Archive for category SALES LEADERSHIP
Bring Structure to Your Sales Coaching Calls
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on February 27, 2017
Despite their best intentions, time pressed sales leaders are pulled in so many directions that talent development gets put on the back burner. Bringing structure to dedicated coaching interactions is a proven way to build positive outcomes in people and results. Without structure and planning, sales leaders often mail it in, missing real opportunities to move their people to the next level of success. Avoid this common pitfall by structuring sales coaching calls and each interaction around a guiding plan to bring consistency to the conversation, and ultimately results.
My approach is to organize coaching content into “buckets” that are consistent for everyone. When thinking through what I want to accomplish with a salesperson I am coaching, I typically build my planned dialogues in 3 buckets:
- Navigating within the sales organization: This encompasses mastery of the sales organization, from products and services to the resources available to support the sales effort. How agile are they inside our organization? Can they build customer teams on behalf of their client? Do they build internal relationships? Do they lead and quarterback sales pursuits with appropriate resources? How well do they understand our products and the value they bring? Can they translate that value to the customer’s situation?
- Customer and selling skills: This involves the critical behaviors I am looking for when observing or participating in client interactions with my people. How well do they establish rapport, set agendas, transition to business, ask good questions, listen, confirm needs, positon solutions, follow up and confirm next steps?
- Knowledge of the prospect or customer: This is my favorite – talking with my salespeople about their prospect or customers. Exploring the customer’s landscape and asking simple but powerful questions: Why this, Why Now? What’s prompting them to talk to us? What is occurring in their sector or industry that’s causing the pain? What will success look like for them? How will we know? Who wins in their organization? Who owns the pain?
The above are the consistent givens in my approach. I like to use the phrase “vary the treatment” when thinking about my people. In other words, I have common goals for everyone but the path for how I get them there has its own DNA and blueprint. The above buckets remain the same but the dialogues are different and special to each person. That takes planning and structure but the time invested yields dividends that build over time.
When thinking about the long development journey with sales people, I have come to one exciting realization: It’s a great time to be a sales coach. Technology today has enabled us to move the needle even further. Here at Richardson we are utilizing exciting mobile technologies that provide an ability to capture real sales behaviors with our people over the long haul. Using tablets with a user friendly platform, I am able to capture my observations of client interactions that lead me to richer coaching dialogues with my people. The result is a salesperson reaching for new levels of success with my encouragement and long term support, and their buy in and commitment to change.
Cadence and consistency are essential. One rich coaching dialogue will not get the job done. Make real commitments to coach over the long haul, setting up a cadence of coaching dialogues that set expectations, establish trust and build mutual goals. The complexities of the organization will constantly test the best sales leaders when it comes to delivering coaching. Don’t let your people down. Often I have met salespeople who haven’t had a conversation with their direct leader for the better part of a month. Setting and honoring a protected time for quality dialogues must be the hallmark of the coaching relationship. Don’t discount the time together. Salespeople walk away stronger when working with a caring and dedicated coach.
It’s all about them. The best sales leaders are in it for the pure joy of seeing others achieve success. Honor their time, and yours, by structuring the dialogue and setting the right expectations. Your people and organization will thank you for it.
This article was originally posted to the Richardson Sales Blog by James Barnett on April 26, 2016.
Three Mistakes B2B Sales Leaders Make That Hurt Performance
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on June 16, 2016
Much is written about how the role of the B2B marketers changed over the years due to the shift in the buying process. And while this is true, and has been mentioned more than several times on the ANNUITAS blog, I see very little being written or spoken about the role of B2B sales and how their roles have changed. Perhaps this is just me not being as deeply ingrained in the B2B sales world, but by and large, I have not seen much in the way of the changing role of sales in the B2B process. Furthermore, when I speak to prospects and engage with customers, I find that sales believes the changes are needed on the marketing side, but that there is little that they need to do to adapt. They could not be more wrong. As I continue to interact with many on the marketing side and am now also spending more time with those in sales leadership, 
I have seen some consistent themes that run across a good number (not all) of sales organizations. These mistakes must be corrected if B2B sales organizations are going to have any measure of success.
