Episode 12: The Talent Approach to Building a High Performing Sales Team

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits. Along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales Teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered B2B sales teams. Before we get started, I'd like to share a story of a terrific encounter I had with a sales leader earlier this week. The sales leader is quite an experienced leader. They've been in their position for six or seven years now. They're certainly in the second stage of their career. Terrific individual contributor and generally very, very good at motivating their team. But this sales leader in particular, this person has been working really hard on their edges. So that's that part of their leadership when they're under pressure, the part of their leadership that comes out that they're not as proud of as other parts. And it's particularly around how they can react emotionally when they're confronted with another person who's also emotional themselves. And this person had another situation where that had occurred for them and it's certainly not a major issue for them, but it comes up every now and then. And this person came up to me and they said, here's my problem, here's what happened, here's what I did wrong, here's what I'm going to be able to do next time. And it was, hey, I got confronted with someone who was heavily emotional. Rather than work through the problem and let them calm down, I also become emotional myself. I know I shouldn't have done that. The best thing I could have done is talk them through what the trigger were for them being upset, then work through to our resolution and then later on down the track have a discussion with them about how I wasn't super pleased with how they spoke to me. What I liked about that was that although the sales leader didn't nail execution of what they wanted to achieve in this moment, they were acutely aware of what they did wrong. And for me, when you are acutely aware of what you need to do to train yourself to be a better leader, you are on the right path. You are on that path towards becoming the best version of your leadership self that you can. And I was super proud of this person. I let them know. And it's a great segue into today's topic because we're once again building on our TeamSTEPPS playbook that we introduced a couple of weeks ago. But today we're focusing in particular on the talent approach to building a high performing sales team. Okay, so let's recap how we got to this point. Three weeks ago, we introduced four key habits that we believe consistently drive the success of sales leaders worldwide. And it was all based around a quote, Around 48% of sales leaders not being aware of what good looks like within their sales team. So those four key habits. One was a documented and easy to follow sales process. Two was the focus on the TeamSTEPPS playbook, which had three key levers, strategy, talent and energy, leading to the fourth lever in peak performance. The third was the measurement metric that great sales leaders or good sales leaders and above have as a non negotiable for their team. Clear, concise and simple metric they use to measure performance. And in essence, what gets measured gets done. And the fourth piece is they have a long term focus on training, which is very much around coaching and accountability to training. So those four key habits, we've already discussed the sales process in earlier podcasts from this year. So the second area of these four key habits is where we're up to and that's the teamstep playbook. So three weeks ago we introduced the TeamSTEPPS playbook. Last week we spoke about the strategy approach to building a high performing sales team. So the s in the TeamSTEPPS playbook and today we're going to focus on the table. That's the talent part of the Teamstepps Playbook. So let's get into it because we know that when we get the TeamSTEPPS playbook right, when we get the strategy, talent and energy levers right, they put every sales team in a position to really drive peak performance. Okay, so we're going to deep dive into the talent lever of the TeamStep model. Unlike the strategy lever from last week, the talent lever is very much a monthly focus. So it's something that's embedded into our weeks, into our months, but not necessarily something that we focus on every day and certainly not something that we focus on quarterly Every six months. And for me, when we start thinking about the talent approach to the TeamSTEPPS playbook, I love to try and relate it to a quote and a really relatable one. And this one's from Richard Branson. You might have heard it. Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don't want to. Great, great saying. And it's all about investing time into your people. Invest time to make them the best versions they can be of their salesperson or whatever professional part of the business you're in, so that they are the envy of other businesses, they are the envy of competitors, and they want them, but treat them so well that they just don't want to leave. Build that culture, build that program that drives their engagement to a level that simply means they just want a career with your business. Because finding great talent, it's really difficult. It's not just a case of importing or recruiting or trading in this magical sales team that suddenly performs. We know it just doesn't happen. And I've spoken before about all types of sporting teams, basketball teams in particular. It's rare that a team will just recruit five immensely talented individuals who will step into their business and perform. And if they do, you often see the headaches that come with that importation of people. The difference in culture, the difference in learnings, the difference in how they go about things that actually means they don't often gel. So how do successful teams succeed then? For me, it's all about blending. It's a blend of experience that either may have been previously built or that you have bought into the business. It's a blend of new, more junior salespeople in sales teams who are there to learn, grow and be challenged. Right? These people that you need to spend some time building capability in, but are also offset by some more experienced people in your team. And sure, it's not the only formula. I've seen plenty of brilliant sales teams built from the ground up with a team of growing together. But the general formula I see working is one of existing