What Does Good Look Like?
How your team performs is the greatest measurement for a leader. Even more important, how do they conduct themselves? This is what every other employee is going to look at when they interact with your sales team. As a leader, your reps are a reflection of your skillset.
I would say you need to take a hard look at your team. Ask yourself the question: is everyone bought into your leadership? If they are then you know. If you are uncertain then I’ll help you out…. The answer is no.
So what do you do? How do you even start?
Get a Mission Statement
Hold your eye rolls when I say this and hear me out. In my time as a leader as well as those that I trained this was the first step in establishing their team’s culture. It also helped build my identity as a leader. It became my single source of truth when faced with hard decisions. Having a clear and concise mission statement is VERY important. It does a few other things as well:
Focuses the team
Gives them guidance on your approach
Allows you to recruit reps that fit your mindset
Builds Great Culture
From there you need to do something else….
Guiding Principles
I took a leadership course a few years ago that was run by extreme sport athletes. The trainers were folks who climbed mountains, trekked to the North Pole and did extreme river rafting. The things they shared was very enlightening. But most importantly was the following...
They are faced with highly dangerous situations in their professions. When the expedition was faced with danger what they is default to their Guiding Principles. This gives them the focus they need to come to a consensus on what needs to be done. For example:
I’m leading a mountain climbing expedition. My Guiding Principles are:
Everyone Lives
We All Reach the Mountain Top Together
No one travels alone
This offers clarity when faced with a situation when you are a measly 1 day hike from the top of the mountain but a storm is coming in. You would be pinned down for a couple days and risk hypothermia. If I look at my guiding principles then the decision is easy. If I don’t have them then everyone is chiming in on their opinion rather than having a constructive conversation.
Establishing this in sales allows you to focus your group during conflict. It also aligns for great cross departmental alignment.
Build a Simple Process
The more complex something is then the harder it become. I’m a HUGE believer Occam’s Razor. What is that? It’s a scientific problem solving principle that states the simplest solution is typically the answer (Bonus points if you know what movie this came from).
Building a process and methodology creates a simple framework. It also allows for you to have more complexity based on simple concepts. Phil Jackson had this philosophy with the Triangle Offense which allowed for 100s of different plays to run in any scenario. The result? 11-time head coaching champion.
Incorporate this into every aspect of your sales organization. Structure QBRs, 1:1s and how resources are aligned. Build expectations of what should be completed by the opportunity stage. Everyone uses the same collateral in each conversation.
Expectations are clear. Everyone is rowing at the same time. Team is empowered.
KPI Framework
Beyond a general sense of how the team culture feels you want to build a KPI framework. Why? The amount if times I’ve watched people lead from a “gut” feel and fail… huge rate of likelihood. Whereas if you have a “back of the baseball card” mentality then you have analytic evidence of success.
Having the proper KPIs in place gives all sellers in our org focus. If you value activity (calls, emails), opp creation and closure rates then the reps need to know that. If you are looking at avg selling days, forecast accuracy and quota attainment then put it at the forefront.
At the end of the day you’ll want to have these 3 things tightened up; Mission Statement, Guiding Principles and KPI Framework for measurement of success. Leading effectively becomes a HELLUVA lot easier. Your reps will love it and you’ll rest easier.
You will also clearly define What Good Looks Like when running a tight ship.
