Leading b2b sales teams in today’s competitive market is tough. The selling landscape has become much more competitive and buyers more knowledgeable. Global financial instabilities and high workloads create additional difficulties.
Because of the changed landscape, the sales profession needs to improve. How you sell is becoming just as important than what you sell.
It’s no longer enough (was it ever?) to focus only on the superiority of your products. Customers do their own research online. You need to understand customers’ challenges better than ever and make sure that your sales (and marketing) people have the drive, skills and tools to engage with prospects and customers in a way that resonates, creates value and helps to create growth for your customers, your company and your people.
Focus on the team and embrace change on multiple levels
If how we have sold in the past is no longer as effective as it needs to be, what do we need to do differently? No matter what your answer to this question is, we need to realize that we’re living in times of great change. Sales people will need to embrace new tools, skills, behaviors and mind-sets. Some may even need to redefine their professional identity. Considering that your products and services are competitive, it will boil down to your sales people and how they can reach their full potential on your team.
Coaching will help you outperform your competition
This brings out the importance of coaching and the huge possibilities for improvements in the area. Most sales managers are not (yet) effective coaches. It takes a specific mindset, training and commitment. Coaching is not about providing information or instructions. It is not about tracking activity metrics or sales forecasts.
Coaching is about helping people help themselves by asking questions that open up new possibilities and opportunities. Providing quality coaching helps sales people to continually improve and outperform your competitors in the long-term.
Individual motivation and focused team efforts move mountains
Coaching sales people can be done at different levels. Basic sales coaching that ought to be happening on a day-to-day basis could be account planning and sales project creativity. More high-level coaching could be working with limited beliefs, goal-setting and personal development. Align personal goals with the goals of the company and help each team member to learn what motivates and demotivates them. Unleashed individual motivation combined with focused team efforts can move mountains.
Create a platform for effective coaching
If you believe that coaching is, and will increasingly become, a key differentiator to reach sales excellence, start building the platform to achieve it. Invite a world-class sales coach to meet with sales leadership, front-line managers and sales people. Invest in the skills and tools needed to get the journey started. Create your Coaching Cockpit™ in Membrain. Do it today! Your best competitors have probably already started…
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