The Biggest Mistake Sales Leaders Make
The Biggest Mistake Sales Leaders Make
Let’s run through a few common mistakes sales leaders make.
1. Spending the majority of time planning a plan or approach, rather than committing sufficient time to the inner workings of executing. Plans need to have assigned roles and goals, for instance. Avoid this common mistake by getting down to the nuts and bolts, instead of getting lost in the initial conceptual stages.
2. Spending a disproportionate amount of time in the office, rather than in the field with customers and sales staff. It’s in the field where the sales leader can gain proper orientation to the needs of sales staff and customers. Everyone in the sales force should be in lockstep, regardless of headcount, but when strategic intent is not communicated down to the individual, your best assets go in different directions.
3. Failing to communicate effectively, and thereby failing to account for the impact feedback has on the sales staff and on the culture.
The bigger the organization, the more important communication becomes (although it’s arguably as important in smaller organizations, or skunk works teams where agility is paramount in order to be able to make the necessary pivots).
Tools exist to assist sales leaders to methodically communicate effectively. The framework I prefer is the 7 Cs of communication: clear, complete, concise, concrete, considerate, correct, and courteous. I’d supplement the 7Cs with an “E”—empathy.
Just as top-performing sales reps have the uncanny ability to empathize enough with customers to be prescriptive with their pitch so it comes off as a perfect fit for the customer’s needs, a sales leader should be able to do the same with sales staff. Lack of empathy is the biggest mistake sales leaders make.
To be clear, a measured approach to empathy is required. Just as we don’t want the sales rep to give away the store to help a customer out, we also don’t want the sales leader to over empathize with staff, which could have consequential effects that may be detrimental to the business.
The beauty: if there are sales leaders already in place, chances are they possess the empathy skills required since they were likely promoted because they proved themselves first as successful sales reps. For various reasons, sales leaders forget about this key component when they get into higher positions. More than ever, they should channel the empathy they used to reach their new position and be mindful to keep it in practice.
Sales leaders should be communicative and use empathy with direct reports. They should get to know their people well—not just their strengths and areas for improvement, but also their preferred communications style and way of learning.
Sales leaders should be prescriptive with their individual team members whenever possible, so the tailored message has the greatest chance to resonate. Of course, when being agile or in large organizations with large teams, this approach may be unrealistic. In such cases, a high-level measure of empathy can work well. Start by never asking sales staff to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself.
All of this brings us to delivering feedback, the final consideration to clear communication and empathy. Feedback must be delivered in a manner that preserves an individual’s dignity. Holding people in the same roles accountable to the same Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is table stakes. Delivering feedback to encourage better performance is really critical. The sales leader should prepare the discussion carefully, see it from the team member’s standpoint, and employ the 7 Cs. As performance reviews come up, sales leaders have a tendency to zero in on what direct reports are doing wrong. Instead they should actually be focused on building upon what is being done right.
This right-wrong dilemma is a malady of upper management I’ve seen again and again over the years. It’s time to turn those cringe-worthy performance reviews into performance appraisals.
During feedback, bringing up what is being done right and providing concrete examples honors the team member’s efforts and keeps motivation high. For influencing improvements, use of transition statements such as: “the area that would make you even more successful at your job,” or “I encourage you to hone the skill of,” supported with examples showing how outcomes would have been dramatically better in situations where the supported action was better used.
Sales professionals are a truly powerful force when they can be harnessed properly using effective communication and empathy.