I bang the drum of attention to detail in sales a lot, which many people might find weird. After all, salespeople aren't supposed to be the best at detail orientation.
But here's the thing. The relationship with the sales team is often the first interaction a customer has with a company, so whatever they do sets the tone for the rest of the relationship.
Sales is first-date behavior.
First-date behavior is showing up on time, dressed up, good table manners, and laughing at your (questionably funny) jokes. It's all the things we do to impress someone when we are meeting them for the first time. It doesn't get better than the first date. (Same rule applies to job interviews and actual first dates.)
And if sales shows up late, wearing sweatpants, wipes their hands on the tablecloth, forgets our name, and spends the entire date staring around the restaurant, looking for who might be a better dinner companion, we have every right to expect that the rest of the relationship is going to go downhill from there. There's no way we're going to trust that the second, or third, or fifth, interaction is going to be miraculously better.
That's why it is so important for your sales team to put their best foot forward. (I don't mean dressed to the nines or conventionally attractive, either. I mean paying attention, asking great questions, paying attention to detail and NEVER MISSING A DEADLINE.) They have to demonstrate great first-date behavior, so the customer feels comfortable entering a relationship with them, and you.