talent blended with new talent. And what we find is that the existing talent, they clearly impart their ways onto the emerging talent. Right? The superstars of the future, they're taught by the more experienced performers, not always the best performers, but certainly the more experienced performers, and that helps them grow more quickly. But in reverse, the more senior team members, they get to feel the excitement and the invigoration or the reinvigoration and all of that willingness to learn and grow and be better that comes from the more junior or less experienced sales members. And what happens is we start to see the more experienced talent actually lift their game based on just that motivation, increasing from not only training more junior people, but also seeing their enthusiasm. So expect to spend plenty of your ongoing time nurturing the talent within your team. I regularly read literature that talks about sales leaders spending up to half their time coaching and developing talent and just how important it is for them to focus on that ongoing talent development to succeed. Now, it's certainly not a blueprint. 50% of your time needs to be spent on coaching. But I would highly encourage you to focus on making sure that your team is consistently learning. Teams that learn together grow together. Teams that grow together stay together. So let's have a look at some of the key talent levers that you need to get right as part of your TeamSTEPPS playbook. There's about 18 or so that we're going to go through. Now, don't let that number scare you, right? But please see it as an opportunity to have a significant impact on your team through a multiple number of levers. Now, you don't need to get all 18 right. If you can nail 65, 70, 75% of these and some of them you already will have nailed, then you are well on your way to succeeding. And I've mentioned before, there will be show notes, of course, that come out with this podcast. So if you don't get it down, don't be too concerned. If you're at the gym, if you're driving, if you're walking, try and listen to the themes of what I'm going through and you can take notes. If you aren't able to do it today, you can take notes later. But also, we've got a free resource coming at the end of this series of podcasts. It's an edible resource that will help you use it for your teams. All right, so what are these talent levers? Firstly, what are the key sales skills that you require in the team? Are they hunters? Are they farmers? Are they a mix of both? Are they inbound lead generation versus outbound lead generation? What type of SDR do you need in your business? Similarly, with your account execs. We've spoken about hunters and farmers, but do we need account execs that are experienced or inexperienced or a mixture of both? Typically, if you're a business that has fast churn leads, so they're in it's a decision yes or no really quickly, you're more likely to have a higher number of STRs, less account execs and a focus around hunters. If you're a high value, long burn type of sales process, you're more likely to have your smaller number of STRs who pass on to hunters who pass on to farmers, or your smaller number of STRs who simply pass through to farmers and they work through that engagement process over a long period of time. Repeat customers much more likely to have more farmers once off customers much more likely to have more hunters. Mature industries more likely you're going to be looking at inbound SDRs so customers or sorry, so SDRs that are taking inbound calls from customers. Because you're in an industry where people know what they're looking for and often where to find it. Inversely, if you're in a growing industry, the early stage type of industry, or an early stage business, outbound STRs and even hunters are certainly more generally more applicable in your balance of salespeople because you need to be generating some interest in what you're doing and some enthusiasm and some awareness around your product. So there's lots of blends around the different types of sales skills that you require in your team. And to be fair, most teams require a blend of many things. That's the first area though, in your talent levers to look at second, technical skills. So what are the technical skills that you need in that team? How much product expertise do you need in your sales team versus how much product expertise do you need outside the sales team? So do you need technical support from an engineering department? Or is your product or service straightforward enough that a base level of technical knowledge is absolutely enough? And it's more about the process that you go through with customers, the ability to step them through the buying process. Really important that you sit down and have a look at what technical skills you need within your team, because that will determine how you hire and train your talent. What are the key business skills needed in the sales team? So are you in an industry where negotiation is critical, cold calling is important. Presentation skills or what are the key business skills? So these are the non technical skills that you need from your sales team members to be able to excel. What I can very clearly show from across the teams that we work with is you'll often find a balance is needed across the group. So we won't have every account exec or salesperson that's an expert at negotiation, but certainly you'll have one or two or three or more in there that know really how to negotiate in difficult situations. Same thing goes about having a look at your type of product, low value, fast decision making, you're going to focus more on account execs who can get throughput into their business skills. So they're highly efficient and they understand how to move customers quickly through the process. Right. Versus a higher value longer process than presentation skills and negotiation skills are gonna become more important. Next one, what are the types of experience levels that you need in your team? I covered this actually above in the hunters versus Farmers but find the balance between junior and senior salespeople. Great example. I was working with a dental business recently and they had a real split, a real divide between their senior team and their junior team. And their junior team just weren't growing quickly enough. So that team, they actually split their team into that business and they had a focus on specific training for their more junior salespeople to try and