Sales tips, leadership communication skills insight and more from Steve Giglio, sales training professional for more than 25 years.

Building a Sales Team: Part 3 – Managing “C” Players

In the first post of this series, I stressed the importance of assessing and analyzing your sales team. Through that process, you should emerge knowing who your A, B, and C-level players are. Completing the ABC ranking exercise is often quite enlightening. You see what it takes to become an A Player and the inconsistencies you can coach in your B Players.

The further value of this exercise is realizing who your C Players are and what needs to occur for the growth of your entire team. C Players, if left unchecked and unchanged, will erode your team’s ability to reach the goals you’ve worked so hard to distill, operationalize, and achieve.

Therefore, it’s your responsibility to call them out professionally, objectively, and relationally. Doing this respects your entire team’s efforts while staying true to your overall mission.

Alert Them to the Issues

The first step is to let them know that issues exist. Begin this conversation by stating you’ve observed behaviors preventing them from succeeding in their role. Then, cite the inappropriate behaviors with specific examples along with the impact these behaviors have had on them, the business, and their colleagues.

Observe their reaction. Notice how your direct report listens and processes your development direction. Give them time to present their side of things. Some may agree that the issues are present and will show a willingness to improve, even if they are unsure how to proceed. That’s ok…agreeing that there are issues is a good starting point. However, often you’ll hear their resignation to their sub-par behavior or, in contrast, they will get defensive, providing excuses and laying blame. This is a red flag and is when you should consider moving to the jettison stage (see below).

Plan for Change and Success

Once there is agreement on the issues and their causes, create a plan that gets them back on track. Map out a 90-day development plan that addresses these unacceptable behaviors. This should be very specific with measurable goals, a feedback mechanism from peers, and regular check-ins/coaching by you. They should understand that this 90 days is not just to correct issues but for them to demonstrate their willingness to “do whatever it takes” to remain on the team. With your attention, coaching, and support, you are setting them up for success. Ultimately, though, it is up to them whether they take advantage of it or not.

Jettisoning C-level Players

At some point, it is important you ask these C-level players if they are happy in their current role. If they say yes, then reinforce what you require from them to maintain their position and successfully complete their 90-day plan. But if they say they are not happy, you should mutually and relationally move to an exit plan. It’s been my experience that this step is the one managers are most reluctant to activate. So often I see C-level players who are kept on the team even when it’s clear they are not making positive contributions. Worse, they have a virus-like tendency to try to bring others along with them. While it’s your job to mentor your team members, it’s also your job to have the best team you can assemble and sometimes that means jettisoning C-level players for the good of the team.

I understand this is a hard step and you may be filled with anxiety and trepidation. So, what I tell my clients is this:

Most C Players are not losing sleep over their actions, only you are.

Lastly, C-level players can command a lot of your attention, making it harder to focus on your other team members. Don’t let this happen. Make sure you are acknowledging the accomplishments your more successful direct reports are achieving. As a manager, it’s important you maintain this balance and keep driving all your team members towards their goals.

Building a Sales Team: Part 2 – Be Positive About Feedback

When you hear “feedback,” do you automatically think of it as a negative? Do your employees?

It’s time for a change of attitude. You can and should enjoy delivering feedback. The secret to it is how you hold it.

Be Positive About Feedback

It’s natural to hold feedback as a critical act. It’s not! It’s a contribution to someone’s life and their future. Therefore, you need to change your frame of reference to it. Coaching contributes to someone who can’t develop without you or your wisdom.

Do you think employees don’t want feedback? That’s where you’re wrong. According to a recent PwC study, 60 percent of respondents said they want feedback daily or weekly. That number jumps to more than 70 percent for people under 30. And yet, the same study found that less than 30 percent say they get regular feedback. As you can see, there is an opportunity here for you as a leader.

But just knowing that your team wants feedback is just part of taking a positive attitude toward it. You also have to know why you’re giving it, how to deliver it, and perhaps most importantly, who you are giving it to.

