When leaders build or rebuild sales teams, they often move quickly to hire the best individual contributors available and allow each to leverage their own skills and experiences to find success.
These leaders take a hands-off approach, essentially providing new hires little more than a comp-plan, a territory, a desk and a computer. Then they wrap it all up with a few encouraging words like, “go get ’em tiger!” or a not-so-vailed threat like, “I’m counting on you!”
Though the approach is far from ideal, it will be supported by the CEO for as long as revenue and margin contributions grow. Ultimately, however, these leaders get themselves into trouble by ignoring warning signs like low commitment, rising turnover and the fact that 50%-80% of new team members have turned into poor or mediocre performers.
Eventually, the reality of this system becomes evident as sales stagnate or decline. Attempts to spark a turnaround by reorganizing the team, replacing poor performers and making new investments in marketing ultimately have little sustained effect. At this point it becomes apparent the ‘system’ is the problem – it must be replaced along with the sales leader, so the team can be rebuilt.
While still stinging from the ordeal, most CEOs will immediately begin looking for a new sales leader who they ‘hope’ can install a new and better system. The assumption being, the right system follows the right leader. Unfortunately, not only is this assumption wrong 85%-97% of the time (we have the data), it is also unhealthy as it traps the CEO in a relationship of dependence rather than one of independence.
The correct assumption is that the right leader follows the right system. In other words, the high-probability move is for the CEO to build key elements of his or her foundational sales playbook first, based upon what his or her sales team already knows about how their best customers buy and how their best salespeople sell.
Now, new sales team members, including the next sales leader, can be hired and trained to fit the unique requirements of the sales organization. The CEO will have engineered a culture of independence and taken control of the process that will eventually deliver sustained growth to the business.
Ask any sales leader if they regularly reinforce a structured and dynamic sales process that each sales team member is held accountable to executing. Odds are you’ll hear an emphatic, “yes.”
Unfortunately, the odds in favor of this being true are very low. How do I know? After we ask sales leaders this same question we confirm their confidence by asking each sales team member to describe how they closed their last four deals. Rarely do the team’s systems and behaviors lineup.
What sales leaders of growth companies know that most of their peers do not is, 1) which best practices are most predictive of sales success at each stage of the sales cycle, and 2) how to teach and reinforce these best practices so they become automatic behaviors prompted by situational cues – i.e. winning habits.
How do they know this? Chances are they have a foundational sales playbook that they are always using to develop, hire and onboard ‘high-fit’ sales team members. And, they are not satisfied until 80% or more of their team are perennial quota killers.
Unfortunately, simply building a sales playbook does not guarantee success. There are several unseen factors that can block you from delivering the growth and return you seek.
Over the years I have learned how create and deliver foundational sales playbooks that avoid these and other unseen barriers to success. I have also learned how to guarantee their effectiveness for large and small sales teams representing more than 100 industries.
If you are going to start the process on your own, the best advice I can offer is to recognize that there are as many successful sales playbooks as there are successful sales teams. To make sure your sales playbook is representative of your unique sales environment, develop it incrementally. This way you won’t over invest in the process and your odds of success increase exponentially.
Below are the first three steps our clients follow to ensure they get the foundational sales playbook they expect:
This path to independence builds sales teams that differentiate the products and services they sell and the organizations they sell for, not the other way around. This path builds functional sales playbooks that represent unique collections of protected intellectual property, not just collections of common sales best practices.
Of course, we recognize it can be tough for even the most motivated organizations to find the resources required to get started on a foundational sales playbook. We have found a way to make the process easy for any size company. Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or prefer working with outside experts, I am happy to help. Contact us at the Floriss Group and I’ll send you our simple 4-page outline to start the conversation and get you on your way to greater independence and more sustainable revenue growth.
James is a veteran author, investor, trainer, and coach who is passionate about empowering and transforming modern sales and customer-facing teams.
Relentlessly determined and intensely curious, James found inspiration applying the principles of servant leadership to his earliest sales and management roles. Eventually, his success as a perennial top producer fostered the creation of Collecting WINS™, a proprietary sales development platform which he authored in 2012.
James has also founded or invested in more than a dozen closely held and venture backed companies, resulting in multiple IPOs and liquidity events. He has trained and coached more than 6,500 CEOs and sales leaders from more than 100 industries, including INC 500, Deloitte Fast 50, Deloitte Fast 500, Business First Fast 50 and Innovation Award winning companies. Today, James leads The Floriss Group from its offices in Columbus, OH.
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