Intro

On this episode of Sales Management Mastery we're going to give you 7 quick ways to lead a sales team for maximum sales impact.

Great sales leadership skills really do little good without any sort of tangible sales results.

The best sales leaders know that they have to harness their leadership skills for maximum sales impact.

And if you can't do that, you are obviously not a great sales leader. There's plenty of people that tell me that they know great sales leaders but they are always at the bottom of the ranking, so exactly how great a sales leader are they really should be measured based on how they are doing on the bottom line.

Bottom line for you and for your organization is increasing sales results, or over the goal, or over a year end, or quarterly or a monthly or weekly goal, is achieving that, if not over achieving that on a regular basis.

Every action a leader must take has to be gauged by the sales results that they bring.

We are going to talk today about 7 quick ways to lead a sales team for maximum sales impact.

1. Begin with a strategic overhaul or results gap. This is defining the results that you need from your organization, or your department, or your team what we call the results gap. Looking at what it actually is, you can then plan a strategy to get from where you are to where you need to be. The real key is to be brutally honest as to where you currently sit. This is a good time to face the brutal facts. If you're not where you need to be, you need to call you team out onto the carpet and tell them so. And if you are at goal, or want to exceed goal you maybe need to tell them that as well, Maybe give them a pat on the back and prompt them to even higher sales achievement than what they are currently doing. But the first thing is to know where you sit, and to look and the gap and figure out where you need to be.

2. Take responsibility for your sales results. As a sales leader, the buck really does stop with you. You can't blame your sales people, you can't blame the economy, you can't blame the government regulations, you can't blame foreign competition, or bad luck, or anything like that. This is all buck passing. Not only does it undermine your leadership, but also it undermines your effectiveness to get quality results. It undermines moral, but it undercuts the possibility of change and positive change in terms of improvement. Number 2 is take responsibility for your results no matter how good or bad they are. And typically when they are good, you want to take the responsibility and when they are bad you want to blame everyone else. It really should be the opposite. You should take responsibility when things are bad, but shower recognition and share that power and responsibility for great results when things are going the right way. So number 2 is take responsibility for results good and bad.

3. Clearly communicate your expectations and sales targets. A common complaint that I have seen throughout my sales management career of sales people is that they don't know what is expected of them. This is why we talk so much about setting expectations, and setting the bar higher in the Sales Management Academy, you need to tell your sales people exactly where they stand so that they know exactly where they currently are, and so you have a measuring stick or a frame of reference to where you want them to be. If a sales person doesn't know what is expected of them, then shame on the sales leader. The sales person should know, but the sales leader should figure out which sales people don't understand what the expectations are and make sure that they go and coach them and inform them and lead them in the right direction. So that focus makes clear what the organization will or will not do. That kind of focus is important for you as a sales leader.

4. Make sales results your ultimate litmus test. Weigh every idea or strategy that comes to you against the basic question, which is: What will have the biggest impact on our sales results? Which strategy or which idea will have the biggest impact on sales? Don't adopt a strategy or idea just because it seems like a good idea. Think of it in terms of what impact will it have on sales results? If you make sales result the ultimate litmus test, you'll make better decisions over the long term.

5. Know and use every group member's capabilities to the fullest. This is a really important one, because what we are trying to do at Sales Management Mastery Academy, is to harness the inherent talents of your individual sales people, and draw more out of what they are good at, and minimize what they aren't so good at. This is a basic concept which takes the path of least resistance as a sales leader. Therefore you're not fighting against the grain, or pushing water up hill, in the fact that you are trying to change someone into being someone that they aren't. Knowing and using every sales persons capabilities and talents to their fullest capability is the key to being able to lead them in the right direction. Personal results usually enhance the company's results. If someone is really good at a certain skill, if you can put them in the right position to achieve maximum sales result based on that skill, then you've just enhanced your ability to lead as well as get great sales results which is your ultimate goal as a sales manager.

6. Measure results. And do it in a way that employees can easily understand; whether you are standing at a sales meeting doing charts and graphs showing where everyone stands. Or you as the general manager showing the sales force exactly where sales are for a specific month, by doing lists or rankings, this is what really drives people to overachieve, by measuring results, especially measuring their results versus others. Because sales people in general are pretty competitive people. Whether it's the facts that they come from sports backgrounds, a lot of sales people have sports backgrounds and they have a hyper-competitive spirit. If you can pit them against each other, you can enhance your own leadership, and you can also enhance sales results as well. A good example of this is the great industrialist Charles Schwab, was visiting on one of his steel mills and he took out a piece of chalk and he wrote on the floor the number of steel ingots that shift had produced. And the night shift saw that number and they took that challenge and they produced more ingots than the day shift and wrote that number in chalk on the floor. So as the days went by, productivity escalated from shift to shift to shift. Use this powerful analogy. Writing results on an industrial warehouse floor is certainly a simple way to do it. Make it very simple. Don't do it in esoteric terms. Show charts, show graphs, show rankings, highlight the rankings, send out ranking bulletins, always pitting people against one another because it spurs competition, enhances your leadership, and enhances the bottom line and pushing sales in the right direction

7. Most important out of all the ways to lead your sales team: Stay in the loop and get feedback from all of your sales people. Asking them frank questions about what is going out in the sales environment. Measuring the progress, being out with them on a daily basis, if not a daily basis, maybe on just a couple of important calls. Obviously sales managers do get caught up in a lot of administrative activities. Being out there and managing by walking around, which is one of the most famous management philosophies that has come down the pike in the last 30 years. But being out there and understanding exactly what sort of challenges they are facing. You may need to alter some of the goals that you have based upon the environmental challenges and things that are going on. But the important thing is that you stay in the loop at all times so that you stay focused on the sales results, which is the ultimate endgame as a sales manager.

REFRESHER:

7 Ways to lead your team for maximum sales impact:

1. Begin with the strategic overhaul. Define the results that you need you're your organization. Look for that results gap. Guide your strategy based upon that gap.

2. Take responsibility for the results. Don't blame it on environmental factors or a bad economy. Take more responsibility for bad results and spread around the glory on good results.

3. Cleary communicate expectations and targets. One of the big complaints of sales people is that they really don't know where they stand versus their target. This is extremely important for them to know exactly where they are heading at all times.

4. Make sales results the ultimate litmus test of any of your decisions. Make sure you are measuring it versus what impact ideas will have on your sales bottom line.

5. Know and use every sales persons capabilities to the fullest. Draw out more of their talents and minimize their weaknesses.

6. Measure results in clear, cut and dry results. With charts, rankings bulletins, like Charles Schwab writing on the factory floor. Measure those results and pit your sales people against each other to bring out those competitive juices.

7. Stay in the loop. Get feedback from your salespeople by being out with them in the field. Ask frank questions of your sales team to know what their main challenges are so that you'll be able to guide your leadership message to make maximum impact.