They Create Work To Keep Sales Teams Busy
I was on a call not too long ago with a client who said that they were going to start pulling industry lists from their house database and have their inside sales team begin a “call blitz”. Without getting into the specifics, I asked my client why they were taking this approach when the whole goal of us working together was to create a buyer-centric, perpetual demand generation program. The answer I received was “we need to keep them busy.” This is not the first time I have heard this plan for an inside sales team.
Simply creating work to keep a sales team busy is like running to the river to get water in a bucket rather than fixing the plumbing. It is a short-term fix that often supplies little in the way of results. The reality is that inside sales people who are very well paid should not be the “fix” for demand generation. They should be poised to either truly sell via the phone or to qualify leads that have indicated via their behavior (and corresponding demographic data) that they are at a point in their buying process that they want to have a discussion. Simply creating work to keep inside sales people busy is not only productivity problem, it is a sign that your demand generation engine is broken.
They Measure The Wrong Things
I spoke this morning with a colleague who is in a fairly new role in his company and was telling me that the one key metric that their inside sales team is measured on is “call volume.” In his new role, he is attempting to move past this way of thinking and stress that quality far surpasses quantity, but he is experiencing resistance.
To be frank, measuring the volume of calls is one of the worst metrics any sales team could measure. When a buyer is in their buying process and ready to take a call, they often have many, in-depth questions. Buyers want to understand how the company’s solutions or services will benefit them, and want be sure their specific needs and challenges will be met. Calls of this nature can take 20-30 minutes or even longer and when done as part of a strategic demand generation program, will lead to a higher closed-won conversion rate, leading to increases in revenue. This is really what demand generation is about, quality over quantity. Call volume doesn’t matter.
They Insist on Sticking to Their Sales Process
Not long ago I was meeting with a client and white boarding the buying journey. During this session the VP of Sales interrupted and stated, “I am not too concerned with the buying process. We have a sales process that will disrupt that and we will engage them when we need to.”
WHAT?!?
It was clear from his statement that he had no clue that the buyers do not care about an internal sales process. In fact, buyers determine when they are ready to engage with sales and buyers are no longer dependent on sales people to research and determine the right time for them to buy.
While there is a need to establish a lead management process and sales people should have a process they follow for the management of pipeline and revenue, too many sales leaders are in the dark about aligning their sales process to that of their buyers. As result, the unfortunate reality is that they are not converting potential buyers to customers at the rate they could be.
Demand Generation is not only a marketing activity. To be effective, both sales and marketing must be active participants in the process and this means changing the way many sales organizations and sales leaders approach their buyers.
This article was originally posted to the Annuitas Blog by Carlos Hidalgo on May 26, 2016.
Small Business Advice Ten Tips on Leadership
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on May 2, 2016
There are so many experts on leadership and they frequently talk only about high level theories and concepts. Whenever I read a leadership book I always look for a few nuggets that I can teach to my clients and more importantly, help them put the ideas into action. Many times, I struggle to find realistic tactical “things to do” in a book. To that end, I want to share with you 10 leadership responsibilities that small business owners must implement in order to be successful. My 10 small business advice tips have been galvanized by many years of coaching business leaders and providing them with implementable small business advice.
Here are my 10 Small Business Advice Tips on Leadership
- Ensure that you are always positive, upbeat, and passionate. You are the role model and your team is watching you and how you act. Your temper, tone, and body language should be carefully controlled and representative of what you aspire to. They see you at your best and worst moments, so be on your best behavior.
- Show grit to your people. If something is hard, and you fail at it, don’t give up right away. Tenacity is an attribute of successful small businesses.
- Listen more than you talk. You don’t have all of the answers. Encourage your people to speak-up and make recommendations. Insist that you get a recommendation and not just another description of the problem.
- Surround yourself with successful and creative people outside of your team. You will be inspired by fellow entrepreneur’s experiences and ideas. Read books, attend conferences, watch TED talks on Youtube, and schedule meetings with experts that don’t think the way that you do.
- Keep your commitments and only make commitments that you can keep.
- Demonstrate integrity in all that you do, say, or profess. Insist on complete honesty with your teammates and yourself.
