What does a successful sales team and culture look like?

Creating a viable, healthy, and robust sales team and supporting culture takes effort – consistent effort. It doesn’t happen by chance.

We have to be able to hold in our grasp, our thinking, our frame of reference, several aspects including purpose, strategy, performance standards, people, competition, change, technology, and of course, all of the variables outside of our direct control such as PEST (politics, economic, society, technology).

The biggest issues that keep most sales teams from being and consistently performing at their best are:

• No sales strategy to direct and guide the sales team and business
• The wrong salespeople in place (making excuses, not able to sell at the right levels, stuck in the 1980s, product selling versus selling value, etc.)
• No or poorly executed sales management practices (no coaching, instead sales managers acting as ‘super salespeople’, sitting behind a desk directing sales reports, etc.)
• Limiting beliefs (closed minded, stuck in the past, too scared, ‘It’s all about me’ internal focus, etc.)

Staying stuck in this paradigm will lead nowhere fast.

So what does a successful sales team and sales culture look like?

1. Sales strategies that clearly guide the sales operations and sales teams to deliver the desired results for businesses.
2. More knowledgeable, skilful and informed sales leaders who work in partnership with the C-Suite and lead their sales teams with clarity and purpose.
3. Sustainable change in ‘How we sell around here’ across the whole business leading to continuous improvement in sales and service results.
4. More engaged and competent salespeople leading to higher retention rates and lower staff turnover.
5. More mindful, self-aware (sales)people engaging in more fruitful, solutions-based client interactions with better business outcomes for both buyer and seller.

How do we achieve this state of sustained effectiveness? We will cover that next week.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is founder and CEO of www.barrett.com.au and www.salesessentials.com and has written 21 e-books and 500+ articles on the world of 21st century selling.