How can you become a better sales leader to ensure that your salespeople are achieving great success and consistent results?
Here’s what you need to do to become a brilliant sales leader!
ACTIVATE YOUR PEOPLE DYNAMICS
Great management (and sales) is all about understanding the other person. Make sure that you’re able to really see life on their terms.
What do they have going on in their personal lives? Do they have any challenges right now? If they do, they’re ultimately not going to be giving their best at work. When they are happy and you’ve taken the time to understand them, they’ll give you their best work!
Find out about their life, their interests, their hobbies, what they do at the weekend, and what motivates them. Get to know them as people first. Leadership and desire to take constructive feedback and advice on board will be that much better received if you’ve made them feel that you care about them, their growth, and their personal development.
MAKE A PEOPLE INVESTMENT
Great leaders don’t just expect things to be done, they will roll up their sleeves and spend time with the team to ensure their team member really understands what they’re required to do.
Take the time to explain things in greater detail, show them how to approach a conversation, demo, or sales call. As you share your time, knowledge, and experience with them, this will make them feel more valued.
Times have changed and people look for more than just a salary in their jobs now. They want the opportunity to learn and develop themselves. Give them your time and develop them to the best team member your business needs.
If you don’t give them your time, I guarantee that salesperson will not deliver the results you want, and this will cause you further problems down the line.
MASTER POSITIVE CONFLICT
A great sales leader has to be a positive conflict rockstar! You must have the ability to share both good and bad news in a way that is constructive and doesn’t negatively impact your team member.
Personally, I’ve had leaders that would just tell me off and this made me feel disillusioned, and then I didn’t want to do good work for them. I’ve also had other leaders that praised me for a job well done and where I’ve shown great improvement, but also sit me down and focus me on the two areas where they’d like to see me develop next. Great leaders are able to share the bad news in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you’re being criticized and under attack, but that you really care about their growth and development.
Deciding not to talk about X or Y because it will offend someone isn’t good either. Be open and upfront; encourage honest conversations – this is the route to being a great sales leader.
Learn how to share good news and bad news in an effective way, and don’t be afraid of having those difficult conversations.
DO THE WORK
Lead by example and show them exactly how to succeed in their role. This means making the calls, having the sales conversations, and doing the follow-up. Show them your expertise and knowledge in doing the job you’re asking of them. Not only are you making an investment of your time, but you’re showing them that their role can be done, and can be done well.
Invite them to your prospect calls/meetings and open a discussion after – ask them what they observed and learnt. Ask them what they will implement and why. When you do this, you become a success example to them, and they will do their best for a great leader that will help develop their skills.
SET HIGH STANDARDS
If your team sees you being sloppy about proposals, making spelling mistakes on emails, or not answering someone’s email on time, then don’t be surprised if they think it’s alright for them to do the same thing.
What you will allow, will become!
Leadership is about doing the right actions on a regular basis. I must emphasis – regular basis! We don’t only step in when we feel like it, or worse when things go wrong. Start on the right foot by setting high standards and doing what you say you will. If you deliver high-quality work on a regular basis, your team will follow suit.
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS
Sales is a numbers game, and you cannot get a six pack without doing the sit-ups.
You can’t achieve sales success without making the calls, without having the conversations, without doing the work and the follow-up. Get informed and get comfortable with your numbers for your sales team.
How many calls should they make per day?
How many emails should be sent per week?
You have to know your numbers in order to know what’s realistic and what can be achieved. If you don’t know your numbers and what people are doing (or not doing), you’re going to be blind when it comes to giving them advice.
MEET REGULARLY AND TRAIN OFTEN
If you’re a really good leader, you want to be able to impart your knowledge and expertise to your team. You want to be able to help them become better, so play the role plays, give them the support and explain how to do things in a certain way. Creating a comfortable, regular, training environment where your team can learn will enable them to become better through practice.
Help them get comfortable with the technique you’ve taught, allow them to make the mistakes with you so that they’re ready to implement when the time comes. This environment will also teach you something about your team – are they receptive to learning new techniques? Are they willing to be adaptable? If they’re not wanting to implement what you’re teaching, why? Probe and find out what’s going on, so that you can help them to become better.
You can become an incredible sales leader! Put in the time and effort and build a sales engine and team that gets your company where you want it to be.
Do you need help becoming an incredible sales leader? Reach out to me at james@thesbsa.com and let’s talk about how we can get you there.