- Make yourself visible and approachable to all members of your company. You are the boss and unfortunately you intimidate most of your team. I have found that the best way is consistently ask questions about what your company should be doing better. Once you break the ice, the feedback will flow and you clearly hear what is important to know and what to change.
- Be the face of the company with the public, suppliers, and customers. As the owner, people want to have a relationship with you.
- Celebrate your achievements and successes as urgently as the disappointments. We frequently forget how much we really have accomplished and taking the time to celebrate wins will hearten you and your team.
- Be ready to openly and honestly debrief failures. The military does this brilliantly. They specialize in getting at the root of mistakes without casting personal blame. They focus on fixing processes and reinforcing accountability.
This article was originally posted to the Business 2 Community Blog by Dave Schoenbeck on April 10, 2016.
Three Things Managers Should Be Doing Every Day
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on October 14, 2015
“When are we supposed to do all that?” That’s the question we constantly get from new managers, only weeks or months into their new positions, when we describe the three key activities they should be focusing on to be successful as leaders: building trust, building a team, and building a broader network. To their dismay, most of them have found they rarely end a day in their new positions having done what they planned to do. They spend most of their time solving unexpected problems and making sure their groups do their work on time, on budget, and up to standard. They feel desperately out of control because what’s urgent–the daily work–always seems to highjack what’s important–their ongoing work as managers and leaders.
So they push back because they think we’ve just made their to-do list even longer. And these key elements (we call them the “Three Imperatives of Leading and Managing”) are not quick and easy wins – they are substantial and fundamental to one’s ability to function effectively as a leader. Here’s why:
Building trust. Successful leadership is, at root, about influencing others, and trust is the foundation of all ability to influence others. You cannot influence anyone who does not trust you. Thus the manager must work to cultivate the trust of everyone they work with. They do this by demonstrating the two basic components of trust: competence and character. Competence doesn’t mean being the resident expert in everything the group does; it does mean understanding the work well enough to make solid decisions about it, and having the courage to ask questions where they may be less knowledgeable. Character means basing decisions and actions on values that go beyond self-interest, and truly caring about the work, about the customers (internal or external) for whom they do the work, and about the people doing the work. If people believe in your competence and character, they will trust you to do the right thing.
“When are we supposed to do all that?” That’s the question we constantly get from new managers, only weeks or months into their new positions, when we describe the three key activities they should be focusing on to be successful as leaders: building trust, building a team, and building a broader network. To their dismay, most of them have found they rarely end a day in their new positions having done what they planned to do. They spend most of their time solving unexpected problems and making sure their groups do their work on time, on budget, and up to standard. They feel desperately out of control because what’s urgent–the daily work–always seems to highjack what’s important–their ongoing work as managers and leaders.
So they push back because they think we’ve just made their to-do list even longer. And these key elements (we call them the “Three Imperatives of Leading and Managing”) are not quick and easy wins – they are substantial and fundamental to one’s ability to function effectively as a leader. Here’s why:
Building a real team and managing through it. An effective team is bound together by a common, compelling purpose, based on shared values. In a genuine team, the bonds among members are so strong that they truly believe they will all succeed or fail together and that no individual can win if the team loses. Besides purpose and values, strong teams also have rules of engagement, explicit and implicit understandings of how members work together – for example, what kinds of conflict are allowed and what kinds are not. Smart leaders make sure all the elements that create a real team are in place – purpose, values, rules – and then manage through the team. So instead of saying, “Do it because I’m the boss,” they say, “Do it for the team,” which is a much more powerful approach. In a real team, members value their membership and strive mightily not to let their comrades down. The smart leader builds and uses these powerful ties to shape behavior.
Building a network. Every team depends on the support and collaboration of outside people and groups. Effective group leaders proactively build and maintain a network of these outsiders, which includes not just those needed for today’s work but also those the group will need to achieve future goals. This is without doubt the imperative that most troubles new managers. They think “networking” is manipulative organizational politicking that requires them to pretend they like people just because they want something from them. They strive to be above that sort of thing. Alas, in the process, they unnecessarily limit their own and their group’s ability to influence others for good ends. Building a network can be politicking but it need not be if they do it honestly, openly, and with the genuine intent of creating relationships that benefit both sides.
