Ten Ways To Build The Best Sales Team
How do you develop that "Dream" team that propels past average and delivers top performance?
Do You Have People Power?
Teams are people of different backgrounds, motivations, personal goals, and life experiences. When we build a team, there must be a common denominator to bring diversity together and strengthen the team. The team's chemistry and a leader's skill in creating a shared vision can break down barriers to higher achievement levels. Napoleon spoke of the power of ideas over material resources. People will follow a powerful idea before chasing a top-down performance metric, even with attached commission incentives.
Ten Steps to Optimal Team Performance
Connecting instead of counting is the preferred strategy to drive sales performance. Here are ten steps to move your team toward a winning attitude and cohesion in their sales journey.
1. Hire for contribution, not for staff size. Understand your missing skills on the team and recruit to improve strengths. Have your team involved in the hiring process.
2. It's not a popularity contest. Work harder at earning respect from the team rather than being liked. Be firm and fair in your judgment.
3. Lead by example. Jump into problems quickly and support the team in finding a solution. Be the coach, not the principal.
4. Praise in public regularly and give constructive criticism in private when needed.
5. Do not tolerate poor performance based on poor recruitment and fear of loss on your team.
6. Promote a spirit of learning and growth. Help the team see the benefit of training from their point of view and how it will help them.
7. Set goals in a collaborative process. Each team member needs to own their sales goal.
8. Make failure an opportunity to do better next time, not a bad grade that builds negative pressure for everyone.
9. Do not mistake compensation for commitment. Salespeople want to make more money, but it's not usually number one on the list.
10. Take the friction out of the internal processes to benefit the customer and your sales team.
Summation:
Team size and tenure are not the best plans for a successful team. Building a winning team takes time, understanding human nature, servant-style leadership, and a productive sales environment.
As a leader, your work is never finished, but the rewards of having a fine-tuned sales engine will set the stage to take on any goals or challenges. In my experience, everyone wants to be on the best team, not the worst team.
Being the best will attract better talent, support the effort needed to improve, promote working together, and deliver a winning mindset.
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About The Author:
Alec Drake openly shares revenue management strategies and sales improvement ideas in the "Sales Success Library" at Alecdrake.com. He is a regular contributor to Radio Ink Magazine, where he leverages four decades of experience to write about sales and management. Alec is the founder of The Radio Invigoration Project (T.R.I.P.), a support initiative for local radio sales and promotion staff.
Drake Media Group, LLC retains exclusive rights to any original content in articles written by Alec Drake or published on any third-party platforms and featured in any podcast.