get them to catch up. Next one team training program. Absolutely critical in your teamstepps playbooks talent lever. You have to get the training model right. It needs to be a model, a program that is in your business that is there every week, if not more. It's a bare minimum to train your team once a week. Often in fact businesses I see they follow the 10, 20, 70 models at 10% formal, 20% coaching and 70% of the training completed in the field. Right. So you're 10% formal. Okay. So it's not going to be 10% of a 40 hour week because you're doing other things. But certainly if you're not devoting an hour a week, then you're going to be behind that 10% mark. 20% coaching, that's through your one to ones, that's through your unscheduled support. And then in field training, very much about buddying up with others, team leader or sales leader, co calls and regular process reviews. The only other piece I'll add to the team training program is generally a really good business. As I said, they split their trainings up into technical so their specific product or service skills, business skills. So they're things like negotiation and selling skills. They're very much about your sales specific sales process type of skills. Okay, next one. Mindset training, not something that people really invested in probably until the last five to 10 years. We can blame billions of time for Wendy's performance coaching focus. But certainly mindset training is becoming more and more important and that's all about how can we ensure that the best version of our salespeople are present at work as frequently as possible. Primly is a great example. We have businesses now and You've heard a couple of podcasts from Juan. If you haven't jumped back to episode 10 and episode 8, we've got one more to come. But there are businesses like Primly that are focusing specifically on building the mindset and improving the mental health of your sales teams. Great part of sales training or the talent lever of the TeamSTEPPS playbook. Okay, moving on. Team culture. So what are the system symbols and norms that will govern our team subculture? Is it that we're always learning? How are we sharing information? How do we talk to each other? It's very much also a part of the energy lever of the playbook. But building that team culture through your talent development program is so important. So the next one, negotiation principles and delegations. What are the decisions that our people can make without needing approval? And then in the inverse, what do they actually need to be able to get approval on to make these negotiation decisions? Really important. The team's really clear on what the delegations are and even where they can negotiate. Great. Example is what margin can you negotiate, if any? What added features, particularly around say a software upgrade? What added features can you provide to a company that buys your software solution? Is it maintenance? Is it free support hours? Is it a rollover period? Is it fixed pricing when you're renewed? Be really clear on what the team can and can't negotiate because it allows them to get to decisions faster. Also very important for their engagement. Next, one, remuneration structure. This might be one that you don't discuss with the team, but this includes your fixed and variable components. So are you fixed only? Do you have bonuses fixed plus bonus? Do you have fixed plus open ended commissions or are they capped Commissions? Right. And how do we communicate transparently with our team? For me, I was working with a business, it was a mid sized business, about 50 million a year turnover and they moved from open commissions to fixed bonuses. Wow. Did you see a change in the culture? The sales teams went from having great senses of urgency to work with their customers and to find solutions for them to a comparable level of apathy. Now, of course we don't want to be encouraging behaviours that's all about deal, deal, deal without talking the customer through the process. But this had a real inverse impact of what was intended. Instead of looking after the customer's best interest by removing commissions, it actually pulled that sen urgency and wanting to really understand customers as quickly as they can out of the process and resulted in close rates dropping significantly. So this business actually has now moved half their team back to commissions, but they've capped it. So not a bad mid ground. Do we have enough leadership within our sales team? Enough senior people who are formally and or informally recognised as being leaders? Super important to continue that talent development. Right in that self learning program market changes. Is the talent within our team regularly collecting market data on competitors and feeding it back to us? Why is it so important? Well, a team that's engaged with what their competitors are doing and what the market's moving towards or changing towards generally will improve quicker. They're seeing the problems themselves, they're bringing them back to the business and they're first hand having an impact in how they can improve. Great for your training programs, great for your sales meetings, but really important that we're getting feedback from the market about what's moving. Objection. Handling often covered during your sales process, particularly during the strategy lever of the TeamSTEPPS playbook, but really important that we're continually under the talent lever looking at how we handle objections, the methods we use to handle objections and really whether or not we're doing it effectively as a team. Next one, when and how do we leverage technical or industry support? So this is all about where we use others in our business to help us, which we spoke about earlier about needing tech support, depending on your product type, but also when do we leverage suppliers, when do we leverage partners of the business and how do we make sure that we are continually learning from as many different sources as we possibly can? Right. Everyone learns in different ways. Some learn by reading a small percent, some learn by listening a small percentage, many learn by doing and even more learn by teaching. So it's very important that we are appealing to all avenues through our talent or our training program, self learning. I mentioned that before. Do we have a program for our teams to self learn? Do we encourage them to listen to podcasts like the strongest sales team podcast? Do we encourage them to read? Do we