Why Give Feedback

The answer to that, as noted above, is easy…because they want it! But there are underlying motivations for you to provide feedback. First, you are showing you care. Does that matter to employees? Well, ask yourself, does it matter to you whether your supervisor cares? Of course it does. Secondly, you are getting as much as you are giving. Listen to what your employees say. Ask probing questions. Be open to their feedback as much as you want them to be open to yours. Learning what your employees need to succeed is critically important and you can gain that information with feedback sessions. And lastly, you can nip things in the bud if they start going off the rails. People make mistakes. They misinterpret directions. They have a bad day/week. Whatever the reason, when you are regularly delivering (and getting) feedback, you’ll be able to address issues as they arise and not find out about them at the end of the quarter/year.

And speaking of giving feedback regularly…

How to Give Feedback Effectively

There are a LOT of resources you can find that will help improve your feedback skills. But what I’ve found to be most important is that you give it regularly. It is not enough to simply give quarterly reviews where you go over sales goals, tactics, and results. That’s reporting, not feedback.

Start with weekly check-ins. These short one-on-one meetings/calls are an opportunity to learn more about your team members, the challenges they are facing, and what you can do to help. These sessions should very much be a back-and-forth conversation. It’s during these times you will really demonstrate a level of caring that they will appreciate. That appreciation should lead to a degree of loyalty you may not have experienced previously. Stick to these weekly meetings…don’t let them lapse! And if you have to miss one, reschedule it. Don’t just put it off to next week. Again, this shows how important your direct report is to you.

You should still do quarterly meetings with your team. However, there shouldn’t be any surprises since you’ve met weekly. Now you can really dive into their annual goals, their professional desires, and your insight into how they can achieve both. Take these seriously and prepare for them like you would a client meeting. They are that important!

Again, the point is that you are meeting with them on a regular basis as a priority. That will go far toward improving your team’s overall performance and job satisfaction.

Who Is Getting the Feedback

In sales, knowing your audience is critical when delivering your recommendations. The same is true for delivering feedback to your team. My surgeon father always said, “never treat one patient the same as the next. Every person has their own DNA and their own unique protocol to cure.” Apply this to your behavior.

You are dealing with a human life here. A person whose lifeline to growth is in your hands. Get to know your employees so that you can relate to them wherever they are in their lives. Outside pressures can have a big impact on how they conduct themselves at work. Find out what’s going on and how they are handling it.

Direct reports, especially Gen X through Z, want to understand how they can get better. Knowing how each of them “ticks” and what type of feedback will resonate best with them is important. You will determine that over time via the weekly check-ins. Some will want a direct approach…just tell them where they are excelling and where they can improve. Others may want a softer touch. And so many other varieties in between. Keep in mind…it is your job to deliver the feedback so that they receive and respond to it. Be as specific as you can so that the feedback is relatable. Stories/specific examples teach people what their developmental behavior is. From this acknowledgment, you can mutually create a new scorecard of development you and your direct can use constructively going forward.

Can you be positive about feedback? Yes…and so can your team, eventually. As you continue moving your team towards transformational salespeople, transform your attitude about feedback and see what happens!

Building a Sales Team: Part 1 – Assess and Analyze

Have patience with all things but first of all, with yourself

-Francis De Sales

In this new series, we will focus on building an effective sales team over time as we look towards 2024. And there is the key word: time. Like most things in life, you must exhibit patience to see results. To transform your team as their leader, you will need to fully understand the skill, experience, and ability to learn each member has. And that’s a good starting point for this three-part blog series.

Assess Your Sales Team

Take stock of your current team. I recommend starting with two essential measurements as you rank each of your sales team members: revenue generation and attributes/behavior. And the ranking system is as simple as ABC! Group your associates into A, B, and C players based on the two aforementioned measurements. Here is some help to determine rankings:

A Players: consistently exceed their revenue goals and are highly mature, motivated, and commercially grounded. You generally don’t need to give them much feedback but when you do, they eagerly accept it as a way to grow professionally.

