Colleen’s Blog

Do you want to be successful? Alright - that was obviously a rhetorical question. Since I know you want to be triumphant with your sales, it’s imperative that you surround yourself with success. You’re probably familiar with the following quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If you want to manage a successful sales team, you must do your best to learn from and work with successful sales leaders. If you’re learning tips and strategies from poor salespeople, you’re not going to be able to relay effective information to your team. If you don’t currently work with any sellers who are creating positive results, branch out and meet high achieving salespeople via networking events, conferences and trade shows. The idea is to surround yourself and learn from achievers. It doesn’t stop at your immediate network. Here are a few steps you can take to create a success mindset so you can create a prosperous sales career. On top of following these steps yourself, I highly recommend you ask your sales team to do the same:

You’ve probably had to deal with professional criticism at some point (or often) in your sales career. In such a fast-paced, high-pressure profession that is continuously focused on results, we are often subject to our fair share of criticism from colleagues, managers, clients, and prospects. If you want to be successful in sales, you must learn to take criticism and use it to your advantage. ← Click To Tweet It’s easy to get wrapped up in your faults when others are pointing them out to you. But, there are steps you can take to efficiently move past the negativity and actually create success through the criticism that you receive.

It's frustrating. When you see a sales rep struggling month after month, and missing target after target, it's enough to make any sales leader uneasy. The problem is most leaders handle poor performers the wrong way. There's a tendency to have "tough conversations" or attempt to punish them into higher performance. Some leaders even give poor performers the "cold shoulder" and allow a rep's professional performance to seep into their personal behavior towards them. These are all things that are extremely counterproductive and more often than not, contribute to more negativity and even worse performance. Luckily, there are strategies you can put into place to help improve their results. 

Is your market slowing down? Be sure not to get caught up in a “slow down” mindset! While most salespeople will complain about the market, the successful salespeople will be looking for ways to turn a negative situation into a positive one. The majority of salespeople fail to realize that a market slowing down is actually the perfect opportunity to revise sales strategies and increase sales activity. Think about it, the slower market does not just create problems for you, your competition is likely struggling as well. Chances are they're facing the same challenges your sales team is facing, so it’s important to capitalize on this opportunity. By switching yourself from a  “slow down” mindset to a “speed up” one, you are essentially taking the first step towards achieving prosperity in difficult markets.

When meeting with prospects or high level decision makers, many salespeople focus on the wrong type of conversation. Your average salesperson will spend hours preparing sheets that outline their product’s features, benefits, pricing and other details. They practice their pitch, and at times have a lengthy speech rehearsed. While preparation is never a bad thing, the successful salesperson understands the value of focusing on the correct aspect of the presentation. Focus on your client. Your client’s needs, issues and problems should be the main focus of your presentation. While your product may have dozens of practical uses, if the client is only interested in one or two of those uses, you’re wasting their time, boring them and risking the entire sale by outlining features he or she doesn’t need.

They're hitting and exceeding their targets with no signs of slowing down. Should you even bother to coach your top sales performers? I've been working with executives for the last few years on sales coaching practices. I've noticed that many executives are on the fence about whether or not to coach top performers. Let me clear the air. Your top performers should absolutely be coached, regardless of how impressive their numbers have been and how long they've been exceeding expectations for. Here's the truth, you have the best opportunity to move the bar forward with your revenue by coaching your top performers. So, don't fall into the trap! Executives who implement a "hands off" policy for their best performers are doing a major disservice. <-- Click To Tweet What's the best way to coach them?