encourage them to interact with their peers or other departments? Right. What's the self learning program that we have embedded in to really encourage people and teams to continue to learn closing strategies? What are they? Do we have experts within the team who focus on closing? Are we all proficient at it? Are we running a soft closing program? Are we always closing? Are we running hard closes? Right. What's our stance within the business and how are we educating our sales team to be better and better at it? One to one templates. Super, super important from the talent lever of the TeamSTEPPS playbook. We need to make sure that we're building a really consistent format. But even more importantly, that format needs to reduce the time and certainly in the businesses we've worked with. In fact, the very best business I saw at this had a set one to one template that was completed by the sales coordinator. I think it had about six slides in the template. Four of them were completed by the sales coordinator just as an administrative requirement each week or each fortnight, and two were inputted by the sales team. So each individual sales team member had a very clear understanding about what they needed to contribute to their one to one. They had the same format, the same time and obviously the same leader each week. So what happened was that this team was able to have real consistency in how they had one to ones with their leader, which meant they could spend as much time as possible around troubleshooting and coaching. Last but not least, we just mentioned the coaching word, right? Really important as part of the talent lever for the TeamSTEPPS process that we know the type of model we're using that we coach the team. For me, I love seeing the gray model, really simple and one we'll do some podcasts on later in the year. So there's a bit in that 18 things or so, 18 to 20 levers that we have within the talent part of our TeamSTEPPS playbook. And whilst the approach to understanding them is quite straightforward and so there's nothing in there that I think is overly difficult, getting it right is the challenge for our sales leaders, building some consistency, some clarity and some engagement across the team. So the sales leaders that get this part of the TeamSTEPPS playbook, right, they tend to be the ones who can map out the competencies they need in their team. So the balance of hunters versus farmers, the balance of experience versus inexperienced or often youth, the type of skill sets they need. The second part is they tend to consult their senior sales team members and stakeholders around what's the best way to get the talent program running. Quite straightforward, but really difficult to find the time to do. Get it right can be really powerful because you get a combination of more than one mind. They make training a part of everything that they do. This is the third part. They provide a really robust, repeatable and reliable training program for their teams to learn and ideate around. Last but not least, they embed the talent lever of the TeamSTEPPS playbook into their business. So they have it in one to ones, they have it as part of training programs, they take learning moments, they have it in how they talk to other teams and they certainly have it really prevalent within the team as they talk to each other. So there's four or so tips that you can take to getting the best out of your talent lever from your TeamStep playbook. We'll soon be launching a training service that actually provides the training modules, the dozens and dozens of sessions that will take the legwork out of what you actually need to do to prepare your training sessions. So it'll be a library of content that you can access, whack your brand onto. It'll be editable content so you can make any changes and actually run the training sessions for your team. Great way to save time, but also a great way to supplement your skills as a leader when you're not quite sure how to go about training your team, but don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars bringing in an external training coordinator. So that'll come around the end of quarter three, and I suspect that's something that you can add into your talent lever of your TeamSTEPPS playbook. So there you have it, team. That's a deep dive into the talent lever of your TeamSTEPPS playbook. It's all about how do we outperform in the strategy, talent and energy parts of our TeamSTEPPS model to drive peak performance. Okay, so if you weren't able to capture everything, please jump onto the show notes. Do this in your own time. They're on the website www.strongersalesteams.com or if you want a little extra help like usual, please feel free to book in a free discovery call with me and I can help you specifically. Or as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, the free how to guide that goes into the detail of this TeamSTEPP playbook will be available in a couple of weeks time. So if you want to be on the list when it launches, just DM me teamstepp on any of the socials. Next up, the energy part. The last lever of the TeamSTEPPS playbook. But before we do that, let's get into today's health and fitness tip. Today's tip's all about the power of habit. I love seeing it when sales leaders and just anyone that I have as part of my life has a really strong routine around some of their key health and fitness habits. So that's all about eating. Often one meal a day, one meal of the day is very consistent. They exercise at the same time, they have focused parts of their day at the same time, and they have routine that builds routine. I love the 2190 rule. Do something every day for 21 days and you've embedded it. If you can then extend that out for further 90 days, it becomes a long standing habitual change. So it's something that you can keep up long term. So eat a great healthy breakfast at around about the same time every day for 21 days, then do it again for another 90 and you have a long term habitual change that you can rely on. I love it and it certainly works well for me and helps me stay fit and strong and healthy. But until next time, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Thanks everyone. Want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favourite social media channel. We're onger sales teams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free discovery call to me. I run a limited number of these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales teams.