What is a Great Sales Leader - most have not seen, heard or experienced one.

Here are some examples of what I come across that has led me to this conclusion.

Conversation with Sales Manager A

“My sales person working reomotely will not sell our consumable range – they just focus on our high end engineering solutions. – I want you to train them”

“Why do you think they are not selling the consumable range?” I asked

“I don’t know, I have instructed him to do so.”

“Is he achieving his sales revenue targets?” I asked

“Yes” he replied

“So what is the problem – as far as the sales person is concerned he is doing his job for the company. Were the targets specified to include the behaviour you were seeking?” I asked

“No. I have had a performance review and still not change.”

“Train them on what please?” I asked. (I knew what/who was the problem here)

Conversation with Sales Manager B

“I want you to train my team – there are veterans and newbies” asked Sales Manager

“What would you like to change within your team?” I asked

Mmm both these examples show a lack of sales leadership.

So what should a sales leader do to create a high performance team?

So what makes a Great Sales Leader

Firstly what are they supposed to focus on – how will we make our targets? What is the sales strategy?

Once this is established the sales leader needs to help their salespeople understand the company’s sales strategy, and to align their personal strategy with it so that they feel ownership and responsibility to it. These nine open-ended questions can help.

What excites you about the sales strategy and why?

What is not that exciting and why?

What will success look like for you and the company?

What is the main outcome you would like to achieve?

How will you know you’ve reached that outcome?

What will need to happen before…?

What stands in the way of…?

Which clients will provide the bulk of your sales and what will you need to do to ensure this happens?

What is your win/loss ratio?

What is the average order value

Considering the gap between what your current clients will bring in and your sales target, what new clients will you need to prospect?

So if you take your average order value. Your win/loss ratio – how many orders will you need and then how many new clients will you need

Now we know the focus, we now need to focus on the activities to get there

Here are some questions to assist

So you need this many new clients, what will you need to do to get to them?

How many calls will you need to make to lock in a meeting – virtual or f2f?

Is there any other activities you could do to create opportunities to meet the ideal client?

Which activity do you find the easiest and the hardest?

Which activity will yield the best outcomes?

Now lets get back to the clients that will deliver a certain amount of revenue - key accounts. Here are some questions for sales leaders to ask.

What do you need to focus on to ensure the existing revenue continues?

What do you need to do to ensure this happens?

What others products/services could we position with them?

What is need to do this?

Who else do you need to have a relationship with?

How can you reach the people you want/need to talk to?

Who would you really like to have on your side?

How can you get them on your side?

What type of relationship will you want and what is required to obtain this?

Are you the trusted advisor? How would you know this?

What do you need to do to be the trusted advisor?

Why should they even care about this?

What would cause them to do nothing?

How strong is the incumbent?

What are the red flags?

Developing the Sales Team

So we have established the strategy and plan, we have discussed the leading indicators of activities for success now lets improve their effectiveness as the activities. Yes there is a need to train and mentor. Most importantly sustainable change comes form coaching.

Life for a sales leader is a lot easier if they new exactly what the mind and skill set gaps were – this is where a sales team evaluation comes into play – an objective evaluation.

We utilised a specifically and scientifically made product for this – check this out. Why fumble around when you can have specific data on what your sales people need.

Here are some open-ended questions for skills and attitude coaching

Building skills and improving team attitudes is an important aspect of sales leadership coaching. These questions can help.

Would your clients pay to access your knowledge? Why or why not? And what knowledge is important to them?

What value you do you bring to a prospect’s business?

What does the conversation sound like?

What skills do you need in order to achieve…?

What knowledge do you need in order to achieve…?

What will make you go the extra mile to achieve…?

What could you be doing differently to be more effective?

What would you like to do more or less of? Why?

Are you missing any skills or resources in order to move toward your next goal?

How did your competition outsmart you in the last deal you lost? How can you prevent that this time?

When coaching salespeople, sometimes problem areas can be addressed by understanding what levels of change would improve performance, and then asking open-ended questions about that level. Here are some examples of questions that can help salespeople identify their challenges.

Could there be anything getting in the way of you doing what you need to improve to be more effective?

Is there anything missing in your work environment that would help you perform better?

What aspects of the work environment are holding you back?

What actions can you take to improve this part of your performance?

Are there actions that you should be engaging in more often?

What are you doing that may be holding you back?

What do you need to believe about yourself in order to make progress toward your goals?

Were you told things in your childhood that you still believe that perhaps aren’t true?

What harmful beliefs about yourself may be holding you back?

Accountability

Let’s just say you have the team focussed on the right things – strategy and plan. Let’s just say they know what activities they need to do to obtain the results. Add your mentoring and coaching to improve their effectiveness at those activities. So what now? We need to measure and monitor.

Part of a sales leadership focus needs to be is holding the team accountable.

Whilst we can look at the standard sales kpi’s here is a thought. Why not get them involved in creating their own KPi’s. If there are part of them then there is a greater possibility they have bought into them and will hold themselves accountable – which is a even better experience for all.

Ask them these questions: -

What would you like to be accountable for and why?

How will those kpis get the results?

What should happen if those kpi’s don’t deliver the results?

What should happen if you do not meet your kpi’s?

Pipeline Management

Pipeline coaching helps salespeople become clear about the actual state of their pipeline, and develop strategies for improving it.

Here are some questions that can help.

Are you happy with its size and health?

What does the health of a pipeline mean to you?

How would you like it to be different?

Are there any opportunities in your pipeline that aren’t as promising as you originally thought?