It is here, after covering these imperatives, that we hear the question, “When are we supposed to build trust, build a team, and create a network? How do we do that on top of everything else we have to do? ”
Our answer is that the “Three Imperatives” and all that each embodies are not discrete tasks to put on a to-do. Instead, strong, effective leaders manage and lead through the daily work. They do this in the way they define, assign, structure, talk about, review, and generally guide that work. They are masters at using the daily work and its inevitable crises to perform their work as managers and leaders.
How do they do this?
They build trust by taking the opportunity to demonstrate their ability as they do their daily work, by asking knowledgeable questions and offering insightful suggestions. They use daily decisions and choices to illustrate their own values, expressing their concern for those who work for them or those for whom the group does its work. They reveal themselves, but not in an egotistical way, showing what they know, what they believe, and what they value – and in doing this, they show themselves to be trustworthy.
They build a team by using problems and crises in the daily work to remind members of the team’s purpose and what it values most. They explain their decisions in these terms. They immediately call out team members who violate a rule of engagement – treating each other disrespectfully, for example – or who place their interests above those of the team. And since the rules apply to all members, including the leader, they ask team members to hold the leader accountable if she ever forgets one of those rules.
They build a network by taking opportunities afforded by routine activities – a regular meeting of department heads, for example, or even a chance meeting in the elevator – to build and maintain relationships with colleagues outside their group. They consciously approach problems that involve another group leader in a way that both solves the problem and fosters a long-term relationship. They proactively share information with outsiders who would benefit from it. They encourage their group members to take the same approach when they deal with outsiders.
These are obviously only a few of the ways good managers use their daily work to fulfill the deeper imperatives of leadership, but you get the idea. In fact, if there’s anything that might be called a “secret” for not getting overwhelmed by the challenges of becoming an effective manager, this is surely it. We’ve seen new managers light up when they finally grasp this principle – that the daily work isn’t an impediment to doing what good leaders do. Instead, it’s the way, the vehicle, to do most of what good managers do.
Once they learn this lesson, they look at their daily work differently. For every new task, for every unexpected problem, they take a moment to step back and ask, How can I use this to foster trust? To build and strengthen us as a team? To expand our network and make it stronger?
Three Questions to Assess Sales Force Effectiveness
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP, Sales Process Evaluation on July 13, 2015
Every company wants a more effective sales force but few know where to start. Seeking quick results but unsure as to what is broken, sales leaders often launch a dozen or more initiatives simultaneously, hoping one of them is the real root of the problem.
Unfortunately, this approach often creates entirely new problems. Scarce resources are stretched thin. Sales teams, pulled in many directions at once, are unable to execute well. Results are typically poor when trying to focus on too many initiatives rather than three or four ideas that might really matter. As effectiveness slides, frustrated leaders must ask again, “What levers should I be pulling to boost performance?”
While the specific levers differ for every company, sales effectiveness issues can most often be traced to one or more of six very common culprits. Before launching any sales effectiveness initiatives, ask yourself the following three questions to maximize your chances of attaining good results.
- Is our field sales management effective in driving sales performance?
Companies aiming to improve sales effectiveness usually zero in on “fixing” the sales force but often the problems lie with the managers who lead them. We see it time and again: When a company with an average sales team hires a great manager, that manager elevates the performance of the entire team. The opposite is also true. When a team of superstar reps is led by a mediocre manager the performance slides and turnover increases.
Highly effective field sales management may be the single most important driver of overall sales force performance yet many companies don’t develop and tightly manage an effective sales management process. To begin, identify the skills and capabilities required for sales management success in your company, hire to those skills and then invest in proper development and training. Sales managers must be viewed, managed and measured with the same lens as salespeople: Are our sales managers helping their reps target and prioritize the right prospects? Are they coaching reps to help improve the win rate? Are they tracking metrics that measure the right behaviors and activities in the sales force and coaching to improve performance? Without excellent sales managers, even the best designed sales force effectiveness program will fail.
- Are our sales reps spending time on the activities and prospects most likely to generate incremental revenue?
