Using the analogy of football, if a coach wants the football team to be successful, the team needs to know the rules of the game. Without the proper knowledge of the game of football, they have no chance. For your team, make sure they know what they need to know to be successful. At a minimum, if you’re leading a sales team, they each need to know their quotas, territories, and product / service offerings.
- What are you doing to educate your sales team on the products, the services, the competition, and your own company?
- How do you encourage your sales team to learn more about the industry?
- In your weekly calls, how do you solicit their input on their territory, customers, and opportunities?
"The formula for Success = Knowledge + Skills + Process"
-Russ Peterson Jr.
Back to football… and this one seems as bit obvious. The players who excel have advanced skill sets. Skills are different from knowledge and understanding. Just knowing the rules of football won’t make you successful. You need to be able to execute the skills on the field. Talent can be defined as a blessing from God that someone is born with, but skills are something that can be taught and developed. Everyone on your sales team comes to you with a certain skill set, but each of them can develop their skills further. Even professional athletes work on their skills weekly to fine tune them. Corporations have entire departments devoted to this called
Talent Development.
Dan Pink, author of Drive, shares research that shows individuals are motivated by opportunities to develop their skills. He calls it mastery. When we love what we do, we all want opportunities to improve our skills and get better at it. If you develop your sales team, they will not only perform better but they will be motivated by the opportunity to become the best that they can be.
- What are you doing to develop your sales team’s skills?
- Are you developing them with one-on-one coaching conversations?
- Do you train your sales team on communication skills and sales strategy?
Process selling has been around since 1988 when
Neil Rackham published SPIN Selling. Since that time numerous sales process books have been written. The premise behind every sales process is the same. If we can identify the proper steps for taking a sale from beginning to end, we can create a repeatable process. While there is merit to the logic, if you’ve been in sales long enough you realize not everything is going to fit into a nice, neat box.
- The stages of the sale are identified from beginning to end
- Next steps for the sales rep and sales leadership becomes easier by identifying the current stage
- Forecasting improves because identified stages are more or less likely to reach closure
- Internal communication gets easier because everyone speaks the same sales language
Nothing improves until something changes.
-Russ Peterson Jr.
The one argument I’ve heard from students when I present this formula for success is that none of this will equal success because there is one element missing… motivation. In other words, if they don’t want to do it, then nothing will change. I agree completely. But I also think that’s like saying, “Nothing is going to change until something changes.” It’s a given.
Best advice I can give on helping them find their motivation is to help them find their “why?” In other words, what is their purpose for working? In sales its easy to answer this question with “Money!” but I disagree. It might be what money provides or makes possible, but it’s not for the money itself… but that’s a blog post for another time.
Still working on all three pieces myself!
See you next week,
Russ
Russ Peterson Jr.
iSpeak, Co-founder
