Episode 137: 4 Things Sales Leaders Must Get Right To Grow Their Teams Long-Term

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our.

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Practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams.

One of the core competencies I teach.

Across leaders and salespeople in general is just how important it is to continually revisit the basics, the fundamentals, the pillars of what we've learned across our sales journeys to make sure that we don't stray away from proven processes or programs or ways of working that we know work really well for us.

And today, I thought was a really.

Great way or an opportunity to lead by example and actually go back to one of our podcasts that has been integral for me in how I've always structured my sales teams, but also is a key pillar of what I work with sales teams on now.

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So the information in this episode is actually episode, episode 17 from just over two years ago. The information in there is some of the most impactful things that sales leaders and business leaders can refocus on or learn, if they haven't learned it before, to really help them develop sales teams that become sales machines. Right. Teams that we know are going to perform again and again and again and again and not let us down. So what we're actually doing today is we are skipping Back to episode 17, way back to episode 17, and running through the foremost critical elements that business and sales leaders need to drive or have at the very least established in their teams to be confident that they're going to perform in the long term. So enjoy the blast from a past. Perhaps I'm going to sound two years younger. These were audio only, so there's no video of me back then, but enjoyed it. It's still in that same compact form. And I hope you'll be able to take from this some really clear building blocks that we need to make sure are in your team and if you already have them, that you can have a second glance at to see how you can upskill and find just that little 1% ways of improvement to roll again and again and again throughout your team. So enjoy, happy listening and you'll see me again live or up to current date again in a week's time.

Today is a big podcast. It's the final in the series of the four key habits that we've been talking through for for the last six weeks or so. If you haven't been through these yet, jump back to episodes 9, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16, or even better episodes 9 through to 16 and you'll see there's a great series around the four key habits that really build successful sales leaders. Before we get into it though, I'll quickly recap just so you can get that real top line headspace again around what we've gone through. So we've looked in depth at the four key habits that really consistently drive the success of sales leaders. Number one was a sales process, a consistent and repeatable, easy to implement sales process. Number two was focusing on four key levers for peak performance. So we called that the teamstepped model. So peak performance is a product of strategy, talent and energy out of teams. Number three was the three box model, a really simple measurement metrics that allows us to measure our teams without them feeling overburdened by too many sales metrics and dashboards. Number four was a long term focus on training, so that was particularly focused on coaching and accountability and making sure that we are sharing information across teams. So each of those key habits was really about driving base level process and base level consistency into the day to day team life, right into the day to day ways that we operate. But probably more importantly for that for me is it's actually it's a framework for sales leaders who in our experience, right, they often don't get that training on the base level day to day sales management needs that they have. Right. Training's often focused on very specific areas like closing, for example, how to maximise team closing. And for me, these four habits, they're actually fantastic ways for sales leaders to approach running their teams on a day to day basis. Right. Which is why they're so impactful, particularly for leaders that are still trying to find their way of operating with their teams. Of course though with us we always focus on chunky, practical and real world applications. So there was a really strong mix of that through those last podcasts. But for me, what's really important from here is that we talk through what do you do next? So what do you do now that you've got your sales process, your TeamSTEPP model, you've got some great measurement metrics and you're focusing on training. Today, we're going to run through some of those key action items that you need to take from this podcast series. And then I'll also jump in around what you can expect to see around results and we'll focus less so on your metrics and your sales results because they're pretty obvious. We'll start to talk about some of the other results, the softer results that you should see from your sales teams. Okay, so first of all, let's look at next steps. Let's look at what do you need to do to roll out everything that you've listened to and learned through this podcast series. So the first thing I'd suggest is download the free resources that we have out on our website. Right. You can DM me resources and we'll make sure we get back to you.

With all of them.

