Colleen’s Blog

The very best reps I know own their territories as if it were their own business. They plan for success in those territories proactively, rather than just taking whatever comes their way, crossing their fingers, and hoping for success.

I am sick of sales managers complaining about their top sellers not being team players.

After a week of touring ancient cities on the Rhine including visiting a good selection of castles, fortresses and churches, I discovered that I most enjoy them! They offer a complete glimpse into the way entire towns lived, the ways families came together and went about their daily lives, and how they protected their lives. One thing that came as a surprise was this: All castles have a single weak spot. There was only one penetrable opening in the castle that put the inhabitants at risk of enemy takeover. And, it’s the one spot with direct and open access to the ground below. Any guesses where it is? The toilet! Because the toilet was a simple hole in the floor with direct access to the outside, usually on the second floor and located over a hill, it created a vulnerable spot for the fortress. For this reason, the toilet only locked on the outside so you could escape quickly and lock the enemy out, and, was located in a highly trafficked room such as a dining hall so that if the enemy came up, there were lots of knights waiting to attack them! As I was learning about all the attempted attacks on the Marksburg Castle (the most well-restored castle on the Rhine), I got to thinking about sales teams. It struck me that all sales teams have a weak spot too. And while all teams might not have the exact same weak spot, identifying yours is the key to accelerating performance. In my experience, a sales team weak spot falls into 1 of 5 categories:

Could your sales team be suffering from a dangerous virus? Like it or not, we’re now hearing more coughing and sneezing than normal, and commercials are filled with daytime and nighttime medication advertisements to protect you and your family from the flu. But, the virus I want to address this week has nothing to do with the flu. This virus can't be cured with a few sick days. It lasts longer than the flu and it has the potential to erode your entire sales team (and your sales) if you let it linger.

One of the biggest mistakes that sales leaders can make is neglecting their sales team. It happens more often than you think. Sales management becomes so preoccupied with results and numbers that they neglect the one thing that is most responsible for those numbers. Your sales team may be composed of a group of individuals, however, they come together each day to form an entity that is directly responsible for your success! ← Click To Tweet If just one of those individuals is unhappy, the entire team can feel the effect. Results can suffer, conflicts may develop and before you know it your sales team can become dysfunctional! It’s so important to ensure that each of your team members is happy and that your entire team supports one another. This is the kind of team that creates positive sales results and success in the long run. Consider these easy steps you can implement into your day-to-day operations to create a proper team atmosphere: