pool often do not fully match what companies need. Napa Onwusah, a seasoned tech leader, looks beyond traditional CVs.

“In emerging markets, the best salespeople often lack a ‘perfect’ corporate pedigree but have grit, curiosity, and a track record of influencing outcomes in complex environments,” she says.

She sources talent through networks and referrals, observes people in action, and uses scenario-based interviews to assess resilience, storytelling ability, and problem-solving skills. New hires then receive structured training and ongoing coaching.

William Fatayo (ex-CEO and co-founder of truQ) shares a similar view. He hires people who deliver with the tools at hand and then identifies where coaching is needed. “Excellence in sales is a mix of character, skills, and tools,” he says.

Napa’s mantra captures her philosophy: “Hire for attitude, coach for skill, and give people the tools to win.” She illustrates this with an example from Nairobi:

“I once took a calculated risk hiring an engineer for a sales role after watching him upsell and handle objections effortlessly with customers. With targeted coaching, he became our top closer in six months, proof that potential often hides in plain sight.”

Onboarding New Talent for Remote, Hybrid, and Onsite Teams

“Onboarding is an experience, not a checklist,” Napa says. She builds outcome-based onboarding programmes with clear milestones: product deep dives, sales playbooks, mock scenarios, and early feedback loops, all designed to help new hires build competence and confidence quickly.

For remote and hybrid teams, she creates bite-sized learning modules, recorded role-plays, and simulated client calls. Every new hire is assigned a buddy for the first 30 days to accelerate cultural integration.

Beyond onboarding, she is equally focused on sustaining strong work ethics. Managers are trained to coach and provide consistent, targeted feedback that reinforces high-performance behaviours.

William stresses the importance of aligning hiring with organisational fundamentals. These include product–problem fit, clearly defined customer personas, mapped sales processes, curated sales enablement materials, and selecting the right sales tools for the company’s current stage.

Maintaining a High-Performance Sales Culture

Operating in many African tech cities means contending with systemic challenges such as frequent power outages and inadequate infrastructure. William’s approach is pragmatic.

“Operating in the Nigerian market comes with the responsibility to BYOI, Build Your Own Infrastructure. While it's not an ideal scenario for innovation, you just have to do what you have to do to sustain your operations and keep your team going.”

Napa focuses on making performance visible. Leaderboards, public recognition, and “deal of the month” stories create healthy competition. She rewards behaviours that lead to results and ties sales targets to the company’s mission and individual career goals.

“When people see how their work impacts the company and their growth, they show up differently. And here’s my biggest tip: give your team access to career coaching,” she says. “Take time to understand what motivates them, then align their success with those drivers. It’s a game changer.”

At one startup, Napa says revenue grew by 120% year-on-year without hiring new staff, simply by instituting weekly sales meetings and peer-to-peer coaching, small changes that multiplied performance.

Leveraging Technology for High-Performance Sales

“I treat CRM as the single source of truth, not an admin chore,” Napa says. For African startups, she prefers mobile-first tools such as Pipedrive or Zoho that function reliably on patchy networks. She also mentions being in early access to plainloop.com. CRM tools help teams track and manage leads through every stage of the sales process, from initial contact to closing, which is the essence of building an effective sales funnel.

She uses AI for lead scoring, drafting first-touch emails, and analysing call transcripts to identify coachable moments. Sales analytics help her spot key performance signals.

“In one fintech,” she says, “we found that a 20% increase in discovery calls led to a 40% revenue jump three months later. Once we saw that, we doubled down on discovery training.”

William emphasises that tools matter more than most people realise, while also acknowledging their limitations. Most tools, he notes, help teams track sales rather than actively sell or optimise the process. His next focus is addressing that gap.

“I recently exited my company truQ, and my next adventure is to tackle my biggest issue with most sales tools, their limitation to tracking sales rather than helping you sell or optimise your sales process.”

Productivity Hacks for African Sales Leaders

Napa’s weekly productivity routine is practical and structured. On Monday mornings, she blocks time during the sales meeting to review key metrics, share insights, and set the tone for the week. This ensures the team stays aligned on priorities.

As the week progresses, she uses the Eisenhower Matrix to ruthlessly prioritise three revenue-driving actions before noon. Before pursuing a large deal, she asks, “What could kill this?” and addresses potential risks early. This approach prevents weeks of wasted effort.

She emphasises building revenue-generating habits and simplifying tasks through automation. “From CRM updates to follow-up reminders, free your headspace for selling, not admin. Every Friday, clean your CRM, close open loops, and prepare for Monday so you start fresh.”

William’s approach is equally hands-on. He works alongside sales representatives to gather real-time context, prototype fixes quickly, and repeat the process until they identify what truly works.

Key Takeaways

High-performing sales teams hire for attitude and potential, then coach for skill. Performance can be accelerated through effective use of CRM systems and analytics, particularly mobile-first tools that function well in constrained network environments. Administrative tasks should be automated so teams can focus on revenue-driving activities.

Together, these practices form a practical blueprint for building high-performing sales teams in Africa and beyond.

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