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You Can Always Sell More…By Strengthening Your Sales Leadership Skills |
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Written by Jim Pancero
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Article #2 of our 9 Article Series
Welcome to our second article in the series “You Can Always Sell More: How To Improve Any Sales Force!”
In our first article we discussed why it is so hard to improve any sales force. In this second article we will now discuss how to improve your sales growth process by making sure you make the six management commitments needed to generate long-term change and success within your sales team.
The six commitments needed to generate long-term change and success within your sales force
Though all sales leaders want increased sales, profits and success, most don’t know how to begin leading a team through change. The long-term improvement of a sales team requires leadership to implement, or at least consent to the following, six simple, yet critical commitments to a team’s long-term success:
1st - Commitment To Values - If all team members do not share a common set of values there will be guaranteed conflicts and disagreements on how to progress and how to define success. This becomes especially critical when a team experiences a change of leadership, company ownership or the merger of different companies.
The first and most critical initiative is for you to define what values are most important and non-negotiable within your company and team. It is also critical to identify what specific values will never be tolerated. What can you do to insure all members of your team either share, or are comfortable with a common set of values?
2nd - Commitment To Leadership - You can only lead a team if all members individually agree to follow you. Your leadership power comes from three sources…
Personal power is the strongest and comes from one’s ability to persuade and attract others to want to follow. But personal power can only be earned.
The second leadership power is informational power. Whomever has the most information benefiting others will be viewed as a leader by the rest of the team.
The third but least effective power, positional power, is the easiest power to achieve yet is also the weakest to maintain long-term.
What can you do to increase your leadership power in each of these three critical areas?
3rd - Commitment To Communications Structures - An organization increases their success and ability to lead when it has more accurate, current and complete information. In most organizations management constantly demands more information and reports while the sales team keeps complaining about excessive reporting and paperwork preventing them from spending more time with customers.
Review all management information requests of the sales force. Test your team’s openness, especially your most senior players, to see how open they are to receiving coaching assistance with their selling situations.
4th - Commitment To Responsibilities and Expectations - Everyone from senior management down to your customers all have responsibilities as well as expectations of what your team will provide. The responsibilities of team members have to match the expectations of managers, and the responsibilities of managers have to match the expectations of their team. Are you reviewing these areas of responsibility and expectations on a regular basis?
5th - Commitment To Rewards & Consequences - The greater the risks and expectations you have for someone the greater the rewards need to be offered for their success. Why would anyone take significant risks if there were not also significant rewards available for success? Are the payoffs in balance with the risk and commitments being asked?
6th - Commitment to Focus & Strategy - Ask your sales team these three questions to learn if they share a common selling focus and strategy:
Question 1 - Define the attributes or shared values of our “core” customers.
Question 2 - How would you answer a prospect who asked, “Why, based on all the competitive alternatives available to me do I want to buy from you?”
Question 3 - What business do you not want? Under what conditions are you not the best choice for a customer?
If your entire team shares the same selling focus and strategy, then all answers will be consistent. But if your team, like the majority of sales teams, is unfocused and inconsistent with their selling strategies their answers to these strategic questions will vary significantly.
How did your sales team do with the questions covered in this article?
How consistent is the focus and selling strategies of your team? Are they all “rowing in the same direction” or are they all scattered in their focus and beliefs as to why their best customers buy from you?
Once these six components of team commitment are in alignment then the next steps are to work to increase the skills of your sales leadership and the selling skills of your team members.
In our third article in this series we will discuss how mastering the five central leadership values can dramatically increase your ability to successfully lead your sales team.
Want even more information? My latest book “You Can Always Sell More - How To Improve Any Sales Force” outlines the entire process described in these articles. Order by calling 800-526-0074 or through GreatSalesSkills.com.
I congratulate you for your interest in continuing to work through these articles as you strengthen the skills and competitive advantage of your sales team. May you enjoy the process.
Reprint with permission “You Can Always Sell More – How To Improve Any Sales Force” ISBN #0-471-73915-4 John Wiley & Sons.
Copyright 2008 Jim Pancero, Inc.
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Jim Pancero |
| About the author: |
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Jim Pancero has been directly involved in "business-to-business" selling for over 35 years. Six of those years were spent successfully selling the largest computer systems for the Data Processing Division of the IBM Corporation. During Jim's prestigious IBM career he earned several awards including the coveted "Golden Circle" designation annually awarded to the top 5% of their international sales force.
In 1982, Jim founded his advanced sales training and consulting company. Since then, Jim has conducted over 2,500 presentations or consulting days for 500 companies providing a career average of five events per client. Over 90% of Jim's clients utilize his services more than once. www.pancero.com
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