(By Loyd Ford) Everyone wants to win. Managers forget this because they often want what they want. Every seller wants to bill the most, sell the most, be the local hero. Even better, they are actively doing what they think will help them reach their goals. If you have local sellers not reaching their goals, start with these concepts and build a roadmap to the promised land of higher sales.
- From the very beginning, put a premium on seeing your individual team members and praising their accomplishments in front of other team members and others in general (inside and outside the company). People who feel ‘heard’ and ‘seen’ and valued are much greater warriors in the field.
- Start with how you motivate and give selling deeper meaning. Selling can turn into a grind, but not so much if you have tied the work sellers are doing to a deeper meaning. What are the core values of your company, culture and mission? Your sales team will be more motivated than their competitors if they feel the value of what they are doing for local businesses, consumers and economy. Show them the value of their work for people, local businesses and the community beyond only selling.
- Invite your sellers to help craft actual goals and become more involved in the decision-making process. People who feel invested….are invested. They believe.
- Celebrate small wins to grow larger momentum. Celebrating smaller wins gives confidence and encouragement that they can do this, keep moving, reach new goals and grow, grow, grow.
- Always provide rewards beyond cash that are important to sellers – opportunities to lead, flexible work arrangements (when appropriate), opportunities for growth (both learning and advancement) and extra time off.
- Encourage sellers to track their activity. This isn’t necessarily for you – you want them to be encouraged to see that some activities pay off more than others (when you do see their tracking, catch them doing something right – not something wrong).
- Encourage sellers to collect advertising success stories regularly that should consistently be used to bring ‘birds of a feather together’ and help your sellers grow influence based on what potential clients can see. Word of mouth on steroids is better than your pitch.
- If you manage sellers, it’s YOUR job to stay positive and encourage their own positive emotion. They get knocked down so much. Knowing your boss is a positive influencer in your career will have a powerful positive impact on your success. Every sales manager has the largest responsibility to win over individual sellers to ideas that lead to practicing the profession of consistently asking questions, learning about prospects and other industries and building robust relationships themselves.
- Be focused on being a strategic coach. Coaching is encouraging, praising, educating, empathy and focus on improvement. But most people see coaching as the process of identifying what you did wrong.
It can be frustrating to manage people because (as humans) we just want them to do what we want. Be more than this by focusing on them, their emotions, the roadblocks that get in front of sellers and being the cheerleader for sellers so they are always ready for that next meeting, next opportunity and you will see sellers who consistently grow sales.
Loyd Ford is president and chief strategic officer at Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works (RPC). Reach him anytime at 864.448.4169 or [email protected].