Or just jump online and you'll be able to download themselves. They'll help guide you through all of this. Of course, if you don't want to download those resources, that's cool too. You can listen to what I'm saying and apply it in your own methodology. Okay, so the first thing that I'd suggest is schedule 2 half day events with your teams. We don't need to do full days. Full days are really taxing and they take teams away from selling. But if we can do two three to four hour half day events, we'll be able to move through everything you need to action really quickly. If you can't do half day events, we'll. What I'd suggest you do is cover this off in one to two hour blocks once a week, over a month. Right. And you'll be able to focus on each of the key areas we go through bit by bit. Any of these ways work, but for me the most effective is when you have half day events and you engage the team. So first one's about building a sales process. That's what we want to focus on first. Again, note, the resource for building an effective sales process is there to help you, but also we'll talk through it now. So first thing we need to do is get a team's buy in. Right? So get the team into the meeting and start talking about what the sales process is. Use the template or use another template if you have it, and make sure you get the stages of each of the Sales process steps, Right? Okay. So the first thing to focus on in your sales process development is about getting the stages right. Everything from lead generation through to your post sale key account management. Right? Get them done first, then step down a level and look at the key activities. So what do you need to achieve in your lead generation stage? Right. Who should we be targeting? What segments should we be targeting? Right. How do we go about it? Next step, once you've done that for each of the stages, is look at the metrics and the KPIs that need to be measured or employed or even deployed to get this right. Right? So if it's lead generation and the customers we're gonna visit, your metric might be number of leads that a salesperson needs to generate a month or number of lead your marketing team needs to generate a month. Right. And then last but not least, once we've got the stages right, the key activities and the metrics just put in there the systems that you need to use and employ to be able to get this right. Right. So once you've done that and we have agreement and it's written up on a whiteboard or use an online notepad or something similar, right. The next step is to agree on the rules of engagement. Right. How will you as a team enact and deploy this sales process? Right. So it's all about how you talk to each other, it's all about timings, it's all about application, how you work with customers. Really, really important that everyone knows their team rules of engagement. Right? And then once you've got that done, I'd love to see it plastered on walls, backgrounds of computers, in weekly meetings, everywhere you possibly can, that your sales process and rules of engagement are visible. Make them a system symbol and a norm in your business and watch buying increase. If you want to send them to me and get some advice on how you've gone with them, flick them across. Right? Love to see them. Okay, so you've got your sales process built. That's your first step. The second step is to build your team playbook. So I'd recommend you use the teamstep model that we've gone through. So that model is called how to build a High Performing Team that actually Delivered. So jump online and find that if you want to use that as a template. Again, if not, use your own template. But the key message here is to get a playbook out for your team. So how I'd recommend you do it is pick the key areas from that TeamSTEPP model. So pick strategy, talent and energy from that model and aim to focus on five to seven per area. Right. If you focus on that number first, it's chunky enough that the team can get into it and see some improvements, but it's not too much that you have overwhelm. Right. Ideate, delegate, agree on outcomes and make sure that the outcomes you're agreeing on are using in particular, your sales process. Right. The KPIs that came from your sales process as a guide. But use that session to build out your playbook about areas that you know you will leverage. So, strengths. So, for example, the products that you have being more technically superior to a competitor. Right. So then take that and work out how do we leverage that more heavily in the market. Right. Another example of an area you might be good at is that your team's ability to build relationships is very strong. So how do we take that ability to build relationships and roll it out so that we capitalise on it throughout the rest of our business? Right. So they're the areas you might look at and say, hey, we're successful, we're strong in these areas, but also look at areas you need to get better at. So an example here might be, well, we're fantastic at building relationships. We have a huge active pipeline, but we're not closing enough business. Our close rates are low. Right. So, for example, an outcome out of that might be. Well, actually, we're not losing them on price. The deals are staying in inertia. So how do we build some more compelling reasons for our customers to move forward and make a decision. Yes, no, on our projects. Right. Or it might extend to, are we dealing with the right customer base? Right. It might help us to understand that, hey, there's actually areas of our business that are far more engaged customers that are far more engaged with what we're putting out there. So we're going to focus on those. Right? So as you step through each of those three areas, you should be able to see those that you're strong at, those that you're comparatively weaker at and where you want to put your focus. So pull all that together and as I said, ideate and delegate out to teams with action items and then put it into your playbook template. Side note, if coming through that process, you can't get meaningful action items out of it, then you've either got a team that's too junior. Right. And needs training to get to that point in which you take a slightly different path, or you have the wrong people on the bus. So in either of those, I'd Recommend you contact me and we can talk through what you do. But certainly for most sales leaders, going through that second step of building a playbook should work, right? So number one was get your sales process done. You're probably going to do that in your first half day and you might then start on your teamstep playbook or adjourn and come back on your second half day to do