Targeting and prioritization continues to be a top issue for sales forces. It comes down to this: Are your sales reps spending their time with the prospects that will generate the most incremental revenue and who are most likely to buy? It sounds basic, but we find most reps spend up to half their selling time pursing the wrong customers. These include prospects that are unlikely to buy, who have small incremental revenue potential, who are geographically convenient and who are “comfortable” because they are friendly. Growing incremental revenue requires spending more time selling to the highest priority targets.
A related problem is the limited time reps spend with customers. Time-use studies reveal many reps spend as little as 30%-50% of their time with direct customer/prospect selling activities, largely due to administrative burdens, corporate demands and lack of support. By freeing more of reps’ time to sell, then making targeting and prioritization activities a key part of coaching and metrics, sales reps can learn to re-direct their efforts and their expanded selling hours to prospects with the highest revenue/margin potential and the highest probability of buying. Sales managers often focus their coaching on point-of-sell messaging, but prioritizing who to pursue may be a more impactful lever.
- Do we fully leverage both hunting and farming activities to drive new revenue?
Any good revenue engine needs the right mix of revenue from winning new customers and from farming existing accounts. The right blend of hunting and farming activities will be different for every company and it is important to be intentional in creating it. Hunting involves knocking on new doors to drive new business; farming requires deepening relationships to further penetrate existing accounts. These are different activities that require different skill sets, different behaviors, different process and different metrics. Successful sales organizations leverage these differences to effectively target each prospect with reps whose skills match the opportunity.
Sales territories created by geography or industry without a real understanding of where revenue opportunities are and how they align with the assigned salesperson’s skill set usually produce lackluster revenue results. Hunting and farming skills are so dissimilar, they usually don’t reside in the same person. When organizations understand the hunting and farming requirements in their particular environment and differentiate those activities to match the skill sets of the sale team, revenues improve.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Brad Wilsted and Ryan Tubman on April 27, 2015.
Seven Responsibilities Sales Managers Must Own
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on April 20, 2015
Shifts in the business-to-business buying process have transformed selling as we know it. In the past, salespeople had a fair amount of control. They were given a territory, a pricing structure, a margin target and a set of products and services they could offer, and then sent off into the wild blue yonder. They were responsible for managing their territory and producing results. Sales management provided oversight, facilitated requests back to corporate to ensure that orders were expedited and generally stayed out of the way, unless additional support was needed to help underperformers. That’s how things used to be. Now, the role of sellers – and therefore sales managers – is much different.
The “State of Sales Productivity 2015” study by Docurated found that only one-third of a sales reps’ day is actually spent selling, while 31 percent of their time is spent searching for or creating content, and 20 percent is spent on reporting, administrative and CRM-related tasks. Nowadays, 82 percent of sales reps feel challenged by the amount of data and the time it takes to research a prospect, according to a study by IKO System.
If you want to thrive in this new era of sales, it is now up to you as a sales manager to view territories, customers and products as if assessing a financial portfolio that you are responsible for investing. The people involved, the marketing dollars spent and the efforts expended are all for you to decide. It is your responsibility to make your investments wisely.
Since the time and attention of your salespeople are part of that investment, it is your responsibility to own their calendar, their workflow and where they spend their time. You may be of the old mindset that this is micromanagement, but in today’s marketplace, the investment belongs to the company, not the sales rep. This means your role as sales manager must adapt if you want to succeed in life after the death of selling as we know it. Your new responsibilities as a sales manager include the following:
Selecting targets – There’s an adage that salespeople talk to whoever will talk to them. In the new world of selling, your responsibility is to make certain that they are talking to the decision makers who can approve large opportunities that will come to fruition in the near future. Working with sales leadership, you must establish a filter that helps to define the most likely candidates for higher-opportunity sales efforts.
Defining priorities –Help your sales force prioritize what opportunities they pursue and how much time and effort they spend on each opportunity. Good sales managers keep key opportunities that are real and relevant to the current circumstances in the crosshairs of their salespeople.
Defining time guidelines – Set and enforce guidelines for how sellers spend their time. They no longer can just meander about a territory or go on a sweep of their current account base with the intention of “checking in and finding out what’s going on.” Rather, they must undertake a strategic and surgical approach to going after identified targets in a prescribed way.