B Players: have had some success but are generally inconsistent, requiring more of your guidance. However, they are eager to learn and have potential to become A Players.

C Players: often are entitled, inconsistent earners, and resist feedback. They are your lowest performers and can also be toxic to building a strong sales team.

Analyze Foundational Behaviors

Once you’ve done a stack ranking, it’s time to look at what behaviors are consistent with your A Players. These are the foundational behaviors you will use as your baseline for developing your team for a fast start in 2024.

Here’s where you will need some patience. Most of your B Players and likely all of your C Players will not exhibit these behaviors. So, you will need to help develop them. This won’t be easy because, well, if they had the inclination or inherent ability to develop these foundational behaviors, they would have already.

Take your time with each sales team member, creating a development plan in which they have some authorship and agree to follow. Pay attention here! Your C Players are the most likely to resist any effort to change how they do things. It may be time to have an honest, frank and direct conversation about their future. If they cannot commit to adapting to how your team is developing, it may be time to have them move on. One thing is certain…the time to address these issues is now, not in December.

Address the Changed World…And Then Move Forward

One last thing as you assess, rank, and develop your team. Remember our changed world. Things have been anything but normal for the last five years. As a leader, you need to acknowledge that but not dwell too long on it. Yes, COVID fallout is real and it impacted how business development has been done. Your team may have struggled. But now is the time to move forward and develop a strong sales team that can learn from those experiences as they improve their foundational behaviors. Wary should you be of those in your care who are still using COVID as a reason for not moving forward.

As mentioned in this post, determining how well your team accepts and reacts to feedback is an important assessment. In Part Two of this series, we’ll focus on communicating and delivering positive feedback to inspire them to develop. It could be that HOW you are delivering feedback is the reason they aren’t reacting well to it!

Sales Training Solutions 2023: Part 5

Actioning Sales Leadership

In the first four posts of this series, we looked at how these times demand that sales leaders help teams develop into transformational salespeople rather than transactional ones. I provided reasons for why this is important now and how to motivate your teams to develop new habits.

And in this final post, it’s time to put our attention towards you, the leader, and what actions you should take so that your team will end 2023 strong and look toward a bright 2024.

Questions for Sales Leaders

Let’s start by asking yourself a few questions. Here are my suggestions:

What is your leadership purpose now?

Things have not just changed for your teams…they’ve changed for you as well. How has that affected your leadership purpose? If you are working to have your team become transformational salespeople, that should mean you are in a coaching/counseling role more and less in a “count the sales” one. Changing habits and mindsets starts with leadership and that should be your main purpose moving forward,

What is your reskilling process?

The above says easy but does hard. Changing YOUR habits isn’t any easier than your team changing theirs. What new skills do you need now? Where will you learn them? What will be your process for keeping skills sharp and always improving? And how will your new skills impact your team?

What are your 2024 sales expectations?

Transformational selling is a tricky thing. On one hand, it’s about developing long-term relationships during which your team members become trusted advisors and excel at “staying in the pain” with clients. On the other hand, your team still needs to produce! How will their new habits affect your quarterly and annual numbers? Have you set expectations with company management? How will you manage the time during which your team is shifting to a different way of doing things but also responsible for results? And what will your 2024 look like?

These questions are fundamental to sales leadership transformation.

Now is the time to build intimate, developmental relationships with each person on your team such that they begin to think like you. Give it three months. Once you see effective changes, that will be objective evidence that you’ve influenced them toward greater success. And heck, isn’t that why you became a sales leader in the first place?