the second step, which is building out your playbook. Number three is to build out your three box model, right? So again, resources available on that. But once you have your sales process right and your team step model nailed, what you want to be doing next is building your metrics right? Everyone set the process, everyone set the strategic areas that you want to be playing in, right? Next part, get some metrics out there, get your three box model done for the whole team and then broken down by individuals so that you know exactly what you have to achieve and, and how you're going to measure it. I'd suggest you add that into your playbook and probably add your budgets in there as well because they'll all go hand in hand. And really your three box model, certainly the box on the right, a reminder of three boxes, there's number of meetings on the left, size of active pipeline in the middle and sales results achieved on the right. That sales result number achieved on the right, you should be making sure that's cross referencing against your budgets. So once you've done all of that for your three box model, please make sure you're setting up your CRM reports to measure those three box metrics. Really important, right, that you are making sure that your systems, your symbols and your norms right are actually lining up with what you're building out in strategies. So, number one, get your sales process right. Number two, build your playbook. Importantly, find your model you're going to use to build that. Number three is get your three box model out, right. Get your metrics out nice and focused so that your team stays engaged. Number four is to build out a training program. Again, resources available on this if you need some help. But if you want to break that down into something really simple, set up your calendar times, your lengths of your training, your people involved, your rules of engagement, of training and how you're going to go about it. Then poll your team and other functions, ask them questions about what they want to be trained on, set it up according to your sales, technical and business skills. That was in our Last podcast, episode 16. If you need to go through that again and then start the program, your program's going to need some flex. It's not going to be perfect from day one, but if you allow that time for the program to flex and move, you should start to see it be very successful and become ingrained into part of your business. All right, so that's your game plan. Setting up your sales process, building out your TeamSTEPPS playbook, setting up your three box model metrics and your training program. So you should be able to nail all of the above in a month. I'd suggest you run it for three months after you've got it embedded and then see the results. Contact me if you need to bounce ideas off, but I think you'll be okay with that. So the key next steps is what should you expect to see in your teams if you get all of the above implemented right? What are the results you're going to be after? Clearly, the end game's more sales. These will come right if you're doing this right. I have never seen a sales team not significantly improve their sales results if they follow this effectively. Most of the teams I've worked with will experience a doubling of their business within timeframes of 3 to 18 months. So what are the early stage signs of life that this is working? Okay, so there's three things that I would expect you see from your sales teams if you're on track in the early days. The first one, so out of your three box model, your teams are getting out and meeting enough people. Fantastic sign of life that we have energy levels up and we're putting some good information out there. Your second early proof of life signs that you'll see is that your pipelines are building towards targets. So your middle box is starting to grow in your active pipeline. And last but not least, teams are engaging each other in closing deals. So if you see that your meeting numbers are going up, your pipelines are building towards targets and your teams are engaging each other in closing deals and workshopping and talking through projects and you're on the right track. They're your early stage signs of life. Your mid cycle early signs of life. Generally we're talking about your three to six to nine month types of impacts is that you should really start to see four key areas come out of your team. We actually use these in our business ourselves. So our business is governed by these four things in terms of every way we interact with people and teams and customers. So for me, proof is in the pudding. We actually use what we put out there. So what you should start to see on top of your early stage Signs of Life is what I call personalized iq. And I'd probably write these four down. So personalized iq, you should start to see that your team programs have individual levels of tailoring. So you run as a team. But there is an allowance for individuals to work slightly left and right to get the best out of themselves. Right. So for me, it's all about the team being on one page. But individual approaches are being respected. Right. So the relationship builder versus the closer, it's being respected that they operate slightly differently. The slow burn salesperson versus the shooting star. Right. You're running a slightly different program for someone that moves at a million miles an hour. Right. Generally will work through deals quicker, but probably has a lower close rate versus your relationship builder that's a little bit slower but has higher close rates. Right. The direct feedback versus the indirect feedback. This is really important. Some people love feedback straight up. Others like for you to be a little bit more sensitive about how you direct that feedback and about how you communicate that feedback. Right. And last but not least, that public, vocal type of person versus who I call a silent assassin. They are often so powerful people who won't contribute as much in meetings, but they have so much good stuff to say. So making sure that you have some personalized IQ within your program will allow each of these types of operators to shine. So essentially what I'm saying is your team will accept and embrace a bit of diversity, as will you, and see that their performance is a sum of many parts. So that's personalized IQ number one. Number two, transparent accountability. So expect gaming of the system to slow down. So salespeople really tweaking numbers to be to their benefit and seeing CRM result that, you know, just aren't quite right. Expect that type of behavior to slow because we have a team that understands they fail or succeed together.

