Transformative sales management (02)

The topic today is about something always present when sales teams vacuum up new business and leap-frog over competition.  The element is superior sales management, true sales leadership that turns the huddled masses, average producers and raw untapped talent into competition busting lead generation and sales closing machines. 

What is Finding Business with Scott Channell?

Talk about the art and science of business development: Stories and details to earn new clients or accounts, gain a competitive advantage and find your success.

Welcome, to the finding business podcast. Five minutes every Sunday to help you learn something new, about attracting ideal clients and accounts. I’m your host, Scott Channell. For more about this show, show episodes and services offered go to Scott Channell, with two t’s, two n’s and two l’s, dot com. Now on to the show.

The topic today is about something always found in top producing sales organizations. When I look back at successful projects, this element is always present when sales teams vacuum up new business and leap-frog over competition. The element is superior sales management, true sales leadership that turns the huddled masses, average producers and raw untapped talent into competition busting lead generation and sales closing machines.

We are not talking about mere best practices which keep you mired in mediocrity. Nor are we talking about table stakes sales managers, those good enough to keep things going, but that’s about it.
This is about transformative sales management, what it takes to be a sales manager that propels a team to competitive dominance. Here is an example. Many years ago I delivered a two-day onsite customized training on how to book sales meetings with top executives among mid-market and emerging companies. This company had 27 outside salesreps. They needed to get these reps in front of decision-makers within right fit companies.

As I am yapping away in front of this group I kept noticing a side door to the conference area opening. A head kept sticking out, listening a bit, then the door would close. Over and over again.
Come to find out that behind that door was a room with five appointment setters, banging away on the phones, trying to set qualified sales appointments for the outside sales team.

You might be asking yourself right now, wait a minute, a company hires a sales trainer to give a two-day onsite presentation to help them set more sales appointments, but the in-house appointment setting team is not attending that training. Huh?

Well, it turns out that the company needed appointments so bad, they didn’t want to pull the appointment setters off the phone to learn how to book more sales appointments. Let that sink in.

Now the leader of that internal team had not yet cracked the code to book the needed discovery calls. I met with the inside team during lunch and breaks to give them some tips. Then, because NONE of the outside reps took advantage of the follow-up time the company had purchased, the internal team used that time.

Let’s bottom line it. That internal team ended up booking more than three thousand sales appointments, 85% were with the C-level and less than 13% canceled. Those internal appointment setters were not yet superstars, but that true sales leader molded them to be superstars. He got ahead of the problems, he set high standards, demanded accountability, he relied upon data and measurement to proactively coach behavior improvements, he gave them continuous relevant constructive feedback, customized development plans for each rep, he role played, he became a model for the behaviors he expected, knew how to motivate and build a winning culture, and he continuously improved the behaviors that led to the result desired. Let me repeat, he managed and improved the behaviors that led to the result desired.

Now the managers of those 27 outside reps who did not improve at all, were more like sales management cops. They ah um managed, after the fact. Spreadsheets read, desks pounded and a demand for more activity, more meetings, more closes. But they were not leading their reps to improve the day-to-day sales behaviors that affected results.

If you have profit-and-loss responsibility for a company, a division of a company, or maybe you are managing yourself, you must have superior sales management in place if you want more than your fair share of the business out there.

Hope this got you thinking.

For more information about this podcast, show episodes and service offerings, go to Scott Channell with two t’s, two n’s and two l’s, dot com.

Thanks for listening.