Essential Sales Leadership Actions to Take Now

Now is the time for you to take action. Here are my suggested steps:

  • Observe how your salespeople are spending their time. Contrast this to the ideal commercial activities in which they should be engaging
  • Role model/Mentor best-in-class sales techniques
  • Redefine your ideal customer/client for your teams
  • Express how their habits need to change and how you are going to help develop them
  • Know each salesperson’s ability to manage through a volatile situation and remain commercially grounded
  • Systematize your 2024 go-to-market process
  • Understand who your A, B, and C-level salespeople are so you can create appropriate development plans for each
  • Craft a sales training program that addresses the above actions

And so completes my 5-part series, “Sales Training Solutions for 2023.”  The year is half over already so, it’s time now to implement the strategies and steps I’ve outlined. It’s not too late! And I can help…just drop me a line and let’s get started.

Sales Training Solutions: Part 4

Developing Transformational Sales Skills

A lot has changed in the last few years. However, there is one thing that has remained constant: people still buy people first, products/services second. If you’re unfamiliar with that saying, a customer must trust you before they can be convinced to accept what you’re recommending.

However, that doesn’t mean the same skills used to drive sales before will work today. So, the essential question is, what are the sales skills your teams require now?

My answer? They develop transformative rather than transactional sales skills.

In the new normal of 2023, sales teams (and their leaders) must be strategic, analytical, and desirous of understanding clients’ goals and challenges. Further, it is critical they comprehend the commercial impact those challenges have on their client’s business. And as noted in the second blog in this series, they must move away from being order takers to become authories.

And what does it take to develop those transformational sales skills? Here are my three recommendations:

Dream with Clients

It’s likely your team’s clients have an ideal vision of where they want the company to be right now and where they’d like it to be years down the road. Do your team members know what that vision is? Are they dreaming with their clients? When they share in that dream, they can start creating recommendations with the vision as the target. Doing so will illustrate your organization’s nimbleness, commercial prescience, and committed partnership.

Great salespeople sell into a future state their client requires. Without altogether understanding this ideal state, a robust recommendation cannot be purchased. How a salesperson creates this makes or breaks their success.

Create Solution Centers…and Use Them!

I like to think of salespeople as the scouts of the operation. They are out on the front lines, meeting with clients, probing to find opportunities, and learning what challenges clients face. However, many times they are left alone to come up with recommendations without the benefit of multi-departmental support. As their leader, you must help correct that and bring in others who can provide expertise when needed.

I recommend that you create Solution Centers, multiple professionals huddled in a think-tank environment that can build bespoke solutions your competitive set would not consider or for which they wouldn’t appropriate resources. Giving your team access to a Solution Center is extremely valuable as a sales tool. Imagine a conversation during which your representative says, “Since our last meeting, I’ve spoken with our engineering, development, and communications departments. Our recommendation for your challenges are…”

Having a Solution Center does several things for your salespeople. First, it gives them a sounding board for their recommendations that can be enhanced with expert input. Second, it solidifies their confidence in the recommendations. They have been vetted, improved and are now ready to be presented. Third, it demonstrates how important the client’s business is to your company. Having convened resources from multiple departments shows how committed your organization is to their success.

Stress the Urgency of the Solution

For your sales teams, sometimes the urgency of getting the sale obfuscates the urgency of the solution. I have found that salespeople often forget that their solution is solving a problem and that the problem is an urgent one for their client. Or even worse….they never learned how urgent the problem was in the first place.

Make sure your team is drilling down so that they understand all the challenges a client is facing. At first, a customer might say, “We are not the only show in town anymore. Others are starting to do what we do.” To that, I always suggest a salesperson respond with one of the most powerful questions they can ask: “Really?” A client will then reveal deeper challenges. “Yes, and I’ve been burned in front of our board twice because competitors have crept into our space. I have to have a better presentation next time.” Now your team member understands the personal challenge their client is facing, not just the business one. The more you can get your team to drill down to the core issues, the more information they can bring back to the Solution Center for robust recommendations. And then they can stress the client’s urgency right back to them, “You said you needed a better solution for the increased competition your board is seeing in the market. I have some solutions from our team….” This is a huge step towards establishing trust (and not being an order taker!).