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It's a safe place to ideate and learn, and everyone is openly accountable together. So you should also see things like the hiding of results to slow down. Right. The team start to really support members who are behind. Right. There'll be openness in discussing sales numbers, openness in discussing challenges. Teams will play the ball, not the man. So what I mean by that is they'll talk about the issue rather than the individual at the heart of the issue and together work through solutions. So winning and losing projects gives you equal opportunities to grow. So teams that are great at transparent accountability will actually look at both deals they win and lose to see how they can get better. And last but not least, on transparent accountability We've spoken about that safe place to fail. But also expect that hitting deadlines improves. The team starts to hit what their target deadlines are more consistently. So that's not necessarily sales numbers, but that's deadlines that they have. They'll start to become recognised as more important. Okay, so mid cycle we've got personalised IQ and transparent accountability starting to occur. The third or the fourth area is your data driven analysis should improve so teams will be ready for your one to ones. They'll come to the one to ones engaged. Right? Particularly if you're using the three box model because their preparation is so simple. CRM hygiene should improve. You should start to see people actually logging more of their activities. Teams should embrace being measured by the three box metrics. It's consistent, it's certain. And I remember in particular working with a salesperson. I actually worked directly with a salesperson in this instance and, and they were so overwhelmed by all their metrics that they really battled to attend one to ones. So what I recommended with that sales leader for this salesperson was that they used this three box model to give them some certainty in what they had to measure. I couldn't believe the change in this person. This person went in a space of three months from contributing next to nothing in their sales results. I'm talking very low numbers through to consistently hitting $400,000 a month in sales at good margin. And that was all about them having some certainty around where they were being measured on. They actually ran through the three box model from start to finish. They focused on getting their number of meetings up, then their pipeline up and then they're closing and this person today is still going really well in the business that they're in. Last but not least on data driven analysis, expect that your metrics that you're measuring your team on might actually flow through to the rest of the organization. They become systems, symbols and norms for your wider business because they're regarded as being effective and having simplicity. Okay, so that's three outputs. Personalised iq, transparent accountability and data driven analysis. Your last but not least is that learning becomes a habit. You become accountable so you're held accountable to training and quality of training. Your teams want to learn more, they're asking you for more training. Their self learning improves, they bring topics to the table, right? They actually come to you saying hey, I want to be trained on this, right? And then all of a sudden your investment into your training calendar actually reduces because your team's telling you what they want to train on and you have to spend less time finding resources, finding experts and building that program. And then last but not least on this, you should start to see your training leading to measurable behavioural differences, right? When you're out with your team in co calls or when you're seeing your team in action, you should start to see that their performance in front of customers improves. So of course they're the four things to see kind of mid cycle. But also what's really important is sales results should be improving. If your sales results are not starting to improve after three months, there's something that needs to be revisited and that's probably where you're picking up the phone and getting some help. Okay, so just to recap on that, the four areas, personalised iq, transparent accountability, data driven analysis, improving and learning becoming a habit. Right? Get that right and you're away. Okay, so final words on this. Before we kind of wrap up this podcast series around effective sales leaders, I'd like to say that sales leadership is really difficult, right? Please embrace that it is not an easy role. Particularly because sales individuals are generally intelligent people. They're hard to manage because they want to have an impact in their day to day lives, right? Which means you as a leader will take some time to become really good at it. Or even if you're an established sales leader, mastering it also takes quite an amount of time. For me, it's the single largest step in a person's career, right? That's going from an individual contributor to being one who manages others. So get some help in your journey, right? Find mentors within your business, find mentors or coaches outside your business. Get involved in self learning programs, right? Listening to this type of stuff is a fantastic way to start and understand there is no substitute for time in the seat. It will take you a little bit of time to get ready and to become an effective sales leader or leader in general. So be kind to yourself, look after your health, look after your wellbeing, right? And make sure that you are there for the long run. Last but not least on this is don't tolerate those who want a free ride. Get rid of them if they're toxic to your team culture, right? Either improve it or get them out. And that probably goes hand in hand, right, with having some fun. It's a great role being a sales leader, particularly when your team's performing. So embrace it. Okay, so there you have it. The effective sales leader series is done. So if you couldn't capture everything, jump onto the show notes in your own time, you can find them through whatever your podcast directory is, but also on the website www.strongersalesteams.com. if you want a bit of extra help, give me a call book in a free discovery call. You can do that through our website as well. Or DM me on any of the socials or LinkedIn.

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We definitely want to help you where we can, but I get across every connection made into the business myself, so likely you'll hear from me directly. But before we leave, today's health and wellbeing tip. So for me, we are all thrown into moments of chaos, right? And that's chaos when that red mist can just descend on us, when we lose a little bit of control and anger can rise. I'll find that as I'm getting older, I'm 40 now, I control that reasonably well, but I still have moments. In fact, I had one about three weeks ago where unfortunately, right, it just happened. So when you feel it coming, being able to control it is super impactful. I love a fantastic one liner. This too shall pass, right? It's a recognition that everything is transient. Nothing lasts forever. We are but a small part of this world. So keep it in perspective, keep it in check. This too shall pass. It works on good things, keeping your responses tempered, but also on bad things. When things are not going well, have a go at it. Try and stop yourself. Catch yourself in the moment and let me know how you go. But until next time, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve.

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