What has to happen to put more opportunities in the pipeline?

What are you assuming here? Could another assumption be true?

What happens if this large deal goes silent?

When should we meet to look at your progress on this?

If we look at your win rate, deal size, and sales cycle, what can you do to improve?

Which stage of the pipeline is the hardest one to move through?

There is so much more, this is a great start.

Statistics show that only 10% of sales managers should be sales managers - the rest, well let’s just say they drift from role to role - usually around 18 months.

What are necessary sales traits?

Recently SG Partners assisted a client to recruit a great BDM.

Rather than just set off and start creating the candidate pool, SG Partners started working with the client in understanding what would make a great BDM.

Like most things sales growth related, it has to start with the sales strategy.

In this case the company needed to grow their client base they needed to hire a person most adept at hunting, who are not afraid to fight to get new business and who are not bashful about getting paid for the value they and your company deliver.

What sales traits were necessary?

Hunting skills – The needed salespeople who will hunt, who are more interested in generating new business and new clients than being comfortable managing existing business. The BDM must have the mindset that they will go get a larger share of the market rather than just trying to maintain it.

Value Selling Skills – In tight economic times, your potential customers are making decisions about how to spend their money. This BDM must be able to discuss in a way the prospect cares about, ROI and value. Budgets are being heavily scrutinized. Companies are clamping down on spending. The BDM must have discussions that focuses on the value to the client, not just the price.

Comfortable Discussing Money – This key trait is closely related to Value Selling Skills but has additional implications. The BDM needed to be adept at selling value, they needed to be comfortable discussing money.

Reaching Decision Makers – The BDM must be able to get to the real decision-makers, rather than being stuck at lower levels. The BDM must resonate with those leaders who are also making tough decisions about how they allocate resources. This is part selling competency and part mindset.

Supportive Buy Cycle™ – The business landscape has been changing rapidly and therefore companies are reacting in unexpected ways. Decision-makers may be supportive of purchasing today but may reverse their decision tomorrow. Therefore, if possible, the BDM needed to instil a sense of urgency to get it done. If a BDM has the tendency to think things over, comparison shop, and demand the best deal when they are shopping for large items in their personal life, they may allow or even expect that same behaviour from prospects and customers.

The problem is that in a contracting economy where budgets are being scrutinized regularly, sellers cannot afford to let buyers linger over decisions. Now more than ever the BDM needed to be efficient in creating a sense of urgency or they will find themselves missing out due to indecision or budget cuts.

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More traits may be needed

These are just a select few of the traits that we can measure to enable business leaders to make better decisions, and I see these items as integral to success in the current environment. Your company and marketplace may require additional customised traits.

Listen to the owner of the business, Leveltec, describe how we have worked closely together to get a great outcome for their BDM recruitment efforts. 

3 Reasons a Great Salesperson can Fail at Your Company

Recruiting great salespeople - some may think it is a myth like “bigfoot”. Some would say they have done it and yet cannot reliably replicate it. If I asked around, I would probably hear about how sales recruitment is so haphazard and almost like a lottery. How did it get this reputation?

In an interview, an average salesperson will tell you all the things you want to hear: 

1. I know your products...

2. Your applications...

3. Your markets/clients

4. I have a huge number of contacts

5. I have made budget time and time again

6. I'd love to sell your product/services

7. I can make a huge difference

Often this is how it goes; you fall in love with their well-written CV, the interview is warm and friendly, they have a gift of the gab, the references they provide speak highly of them (and why wouldn’t they), so you hire them. Three months later you feel they will not work out. Maybe you chastise yourself and perhaps you have not given them enough time yet. In 6 months in you finally realise you hired a sales dud, ouch! How did this happen, what went wrong? I have the answers and the solution.

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How a Great Salesperson May be Doomed to Fail at Your Company

1. They cannot replicate the environment in which they had their success.

For example, a salesperson by the name Frank works for a well-renowned company with very direct guidelines for its large sales team; Visit clients, quote based on time-tested products, and come in with the lowest price regardless of margin. Frank is the best salesperson by far. He has the biggest accounts and brings in the most revenue.

Now let us pretend your company is not very well-known and is offering innovative products to the market. To be successful in your company, salespeople must call on Decision Makers in the C-Suite and tender with prices higher than your competitors. Frank, formally the best salesperson at his previous company, is hired by you with high expectations to continue his track record of first-place finishes. This is how one company’s great salesperson can fail at your company. 

2. Great is relative.

Frank is clearly more lucky than great. His luck provided him with a job in the right company, at the right time, solid products and with the best clients. Comparing him to the other 100 salespeople in Company X, order takers at best, Frank appears to be great.

3. The candidate was not great at all.

Here is the real reason you hired Frank. You felt some urgency, a position in an important territory was available, and Frank turned up creating instant relief. He had a winning personality, award-winning fictional resume and he also performed tremendously well in the interview. In essence, you were won over.

Sure, this formula may have worked out for you sometimes in the past. Equally, you have also hired salespeople that didn’t work out using the same method. Hit or miss hiring is not a model for success. There should be no excuse for a company’s poor hiring decision. Do not hire yourself a Frank, instead, opt to be honest with yourself and your current recruitment process and seek change.

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So, how do I recruit great salespeople consistently?

I’ve compiled all the secrets in a handy eBook and it’s yours free to download here. Learn the criteria for success when recruiting plus gain valuable insights to secure your ideal candidate. Isn’t it time that you stop repeating a broken process and get the help and tools that will make you a hiring genius?