Remember…people buy people first! You can help build your team into authorities by following these three recommendations.

In the next blog in this series, I will provide some demonstrable actions that YOU can take now as a sales team leader.

Sales Training Solutions 2023: Part 3

Changing Behaviors

My last blog addressed systematic changes you can make to start transforming sales order takers into consultative authorities. In this post, I focus on behaviors that need to change and some that should be developed to move your team toward becoming trusted advisors for your clients.

To Begin…Stop!

I recommend you start with a Stop List. On this list, you will note the behaviors your employees need to stop doing so that new behaviors can take their place. Here are a few examples:

STOP rote conversations. Yes, your team needs to be trained on the company’s value proposition, the solutions offered, and the benefits of each solution. However, clients know if you are reciting that information rather than tailoring it to their needs. You’ve said it all before…they’ve heard it all before. Is that the energy you want your team to create? Train your teams to customize presentations, conduct engaging conversations, and ask smart probing questions. Those are behaviors that will develop authority.

STOP prioritizing price. Is your service a commodity? Can anyone do it? It is easy to replicate? If so, then price may be your team’s best foundation for starting a conversation. However, most companies have developed a value proposition that is based on knowledge, expertise, experience, and proficiency. Salesperson and author Zig Zigler said, “If people like you, they will listen to you. But if they trust you, they will buy from you.” Leading with price does little to establish that trust. Stop your teams from focusing on how much a client will pay and pivot them toward why they should pay.

STOP bundling recommendations. Just because you’ve had success bundling certain solutions doesn’t mean you should automatically package them for each client. Your team must realize that what worked for Client A may not work for Client B even if they are in the same industry. Train your team to selectively menu your products/services based on each client’s needs while giving the client flexibility so that you can collaboratively create a comprehensive solution.

Start Developing Authorities

Once these behaviors have been eliminated, you can have your team START developing new approaches that will build their acumen as authorities. Here are a few examples:

START listening empathetically. As salespeople, we are conditioned to listen for sales opportunities. That’s fine as long as it’s not all your team is doing. Until they establish trust, your team will likely only be told the surface-level issues affecting their clients. They need to dig deeper. And they do that by listening with empathy to demonstrate caring. Someone who cares acknowledges the issues and the commercial impacts they have. Someone who cares asks about the toll these issues have had. Someone who cares gets a client to open up and reveal more about the situation. And someone who cares will present solutions based on this more meaningful understanding.

START redefining value. Priorities change. Challenges change. Competitive landscapes change. This is true for your company and your clients. Your team must start each engagement by refining your value proposition so that it addresses new environments in which your clients operate. For each client, do they understand what problems they are truly solving today? Do they know how the competitive set can address them?  Have they tailored solutions that are unique and can only be delivered by your company? Starting with these questions will help bring value to their recommendations and further from the commoditization of price.

START visioning. Your teams need to look to the future with clients. But not the future they see given current circumstances, challenges, and personnel. Rather, they should look at a client’s ideal future. It’s important your team learns what your clients really want. A great probing question would be, “Let’s take time and money out of the equation. Where do you want your team to be in December?” Have your teams talk with clients about the future they want and together they can create a scenario in which that future is realized.

Believe it or not, we are already halfway through 2023. It’s important you create these STOP and START lists with your teams now so that you can change behaviors, increase client engagement, and build a stronger foundation for the end of the year. The good news for you and your teams is that you have help available. In my next post in this 5-part series, I will recommend creating Solution Centers and define why they are critical for building team confidence and client trust. Stay tuned!

Sales Training Solutions 2023: Part 2

Transform Order-takers Into Authorities

Sales teams are challenged with producing results but also building relationships. The former is much tougher without the latter. However, in today’s post-Covid era, I’ve found that we are creating many more “order takers” than consultative authorities. Let’s take a look at why that is and what you can do about it with your teams.

