The most valuable assets of any company are the people who develop and sell relationships with customers. They are the conduits to the company’s greatest asset, the customer.
This collective asset is owned by the sales leadership team. They are responsible for managing and nurturing it so that it produces sustainable results. Discipline is the key to promoting the sales agenda at every opportunity and engagement. Their persistence, energy, and commitment foster best practices and instill the right actions in salespeople to achieve consistent sales success.
Sales leaders need to demonstrate discipline and a predictable rhythm in all of their actions and then spread that discipline across the entire customer-facing team. Sales reps are faced with a multitude of initiatives and programs that they cannot handle alone. They look to their leaders for guidance on which activities, behaviors, or programs to prioritize. Sales leaders must communicate their expectations and then check what they have received.
A checklist for sales leaders
Sales executives who are great at transforming their own skills and best practices into a consistent discipline for the people they lead create excellent results. They activate a sales process that does not rely on sales heroes but on predictable and predictable outcomes that produce exceptional results for their company.
How can a sales team determine if they have the right management skills to succeed? These are some great questions to ask.
Does the dashboard have a standard scorecard that allows you to track the progress of the opportunities in the pipeline? Is the dashboard documented with customer outcomes? It is easily visible.
Are there any calendars that allow for management account reviews or pipeline reviews? Are they only paying attention at the end of each quarter?
How can sales executives/managers identify the most critical elements that will help their salespeople exceed expectations? What is the process?
What is the effectiveness of sales executives and sales managers in coaching their sales teams to achieve outstanding results? Is coaching done regularly or just when there is a significant deal?
Is the management team able to reinforce the use of selected account management tools through personal experience with the tools in real-world account situations?
Are sales managers disciplined in how they interact with clients to ensure that they are integrated with the account team? Or do they only insert themselves when there is the trouble?
Are salespeople held responsible for their annual SMART goals or performance goals?
Does the sales process play a role in allocating resources or not?
Eight Attributes of Sales Leadership Discipline
With rare exceptions, sales success is a team effort of many talented people. Each member of the team can contribute to the overall effort by using their unique skills. To make the collective action a success, they must perform exceedingly well within their responsibilities.
Management can make the exact people produce twice as much output if they have the proper discipline. Eight attributes have been identified in our research as a hallmark of sales leadership discipline.
Customer-focused. Customer-focused.
Sales-process-based. A documented sales process guides you.
Intentional. Customer-facing teams must perform the prescribed actions
Developmental. Promoting relationship and people development
Accountability-driven. Leaders should be able to see and hear what they expect.
Performance-motivated. Teams should be made aware of how performance is measured, rewarded, and celebrated
Competence-focused. Coaching sales teams during the sales process stages
Calendar-driven. Sets expectations and follows a timetable
