Increase Sales by 50% or More!
At most companies I talk to, the leadership team wants enormous growth. They don’t want to just grow by 2 percent, 5 percent, or even 10 percent. They want to increase by 25 percent, 30 percent, 50 percent, or more. You have expectations for your team to deliver that growth. And that can be a heavy burden.
I’m hosting a free webinar on BrightTalk about “Exponential Sales Growth: What Sales Leadership Needs to Know.” During this session, I’ll talk about what you need to do as a sales leader to deliver that growth.
My philosophy behind helping teams capture market share and deliver the enormous growth needed to keep stakeholders happy comes down to mindset. Your mindset, not theirs. I believe that you must develop yourself and grow your personal brand before you can expect your team to bring in the results. If you are only emphasizing training and development for your team then it’s probably not giving you the results you need. That’s because growth starts with you. Once you have the right mindset and a plan to improve yourself, you can move on to developing the team.
Every great leader needs the mindset, skillset, and toolset to succeed. Here are some tips on how to improve yourself and your team to deliver exponential growth:
1. Develop Yourself
How do you contribute to exponential growth as a sales leader? I know you want your sales teams out there, crushing their goals and making great sales. But too often, sales leaders focus on how to develop their team and forget about improving themselves. True growth for your company and your team starts with you. To better yourself, you’ll need to examine and improve three key attributes: your mindset, skillset, and toolset.
Mindset
Your mindset is the most important piece of this puzzle. While you will need to develop a strong skillset and toolset, those don’t matter if you don’t have the right mindset. To get in the right mindset, you need to take care of yourself and nurture a positive attitude. To do this, take some time for yourself every day to go for a walk, meditate, give out compliments freely or unplug from your phone and devices. Maintaining a powerful and positive mindset is critical to get the exponential growth that you need. You have to have a mindset that you can succeed before you can expect your team to think that way also.
Skillset
Once you’ve got your mindset adjusted for success, you can learn and grow your skillset. To develop yourself as a leader, you need to ask yourself some questions. Do you have the skills you need? What are you doing to continue developing your leadership skills, especially, your sales leadership skills?
According to my friend Mark Hunter, every great sales leader does these nine actions:
- Demonstrates trust
- Creates a motivating environment
- Sets and communicates clear objectives and goals
- Supports and empowers others
- Commits to follow-through and completion
- Listens attentively
- Remains vision-oriented
- Fosters team environment
- Focuses on people, not tasks
And I agree with him! Read each of these and ask yourself if you’re practicing them on a daily basis. Could you get better at it? How could you get better at it? Start to think about what you want to do to improve your skillset.
Toolset
You’ve got the mindset. You’ve got the skillset. Now, let’s talk about the toolset. There are so many tools out there that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Think about what tools you need to be a great sales leader. The list probably comes down to a few simple tools that you need to use, and you need to learn to use them really well. These tools may be technology — like your company’s CRM, software, or the phone or computer you use every day. Once you know the tools you need to use, dedicate time to learning how to use them in the most efficient way.
2. Develop Your Personal Brand
The next key to exponential growth is developing your personal brand. You’re probably wondering what your personal brand has to do with your company’s growth. Well, everything! It matters internally and externally. Internally, are you the winning sales leader? Are you the one who can get it done? The one who everyone wants to work for, even though you are tough? Externally, do your customers know you as dependable? Are you the one they call to say thank you? Are you the one who receives compliments on your team? Your personal brand supports your team, brings in new business, and retains customers. To develop your brand, focus on these three big ideas:
Be Visible: Interact, Share
Set an example for your team by being visible online and in person, internally and externally. That means making sure your social profiles are up to date and useful. It means sharing your expertise by posting useful content. It means attending trade shows and networking events. Teach your team with your actions. Model the behavior you expect to see from them.
Be Available: Help, Converse
Being available doesn’t mean you must give up every minute of your life and have no boundaries. It means that you need to be available, within certain given parameters, so that your team can come to you when they need to. Your customers and prospects should also feel like you’re available to them.
Be a Connector: Introduce
Be a connector to the other people at your company. Help pave the path for your salespeople or smooth the way if needed. Be a connector to vendors. Be a connector to prospects and customers. When you know other individuals who have a lot of connections, you can help your salespeople become better connected. Developing your personal brand helps you connect.
Once you have a plan for yourself, your own growth, and development, then you can focus on your team. They need more than training. They need to share the vision to have the right mindset. Then, they need training, coaching, and the right tools. And you need to hold them accountable for using their mindset, skillset, and toolset to the fullest potential. Here are some ways you develop your team.
3. Develop Your Team
To improve your team, you need to help them in the same three areas that you focused on for your own personal growth: mindset, skillset, and toolset. I won’t cover this in the BrightTalk webinar, but I want to give you some ideas.
Mindset
A positive mindset is a key to growth. You can help your team develop the skills they need and provide the best tools, but if they don’t have the mindset they then won’t learn and they won’t be successful. What are you doing to help them stay in a positive mindset? Are you reminding them to take a walk, exercise, take a break, be nice, give compliments freely, and do what makes them happy? Are you telling them to take a vacation and to unplug and really take a rest? Help your team adopt the same positive mindset you’ve achieved, and you will lay the foundation for success. For those that don’t, it may be time for them to move on to new opportunities.
Skillset
Your sales reps need to believe in themselves to develop their sales skillset — or what I like to call, their superpowers. Every salesperson needs to know what their superpowers are and engage them. Some important superpowers include creativity, resourcefulness, connectivity, and fearlessness. If they don’t have these superpowers, what are you doing to help them develop? What are they doing for themselves to develop?
Toolset
Just like you, your sales reps need to have a toolset that they can rely on to support them. This toolset is often very specific to each sales team. To figure out what your team needs, ask yourself what type of training and technology would be helpful. Then, ask your team members what they want to learn and figure out how to provide that for them. Ask them to commit to learning the tools they receive and hold them accountable for using them.
Learning Opportunity!
I really dug into this topic during my free BrightTalk webinar about “Exponential Sales Growth: What Sales Leadership Needs to Know.” Watch it here and learn more about how you can develop yourself to deliver exponential growth.
If you want specific coaching on how you can be a better sales leader and achieve exponential growth, I can help! Give me a call at 775-852-5020 or schedule an appointment with me.
Alice is nationally known for her expertise in elevating sales to increase valuation for companies with a B2B complex sale that have exceptional growth potential. She’s originally, from the widely known Miller Heiman Group. Spending her time strategizing with CEOs and their leadership teams to build the strategies that find new business and grow existing accounts is her passion. Her clients love her spirit and the way she energizes their sales organization.
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