What is a Sales Order Taker?

We all know the difference between someone who takes your fast food order versus someone who cares for you at a full-service restaurant, right? Fast-food order takers rely on you knowing what you want and asking for it. The interaction is very transactional. With a full-service waitperson, they will take time to ask what you want, present options and opinions, and ensure that you fully enjoy your experience. That interaction is relational.

In sales, we have the same dynamic. Some salespeople will simply wait for the phone to ring or email to come in. And when it does, the onus is on the customer to know what they want and request it. This salesperson sees their job as taking the order and making sure it is fulfilled with little or no follow-up nor presentation of other solutions for consideration. Transactional.

In the training I do, we are creating consultative authorities. These salespeople take time to learn about their customers’ needs, tailor solutions that meet those needs, and look for opportunities to further help with additional solutions. Relational!

But the problem I see these days is that there are far more order-takers than authorities. Why is that?

Covid-era Created More Sales Order Takers

When people were sent home for months during the Covid-era, they were left to their own devices as salespeople. They had little or no daily supervision, limited or no training, no personal connection to customers, and distant leadership. That created an atmosphere of selling-and-reporting rather than relationship-building. There was not enough “caring and feeding” of associates by team leaders so salespeople were left scorecarding their activities:
“How many customers/prospects did you contact?
“What was the result?”
“How much income did you produce?”
“What are your goals for next week?”

Covid shifted the paradigm back to a reactive one that was focused simply on putting wins on the board. People relied heavily on technology…texting, video calls, communication services like Slack, Teams, etc. And what was lost was the interpersonal communication between management and their direct reports, associates and their customers.

Why You Need Sales Authorities Now

The Covid era is over. There are no limitations on how your employees can interact with customers except those they put on themselves. Are they taking the easy route…firing off a text or email rather than calling? Are they passively avoiding in-person meetings by not even asking for them? As their leader, you need to set them on a different path because clients are demanding it.

Now that things are back to normal, clients are once again requiring that you earn their business. It’s not enough that you have the business already. You can lose it at any time (and I’ve been approached by many companies that have). So your team needs to build strong relationships that demonstrate a knowledge of your customers’ industry, business needs, and challenges.

And here’s what I recommend as a good start (future posts will have more tactics to employ):

Start with In-Person Meetings

This new generation of salespeople is so dialed in with technology that they are eschewing one of the most important and relationship-building tools…a face-to-face meeting. As their leader, you need to encourage…even require…that they meet with customers in person regularly. This is a major step in earning and/or keeping a client’s business. Here’s why:

  1. It Demonstrates Caring: In taking the time to meet one-on-one with a client, you are saying that the client is very important and you are putting aside all other work you could be doing to focus on their needs.
  2. You Can’t See Body Language on a Phone Call: This is a simple yet critical point. Being able to assess how a customer reacts to your recommendations needs to include their body language. So much can be said without words, right?
  3. You BOTH Aren’t Distracted: An in-person meeting eliminates a lot of distractions…text message alerts, emails, phone calls, people coming in while you’re on a Zoom call, etc. These distractions are reduced for your client, too. It means you can both focus and get to the real issues/challenges that you are there to solve.

Resolving Pushback from Your Employees

Let’s face it…when it comes to in-person meetings, your employees have had it easy for a few years. They couldn’t do them! But that era is over. However, when you ask them to include face-to-face meetings in their activities, you may get pushback. Pay attention to it! There are a few things to learn here.

First, who is pushing back? As I’ve noted in past posts, you have A, B, and C players on a sales team. Those who embrace the idea of scheduling in-person meetings and get right to it…they are are your A players. Those who hesitate only because they feel they aren’t equipped to conduct a full meeting are your B players (and I’ll say more about them below). And then there are those who begin a barrage of excuses as to why they can’t do in-person meetings. “My clients don’t like to meet.” “Our schedules never work for that.” “I’m more effective on the phone.” “There’s so much wasted time getting to and from them…I can use that time more productively.”  You’ll hear it all…and it will come from your C players. Be wary!

