Sales Leadership

Sales Leadership Training

As your sales managers go, so go your salespeople. Salespeople will generally not do more than sales managers ask them to, and sales managers cannot coach them beyond their own personal capabilities to sell.

The skills and effectiveness of sales management lie in the areas of coaching, motivating, recruiting, and holding salespeople accountable. See below for more information on these 5 critical areas.

You should also know that when sales leadership training and development is provided to your salespeople, your sales managers must be able to coach their salespeople to the new sales process, strategies, skills and tactics, as well as hold them accountable for change.

You should also know that when sales leadership training and development is provided to your salespeople, your sales managers must be able to coach their salespeople to the new sales process, strategies, skills and tactics, as well as hold them accountable for change.

From a sales management perspective, growing a sales organization consists of coaching, motivating and recruiting salespeople; while holding them accountable for performing at the highest possible levels of achievement. Together with a sales force development plan, these four sales management competencies form a sales manager’s ability to develop talent. Aside from making sure that the revenue and profit goals are met, talent development is the most desirable outcome.

Another significant challenge facing today’s sales managers is the expansion of the sales force. Unlike days past when the entire sales force met in the office each morning, salespeople are now working remotely. The variations include:

As a result, many sales managers must also meet the challenge of how to work effectively with remote salespeople. In doing so they must be certain that the remote salespeople are focused on the job at hand, while providing the necessary sales support for them to perform which is why sales leadership training is so critical.

young businessman raising
Coaching

At Sales Development Expert the process of coaching salespeople consists
 of an ongoing dialog that includes, but isn’t
limited to, pre-call strategizing and post-call debriefing with each salesperson. Under ideal conditions, this takes place on a daily basis. 

When managers are ineffective at coaching their salespeople, it is often because they aren’t spending enough time performing their coaching activities. On some occasions, well-intentioned managers perform the activities , but poorly, when they have not created the proper environment for productive and effective sales coaching. Salespeople must have a good business relationship with their managers, trust their intentions, believe in their advice, and respect their expertise. Salespeople must be open to change and sales managers must be rep-focused rather than self-focused.

two businessmen discussing
Motivating

Motivating salespeople is an ongoing process where on those days that a salesperson isn’t able to “self-start” sales management can step in and provide external motivation. Unfortunately, those days are far more common than anyone realizes and sales management can only be effective when aware of what will uniquely motivate each salesperson.

The factors that contribute to sales management’s effectiveness when motivating salespeople include:

Do Salespeople Have Personal Goals and a Plan?

Are Salespeople Motivated?

Do Salespeople Have Strong Desire?

Are Salespeople Committed?

Is Enough Time Spent Motivating?

Recruiting

two business people
Accountability

Holding salespeople accountable is perhaps the most feared part of sales management, despite the fact that it isn’t that difficult. It is also the most important component of sales management. In addition to quota, it requires clear, mutual expectations for each salesperson’s required activity on a daily basis. Activities, which if performed, would result in the revenue goals being met.

The factors that impact sales management’s ability to hold salespeople are:

* Much of this content is derived from my favorite mentor and Sales Thought Leader, Dave Kurlan. 

Contact us for more information on how our Sales Leadership training can help you build a Championship Sales Team. 

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