The Key to Excellent Sales Leadership
Regardless of whether you're a brand new sales manager, a tenured sales manager, a small business entrepreneur, a Vice president of Product sales or perhaps a sales instructor, you may find that leading salespeople is one of the more challenging sales management training duties you experience.
The reason behind this issue is the fact that salespeople don’t really like to be “led” in the traditional sense. Salespeople in general, are an unpredictable lot. These people like to think of themselves as fiercely self-sufficient spirits who need to do things by themselves. They are typically extremely opinionated, and frequently combative.
And consequently, they will only “follow” a sales leader that they think is competent, has their motivations foremost in their minds and most importantly of all a sales manager that they trust.
The crucial element to great sales leadership is in building trust with your front line salespeople.
The regrettable part is that many “leadership" books don’t even make an effort to teach this concept. Virtually all believe it’s a given.
Just how wrong they are.
Instead there is an art and also a science to leadership and it also all starts with initially establishing a firm foundation of trust. This is an incredibly essential principle to master. And it's also critical to the long term wellbeing of the company.
The truth is, think about trust building with your sales force just like constructing a house. Trust would be the foundation of that house. You can’t start laying down floors putting up walls til you have that foundation set first, right?
It’s exactly the same thing with leadership and trust. A sales manager cannot steer a sales force to spectacular sales heights, much less merely make sales quotas without initially establishing that “trust” foundation.
There are actually about three established techniques that will enable you to not merely build trust with your sales force so that you can drive your company’s sales revenue:
1. Evoke the Law of Reciprocity.
The law of reciprocity states if one does something nice for somebody, and then human nature requires that the beneficiary will really feel obligated to do something nice for you in return. This is particularly effective because human instinct requires that at the exact moment that you do some thing good for someone, that individual feels obligated to return the favor.
So if you continually do nice things for your sales person, then they feel motivated to do something nice for you in exchange. That nice thing in exchange is usually greater sales. Don’t manipulate this particular rule; merely utilize it to your advantage. Additionally, don't expect the favor being returned the moment you do it. Be subtle. Yet take advantage of the natural laws of human psychology to obtain what you want to have which is a good result for your organization and your team.
2. Simply let The Salesperson Take All The Credit
People always perform better if they never have to worry about who gets the credit. If perhaps a sales manager is on a sales call with a salesperson that generates a sale and just after the call the sales manager returns to the office and tells everyone how HE made the sale, how do you suppose that salesperson feels?
Don’t be worried about who gets the credit. Sales managers are paid for precisely how effectively their sales people perform. A sales manager must never take the credit for the excellent work of his sales people
Ensuring that each salesperson receives the proper credit will just assist develop more trust and will inspire them all the more at the exact same time.
3. Don’t Dictate, Suggest Instead
There will probably be lots of times that you’ll have to tell your sales representatives, in absolute terms, what they need to do in a given circumstance.
However, the remainder of the time keep away from spewing direct orders at all costs.
For example, instead of saying: “I want you to see the O’Neil account and give them the new prices.”
Modify that slightly and suggest: “You may want to consider bringing the new rates to the O’Neil account.”
The salesman listens to that and thinks, okay, he’s not dictating to me what to do, but he’s giving me a suggestion and I’m going to decide if it is appropriate to execute. This kind of method encourages and inspires, and does not command.
Utilize these trust building strategies to lead and inspire your sales force and you'll start experiencing dramatic gains in your sales leadership.
To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.
The reason behind this issue is the fact that salespeople don’t really like to be “led” in the traditional sense. Salespeople in general, are an unpredictable lot. These people like to think of themselves as fiercely self-sufficient spirits who need to do things by themselves. They are typically extremely opinionated, and frequently combative.
And consequently, they will only “follow” a sales leader that they think is competent, has their motivations foremost in their minds and most importantly of all a sales manager that they trust.
The crucial element to great sales leadership is in building trust with your front line salespeople.
The regrettable part is that many “leadership" books don’t even make an effort to teach this concept. Virtually all believe it’s a given.
Just how wrong they are.
Instead there is an art and also a science to leadership and it also all starts with initially establishing a firm foundation of trust. This is an incredibly essential principle to master. And it's also critical to the long term wellbeing of the company.
The truth is, think about trust building with your sales force just like constructing a house. Trust would be the foundation of that house. You can’t start laying down floors putting up walls til you have that foundation set first, right?
It’s exactly the same thing with leadership and trust. A sales manager cannot steer a sales force to spectacular sales heights, much less merely make sales quotas without initially establishing that “trust” foundation.
There are actually about three established techniques that will enable you to not merely build trust with your sales force so that you can drive your company’s sales revenue:
1. Evoke the Law of Reciprocity.
The law of reciprocity states if one does something nice for somebody, and then human nature requires that the beneficiary will really feel obligated to do something nice for you in return. This is particularly effective because human instinct requires that at the exact moment that you do some thing good for someone, that individual feels obligated to return the favor.
So if you continually do nice things for your sales person, then they feel motivated to do something nice for you in exchange. That nice thing in exchange is usually greater sales. Don’t manipulate this particular rule; merely utilize it to your advantage. Additionally, don't expect the favor being returned the moment you do it. Be subtle. Yet take advantage of the natural laws of human psychology to obtain what you want to have which is a good result for your organization and your team.
2. Simply let The Salesperson Take All The Credit
People always perform better if they never have to worry about who gets the credit. If perhaps a sales manager is on a sales call with a salesperson that generates a sale and just after the call the sales manager returns to the office and tells everyone how HE made the sale, how do you suppose that salesperson feels?
Don’t be worried about who gets the credit. Sales managers are paid for precisely how effectively their sales people perform. A sales manager must never take the credit for the excellent work of his sales people
Ensuring that each salesperson receives the proper credit will just assist develop more trust and will inspire them all the more at the exact same time.
3. Don’t Dictate, Suggest Instead
There will probably be lots of times that you’ll have to tell your sales representatives, in absolute terms, what they need to do in a given circumstance.
However, the remainder of the time keep away from spewing direct orders at all costs.
For example, instead of saying: “I want you to see the O’Neil account and give them the new prices.”
Modify that slightly and suggest: “You may want to consider bringing the new rates to the O’Neil account.”
The salesman listens to that and thinks, okay, he’s not dictating to me what to do, but he’s giving me a suggestion and I’m going to decide if it is appropriate to execute. This kind of method encourages and inspires, and does not command.
Utilize these trust building strategies to lead and inspire your sales force and you'll start experiencing dramatic gains in your sales leadership.
To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.
Cool Sales Management Tip on How To Motivate Salespeople!
How do you motivate salespeople to peak sales performance? This video gives a simple, yet highly effective technique to trigger explsive sales growth by motivating your salespeople by finding out what thier individual triggers and motivations are.