Monitoring compliance – You are responsible for providing data that allows you and other leaders in the organization to monitor what is happening in the marketplace regarding customers, competitors and surrounding regulations and technology shifts. Consistency in the execution of a sales process gives data to the organization that clarifies what works and what does not. We’re not talking about activity management and monitoring for its own sake. Your focus should be working toward compliance in the sales process to protect the integrity of the data captured so everyone has relevant data for good decision making.
Navigating the terrain – Your sales process lays out a map for action, but a map is just a two-dimensional representation of a sequential process. Good sales management also addresses the third dimension – assessing the terrain of what is going on in the marketplace based on the data you’re getting (including variant data) from the sales process. There will be occasions when you will need to send out a scouting team of select salespeople to find out new information. Then it’s up to you to analyze what they bring back and use that information to better navigate the terrain.
Securing resources – There will be occasions when competing priorities of other departments impede progress on landing a big account. It’s your responsibility to make certain that significant sales opportunities are visible to leadership and to secure from less-than-enthusiastic parties inside your organization the resources needed for a successful sales process.
Knowing when (and when not) to expedite – It’s your job to expedite what needs to be expedited—and to know when not to. If you try to expedite every opportunity, soon no one will respond. Salespeople are often viewed as that proverbial “boy who cried wolf.” For the sake of the organization and for the sake of your reputation and that of your salespeople, you’ll need to be the gatekeeper on when an opportunity needs to be expedited, and when everyone should simply follow the normal sales process.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Tom Searcy on March 16, 2015.
Building a Successful Team
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on January 13, 2015
Team building is a difficult task. In order to build a great team, you need to understand other people, their strengths and weaknesses, and figure out which tasks they like to work on. If you are a manager, you should also keep in mind that you are responsible from the success of your team. This means the success of individuals working in your team equals to your success. Therefore, you should show great leadership. You should manage not only their demands for attention and acknowledgment but also make them work towards a common goal. As a result, you should learn how to place the right people to the right positions at the right time in order to sustain the success of the company.
Here are some useful tips for building a successful team:
Get To Know Each Person Very Well: You should invest time to understand each person in your team so you can bring out the best in them. For example, someone might be a very good writer but s/he may not be a good presenter. Remember every individual is different and it is your responsibility to motivate them and make them surpass beyond expectations.
Make Sure Everybody Understands Their Roles: Take the time to meet with each individual on your team and discuss their role within the team. Outline their responsibilities and explain your expectations from them. Then, make a career map together so they can see what they need in order to climb to the next level. Also, don’t forget to share the overall objective of the team. It is important that everybody understands the purpose of the team and their roles clearly so they can contribute their best.
Don’t Be A Micromanager: Trust your team to get the job done. Guide them but don’t micromanage them. Always be available to provide supervision but let them do their job. Be sure to give them constant feedback. Make regular status meetings with each team member. Don’t wait until a problem occurs to meet with them. Acknowledge and reward the team members who step up and demonstrate great performance.
Encourage Effective And Transparent Communication: Invite your team members to discuss issues and encourage everybody’s participation to the discussion. Also, keep everyone in the loop when emailing so they can follow what is going on within the team and so no one feels neglected. If there are people who cannot get along, bring them together and help them work through their problems. They don’t need to like each other but they need to understand and respect each other to be able to work together.
This article was originally posted to the Business 2 Community Blog by Ceren Cubukcu on December 15, 2014.
First Line Sales Managers – The Heart of B2B Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on December 2, 2014
I know many CEO’s believe that hiring the best sales people is the recipe for sales success, and of course, they are partly right. But there is a critical missing piece to that puzzle – and it’s not just about giving your new hires the right sort of product training.
The critical success factor – and it ought to be blindingly obvious, if you think about it – turns out to be the effectiveness of your first-line sales managers. Yet that’s often the place where sales performance problems have their roots.
You’ve probably seen the situation play out dozens of times: a vacancy emerges in the sales management team, and a top performing sales person gets promoted to fill it. After all, they can lead by example – can’t they?
