Henry Ford (and yes Tony Robbins and many others since then)
said:
“If you
always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
I don’t know about you, but if I do the same thing I’ve
always done, I get the same results.
This is very true in every aspect of life.
Do you have certain goals in your personal life or business?
If so, what will you do differently to achieve them?
I get it – you’ve always done it that way and it always
worked. So what has changed in the
paradigm? Companies are still making products,
selling products or services, mining companies are still producing ore and so
on. People are still eating and
drinking, and the effects of that are still the same, aren't they?
What are your current road blocks that are stopping
you? If you don’t have a problem, if you
are already making all the money you can, getting all deals across the line,
have a 100% win percentage, then reading this blog is probably not going to
help you. If you don’t have a problem, I
can’t help you!
Don’t focus on your
competitors
A new competitor – well, you’ve probably always had
competitors, you can’t influence what they do, but only what you do, so stop
focusing on your competitors!
Don’t ignore
leadership
Does a sports team need a coach? Do we need a PM? (And I am not talking about
the person – that’s a whole different conversation). I have written much about leadership in my
other posts, so I won't go into any more detail here.
Don’t set your team
up to fail
Set them up for success.
Hire the right people for the right job and provide them with the right
tools. Then make sure they are helped
along the way.
Don’t ignore the
individual’s strengths and weaknesses
There are many ways of evaluating people, many different
psychometric tests, profiling and more. In
regards to sales teams and sales leaders, trust a proven system that is
directly aligned to your business profile and goals backed with over 1 Million
data sets globally. Then utilise the
results to fully understand how the person fits into your organisation (either
before hiring someone or if you already have them on the team), to manage their
strengths and weaknesses to get even better results.
Don’t divest in your
people
It is your choice whether to invest in your team or not, isn’t
it? Set your goal. Is your goal to get another $200k revenue
from each sales person? If so, would you
invest $20k in them? How about $5k? Isn’t a wrong hire going to cost you
significantly more than that in the first three months alone? Isn’t a non performing sales person costing
you more than that in lost deals?
Don’t focus on
closing
It is a proven fact that the majority of sales directors and
managers feel that a significant weakness in their team is closing. Unfortunately the problem generally happens
much earlier, as early as the qualifying process and first meeting. A sale should pretty much close itself if the
correct sales process has been followed.
Again, an assessment of the individuals will give you an in depth look
at where the current hurdles are.
Don’t keep doing what
you’ve always done
You need to be part of the solution as much as your team
needs to be. Right now you are probably
part of the problem. Understanding this
and taking steps towards change will make you an even better leader.
Let us have a conversation if you currently have a problem
in your leadership and/or sales group/ organisation. If you don’t have a problem, I can’t help
you. If you do, then commiserations as unfortunately
you are part of humanity just like myself and the other 7.4 Billion people on
this planet. I don’t have all the answers,
but I do have access to great tools and people, and a wealth of experience with
companies just like yours that all seem to have similar issues.