Second…they want help. Back to your B players…what they are saying is they need leadership and training to conduct a productive meeting. Give it to them…or get it for them. This will show you care about their development and success. And it will ensure that you can confidently send them to a client meeting knowing that they have the skills to lead it effectively.

We don’t need more order takers! Use the tips above as you develop consultative authorities that will create meaningful (and profitable!) client relationships. In my next three posts in this series, I will provide more ways you can do that.

2023 Sales Training Solutions: Part 1

In my last post Sales Team Leadership Challenges in 2023, we looked at what the “new normal” has brought to bear on sales team leaders and their direct reports. The current generation of salespeople needs to be treated differently as they have new tools and processes at their disposal. The issue is…they need guidance and leadership to use those tools effectively. In this five-part series, we will examine specific issues and I will offer solutions you can implement immediately.

Part 1: Repairing Sales Disconnection

Sales disconnection happens when a business development person tries selling the same solution in the same way to different customers. The result is a scatter-shot approach to selling rather than a tailored, strategically defined program. The latter is mission-critical for short- and long-term success. It takes a systematic approach. Try out these steps and see what results you and your team generate:

Define the Top 10 Sales Accounts

Review your top ten strategically important accounts by revenue and loyalty. Determine precisely where each account is now relative to the sales plan you envisioned in January (if this wasn’t done, now’s the time…it’s nearly mid-year!).

Amend or Create a Sales Plan

Meet with your salesperson responsible for each account and review their strategic plan. You may find that it is either light on metrics, hasn’t been looked at in a while, or worse, doesn’t exist! This is where you can demonstrate your leadership and get them back on track. Develop a plan that is consistent with your customer’s and your company’s goals. Ensure that your direct contributes to and buys in on the plan with a strong sense of ownership. Approach your client with this revised or new plan so that they are confident in the direction your salesperson will be taking. Doing all of this upfront will help to avoid surprises in the future.

Measure for Success

If you haven’t already, it’s time to create benchmarks so that success can be measured. Jointly establish the commercial metrics that will drive the revenue you know each account can generate. It’s important that both your associate and you agree on these achievable goals.

Collaborate Often

Schedule weekly updates with your team. I can’t stress this enough. Bringing people together to discuss and debate a sales strategy is highly effective, cathartic, and fun. It also gives you a clear window into the abilities of the team and who you need to direct and who can help lead the team. It also establishes an important precedent: meeting together, IN PERSON to create winning strategies. While we may be in the texting and Zoom generation, nothing has replaced face-to-face engagement as a way to communicate. Make it happen!

Establish a One-on-One Connection

Group-think is great and creates an atmosphere of teamwork and collective success.  However, it’s just as important that you meet one-on-one with your salespeople. You must share YOUR desire for this account, the impact of lifting sales, and that you believe in their abilities to achieve results. During this time, you will likely find your associates sharing more about their challenges than in the more public team meetings. As you listen, you are demonstrating that you are vested in their success and want to help them overcome the challenges. This will go far towards inspiriting them to excel!

These are the first sales solutions to implement now. Let me know how it goes. And stay tuned for my next post where we tackle another 2023 sales challenge!

Sales Team Leadership Challenges in 2023

People often ask me, “What’s changed the most for your clients since the pandemic?”  My answer: Everything!

Leading a sales team post-Covid has presented a lot of new challenges. Adding to the situation is that the new generation of sales teams hasn’t been given the guidance they need to develop communication skills that would make them stand out.

Understanding the challenges is the first step. In this post, I outline what I believe are factors contributing to a difficult business development atmosphere. Thankfully, there are solutions. Over the next few posts, I will go into detail regarding each challenge and provide steps that can be taken to overcome them.