And that assumption, of course, is where it all breaks down. Because it turns out that being a top sales performer is a hopelessly invalid predictor of that individuals’ ability to successfully lead a team of sales people.
Avoiding the obvious mistakes
Sometime the reason is predictable, and the issue avoidable. You probably know who your “lone wolf” sales people are, and you’ve learned to live with their anti-social behaviors, because if they didn’t keep the orders coming in, there’s no way you would tolerate them.
It’s blindingly obvious that promoting them would be a bad idea all around, and if they had any sense, they would probably refuse the promotion even if you were foolish enough to offer it to them. So organizations typically manage to avoid that most obvious of mistakes.
No: the real problem lies with high-performing sales people who appear to be well-integrated with their colleagues, and who behave like good corporate citizens – it’s just that a critical part of the front-line B2B sales managers’ skill set is missing.
Coaching – the pivotal skill
The ability to coach – to help sales people learn how to succeed through their own efforts rather than have the manager take over when the going gets tough – turns out to be a pivotal front line management skill. Yet it is so rarely taught.
Some of your front-line managers might have more of an innate talent that others, but experience has convinced me that intelligent new front-line managers can develop strong skills in this area with the right guidance and training.
So here’s the problem: even organizations that invest regularly in sales training often fail to invest in their front-line sales managers. It’s not that they are not involved in the same training as their sales people are – it’s obvious that they need to be.
Preparing your front-line leaders
The issue is the lack of specialized training and mentoring in the key skills needed to be an effective sales manager. Coaching is a big part of this, but it’s not the only area where development would often be beneficial.
What about running effective forecasting and pipeline review meetings? What about conducting continuous performance assessments? And what about opportunity and team coaching, as well as 1:1 sales person coaching?
What about the skills and techniques necessary to support the implementation of the company’s defined sales process? What about the effective use of the organization’s CRM system? And what about the regular reinforcement required to make your company’s chosen sales training methodology stick?
A pivotal role
Your front line sales managers are pivotal in achieving all of this. But how much time and money are you allocating to their professional and personal development? My bet – in most cases – is that the answer is “not enough”.
And yet these are the very people you are relying on to make sure the numbers are made, to ensure that your expensive sales training investments deliver the desired results, and they are your critical change agents when driving new initiatives.
This article was originally posted to the Inflection Point Blog by Bob Apollo on November 18, 2014.
Five Sales Coaching Tips to Lead You to Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on November 2, 2014
As a sales leader, it’s your responsibility to motivate your sales team and drive sales results. You need to build a talented team of sales professionals and provide ongoing sales coaching and training. You should continue to develop your team’s talent. Many sales leaders and managers insist they don’t have the time for sales coaching, they’re not sure how or what to coach, or they don’t have the right tools and resources for effective sales coaching. These excuses are the reasons your sales team isn’t getting the results you want. Stop making excuses and make sales coaching a priority. Here’s a list of five sales coaching tips to lead you and your sales team to success.
- Develop Talent: So you’ve managed to round up a great group of experienced and talented sales professionals. You need to continue to train your salespeople. Provide them with the sales coaching they need to succeed. Sales coaching isn’t just for new hires. Check in with your team regularly, identify sales training needs, assess sales processes, and introduce new sales tactics. Remember to adapt your training techniques and sales coaching methods to meet your trainees’ needs.
- Set Specific Goals: As a sales leader, you should develop and set specific goals for individual team members that align with company goals. By setting specific goals, you’ll be able to track progress more effectively. Your sales team will have a clear understanding of your expectations and they’ll be motivated to meet and exceed these expectations. If goals are not met, do not consider this a failure. This is a sales coaching opportunity. Review sales practices and make improvements.
- Use Social Media: Take advantage of social media. Get your salespeople online. Encourage your team to use social media for professional purposes. Work closely with your marketing department to ensure valuable content is being created for sales reps to share on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to generate sales leads. Salespeople should use social media to interact with customers and potential buyers. Provide social media training if necessary. Your prospects and your competition are using social media, so why aren’t you?
- Focus on Progress: Many sales leaders focus solely on results. You should take the time to sit down and review progress as well. Ask for progress reports, ask if your sales team needs assistance or advice, and make changes to the sales process if something is no longer working. By helping your sales reps along the way, they will be more likely to achieve hit their sales targets. They’ll also have more confidence knowing that their sales leader will be there to help if they encounter any obstacles.
