Coach's Corner Business Tips
Building a Winning Sales Culture
The sales culture of your company can make or break your business. Engraining a healthy sales culture into your company will attract top to your sales force and keep your team engaged. The results of a highly motivated sales team sharing the same vision and strategy result in more sales success and a boost to your company’s bottom line.
A sales culture will encompass the attitudes, values, and habits shared among your sales team. Your company’s winning sales cultures should be summarized in just a handful of words that describe your sales force’s values.
Though seemingly a conceptional concept, a positive sales culture will prove vital for turning every sales team member into a sales leader. It will increase buy-in and improve overall team dynamics. Your culture must define how your salespeople are expected to interact with one another and your potential customers. Without a well defined, positive sales culture, your sales strategy is not complete, and sales success will be limited.
How to develop your sales culture
Hire slowly and deliberately
As your company grows, you will find a need for salespeople. It can be tempting to hire anyone with the qualifications for a sales position. Separate yourself for the organizations follow this practice and churn through salespeople until they find the top producers. Settling for someone who merely is adequate but not the best fit will kill your sales culture. Take your time, and create the framework of your perfect salesperson needs to be for your service and target customer. Create a checklist of your salesperson’s characteristics required to create a cohesive sales organization and communicate your company vision to potential customers.
Set clear goals and expectations
A must for sales teams is clear communication about goals and expectations. Goals have to be challenging enough to keep your team engaged but also achievable.
Data is vital when it comes to setting sales targets. Be transparent, show your team where these numbers could come from, and how your sales team can get there. For your sales journey to be successful, you must have an activity-based sales plan. Your sales team has very little control over who buys and who does not, so adding activity-based selling sets achievable goals that your team can manage.
Mainstream thinking asks a team member to achieve ten sales. Instead, ask them to conduct 20 informational demonstrations of your companies services and product lines. This approach will boost confidence, keep their performance on track, and improve company close rates.
It will be essential to have regular one-to-one catch-ups meetings to monitor progress and identify any challenges and potential roadblocks. Your people need someone to listen when they express their ideas, concerns, and long-term aspirations, so you must position yourself as the mentor and sales coach.
Monitor the daily activity of your sales team
Use a metrics-based approach when managing your sales team. The key is not to let those metrics stand in your way of sincere human interaction, positive reinforcement, and the magnetism you need to motivate your sales team to succeed.
Everyone will need a deep understanding of the sales pipeline from the beginning to the end. This gives you and your sales leaders the required data to make adjustments that lead to increased productivity and, ultimately, a captivated team. An example is looking at a KPI, and using that metric to encourage behavioral changes among your sales team will nurture a positive sales culture.
Technology will simplify customer relationship management (CRM), and workflow automation will streamline mundane tasks. With this technology, sales organizations will gain the freedom to listen to their customers’ needs, creating a responsive sales culture.
Acknowledge successes and failures and gather support for robust competition
Celebrating your team members when reach sales goals are crucial when they have been working hard to achieve. This practice will help build a strong sales team willing to go the extra mile to achieve goals. But it is equally important to discuss positively and constructively about failures as well. Don’t criticize the team if sales are not as high as you hoped, but talk through any challenges the team faces to improve sales results the next month. You will create a culture of understanding, growth, and knowledge that encourages a positive sales culture.
Stirring up some competition among your sales team is not only a smart plan but also fun. Eliminate and avoid malicious behavior and encourage your team to cheer on one another. Create a sales contest that compels the team to work diligently. You do not want them to feel opposed to the competition, so make the goals are attainable. It is human nature for them to compete to see who sells the most, but it’s also smart for you to have them focus on the team as a whole, so everyone works toward a common goal.
Drill home activity over results
There is no doubt sales are all about the numbers, and that is never going to change. The salesperson who has the most significant number of qualified prospects and contacts them in the shortest amount of time has the best chance of winning. This outcome makes it essential for you to encourage your team to increase their activity, knowing that results will grow as an aftereffect. However, quality should not lack with their sales message or the follow-through as a sacrifice for more seeing prospects quicker.
Your goal is to keep activity high while establishing a repeatable process that focuses on the sales message’s quality. This goal is vital to the team’s long-term success. Your organization can accomplish this by utilizing automated marketing solutions that message prospects uniquely based on behavior. Your sales team will then know the prospects’ interests before making a sales pitch.
Recognize your team’s successes
Nothing drives sales activity with immediate results like an incentive plan. Another great way to foster success is to recognize your sales team’s leaders in a public way. Incentives are usually tied to production results, but adding periodic sales rewards not part of your incentive plan often results in an immediate spike in profitable activity. Maintain a high energy environment. Working in sales can break even the most oversized egos, which is why a positive climate is necessary to keep your team steadfast in the face of rejection.
Master the process of training
Providing the training and tools essential for your salespeople to succeed in their position is your job. Successful sales cultures have systems in place that support their sales team to learn to achieve their goals. Training is especially crucial for new employees, but it’s also essential to have an ongoing sales training improvement for your entire sales team. Observe salespeople on the phone or video calls, and offer your ideas as they plan how to approach your companies’ prospects. Training courses and seminars complement your program, but the most important thing is getting your sales team to share ideas and best practices.
You are your company’s sales leader. You have to strive daily to keep your sales team passionate and excited about what they are selling. Success often comes down to openness, honesty, communication, and above all, trust. A winning championship sales culture takes effort and time to evolve, but the rewards will be a productive and loyal sales team with members driven to succeed for your business.
John Kenney has over 45 years’ experience in the roofing industry. John started his career by working as a roofing apprentice at a family business in the Northeast to operating multiple Top 100 Roofing Contractors. As Chief Operating Officer, John is intimately familiar with all aspects of roofing production, estimating, and operations. During his tenure in the industry, John ran business units associated with delivering great workmanship and unparalleled customer service while ensuring strong net profits for his company before joining Cotney Consulting Group. If you would like any further information on this or another subject, you can contact John at jkenney@cotneycl.com
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for general educational information only. This information does not constitute legal advice, is not intended to constitute legal advice, nor should it be relied upon as legal advice for your specific factual pattern or situation.