For now, though, here is the situation as I see it:

Challenges Leading Sales Teams Post-Covid

  • Less team interaction due to the work-from-home virtual lifestyle
  • Lack of debate/discovery between teammates and supervisors due to lack of interaction
  • Value propositions have not been redefined, leaving associates to use stale conversations that commoditized the business offering
  • Significantly decreased opportunities for managers to mentor by illustrating a best-in-class sales maneuver in real-time
  • Less direct, face-to-face engagement with customers, relegating associates to vendors rather than advisors
  • An over-reliance on phone-only communication
  • Disconnection leads to a scatter-shot approach to selling rather than a tailored, defined program

All of these challenges have the potential to undermine a company’s growth. It can result in weakening a client’s loyalty to your company. As noted in a recent article on sales practices, McKinsey states:

More than 70% of businesses say they will happily consider other vendors if their core “must haves” are not met during their buying journey or if their experience is poor.

In my next blog, we’ll begin to address these challenges. Never forget that the sales process is where your company first creates your company’s reputation. Ongoing interactions build upon that reputation. And in today’s age of immediacy, it can all go south quickly if your team isn’t meeting these challenges head on!

Leadership by Example

Lead by example. You’ve heard that before I’m sure. But by what example? Does it mean doing everything your direct reports do, showing them how it’s done? Of course not. You hired them for their skills, not to mimic yours. So, again, what does lead by example mean?

It’s important to recognize that it’s an honor and responsibility to have people reporting to you. Direct reports make your life easier. Their tasks free you up to focus on what you do best. Sure, it’s great that you know how to do what they do. That helps make task-based conversations easier. But what they really need from you is to show them how to lead their own teams someday. That’s how you grow a department/company.

Their success is your responsibility as much as it is theirs. Too often I’ve heard an executive lament that their direct report just isn’t getting it. Job #1 with this syndrome is for the leader to look in the mirror and determine the level of assistance they’ve given to their direct report over time. I recommend asking yourself the following questions to determine what leadership example you have been presenting:

Have I mapped out how my direct report can win?

I’ve written a lot about setting goals for your employees. This is important in two areas: completing tasks and growing careers. Too often, however, I’ve found leaders focusing far too much on the former, figuring the latter will take care of itself. But if you haven’t mapped out the goals that move your direct’s career towards a leadership position, then they will simply focus on the tasks at hand, figuring that is what success looks like. You’ll wind up with a lot of soldiers and very few captains! That’s very limiting for the growth of your department. Be sure that you determine with your directs what you mutually believe leadership success looks like.

Have I adequately responded to my direct report’s questions on their professional direction?

“I don’t have time for this right now.” Ooof! Yes, you are busy, and taking time to discuss an employee’s career goals can sometimes seem intrusive when you are on a deadline. But what example are you setting if you never get back to discussing their aspirations? Not a good one, I assure you. Make the time regularly to check in with them on their projects AND how they are developing as a leader. Doing this demonstrates a level of care that will inspire them to keep moving their career forward.

Do I know my direct’ s needs?

You may know what skills your directs are lacking. But do you know what they need to improve/advance? Just telling them they need to develop Skill A without giving them the tools/instruction to do so will leave them confused…and stressed. This is when your leadership-by-example comes in again. You need to guide them toward sources that will help them develop. And make this skill development a priority when you meet with them to discuss their overall progress.

Have we mutually created a development plan with tactical actions to operationalize this development transformation?

This is so critical! Having a development plan is paramount to keeping both of you focused. Group their tasks into leadership qualities/categories that will give them structure. It will help as you assess each direct’s progress and will be immensely helpful for each of them as they take initiative to develop on their own.

Actioning the above is leadership. And that’s what they want to see from you so that they can model their future behavior on what you’ve shown them. Remember, you are developing each employee so that they can be the future of your department/company. Make sure you show them a good example!