- Give Effective Feedback: Great sales leaders give sales reps effective feedback. Encourage your sales team to meet their sales targets by recognizing and rewarding their successes. An incentive program can go a long way when it comes to motivating sales professionals. Salespeople want to be recognized for their hard work. You can use financial rewards and/or non-monetary rewards to show your appreciation. Some sales leaders think it’s a good time to slip in some criticism after congratulating someone. This is not the time. This only undermines the accomplishments, defeating the purpose entirely. Remember, feedback is meant to help. When you give effective feedback, you will develop more trusting relationships with your team members.
It’s up to you to keep your sales team motivated. Provide continuous training to develop their talent and help them meet sales targets. You can’t sit back and expect improvements. And you shouldn’t blame your sales reps for a dip in sales. Assess your current sales strategies and update your sales tactics. Develop talent, set specific goals, start social selling, focus on progress, and give effective feedback. Use these sales coaching tips to lead you and your sales team to success.
This article was originally posted to the SalesForce Search Blog by Doug O’Grady on October 21, 2014.
Five Key Sales Traits of a Rock Star Sales Rep
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on October 8, 2014
Your sales people are some of the most instrumental employees at your company. You put your business’s success in their hands. Without them, you wouldn’t be selling your products or services and you wouldn’t be making any profits.
It’s natural then that you want to find the very best sales people with necessary sales traits. Not everyone is cut out to be a sales rep; some people just don’t have the sales traits that are needed to be successful in the field. To ensure you are employing rock star sales reps, here are five key sales traits that you should keep in mind while hiring.
- Assertiveness. Assertiveness is one of the most important sales traits to ensuring a shortened sales cycle. A sales rep with this trait is persistent enough to keep going after a sale, and confident enough to believe that he can get it. Sales reps who are passive may not be able to handle rejection or close a deal if they face any type of obstacle, while overly arrogant sales reps can seem pushy and abrasive, which will turn off potential customers. Assertiveness lies somewhere in the middle, and it’s this moderation between the two that leads to success.
- Drive. Sales people are often left to their own devices. The executives know that they need the independence to build their own customer relationships, come up with their own sales tactics, and do what they need to do to close a sale. Of the many sales traits a person can have, drive is vital to success. A sales rep with drive will not quit until he has that sale. A driven sales person has goals, and will figure out how to accomplish them without any prodding. He is determined, persistent, and passionate.
- Empathy. Empathy is subtle, but it’s one of the most invaluable sales traits that a successful sales rep can have. An empathic sales person can relate to the customers, understand their needs and concerns, and can really identify with them and put them at ease. An empathetic sales person can gain the customers’ trust and create strong connections with them. Customers feel like they are important and that the sales rep is really interested in providing them with a solution to their problem. This interpersonal sales trait ensures that the building blocks to long-term customer relations are set in place, so the customers will want to work with your company for the near future.
- Focus. A sales rep can have all the personality sales traits needed to charm the prospects, but if he doesn’t have focus to get the job done, all the leg work will have been a waste of time. A sales rep with focus is internally driven to accomplish his goals above all else. He can stay on topic long enough to close the sale, while clearly stating objectives, providing clear and direct answers to questions and possessing the self-discipline needed to stay on target.
- Optimism. Your prospects won’t want to be around negative sales people. When your sales rep has optimism, people will naturally want to be around him. What’s more, it’s vital for your sales rep to have this trait when things go awry. If one morning sales call goes terribly, an optimistic person will brush it off and believe that the next meeting will be better. A negative person will let this failure affect his performance for the rest of the day, or week. An optimistic person will not let anything get them down, whether it’s a bad economy or a bad day.
There are five sales traits that every rock star sales rep needs to have to succeed. When you know what these traits are, you can create the fiercest sales team possible for your business, which will in turn create a high return on investment and boost your profits.
This article was originally posted to the Sales Force Search Blog by Brett Evans on October 4, 2014.
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the SALES LEADERSHIP category.
Follow On The Web!
