Did you know that there are three key characteristics which will dictate whether a sales person is successful or not? They are; the will to sell, psychological barriers, and selling competency.
Testing for these three things is imperative when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your sales team, as they will determine whether you will be able to achieve sales growth.
1. The WILL to SELL
High performing salespeople and teams are highly motivated and committed to doing whatever it takes to reaching their goals.
And sales is all about continually doing the activity we need to do, despite often being in the face of adversity. Let’s be honest, not everyone wants to speak to salespeople, they get a lot of rejection and without the WILL to sell, salespeople will not choose to do the tough things that are necessary in order to be successful. Here’s the thing, no amount of motivation training can install the will to sell in people, you either have it or don’t.
When sales teams lack the will to sell, they fall into a ‘not trainable’ box. Why? It is very difficult to train someone on new techniques and strategies if they won’t be motivated to apply the learning out in the field.
2. Supportive mindset
Research has found that mindset is 80 per cent of sales success. If salespeople don’t have their head in the game, then they don’t go past GO and don’t collect $200 – basically it is game over.
Most salespeople at some stage need a ‘check-up from the neck-up’. When self-limiting beliefs, self-doubt, fear, or the inability to recover from rejection creeps into the mind of the salesperson it can dramatically affect their sales effectiveness. If they don’t believe in what they are selling, their value proposition, the price point, the solution, or whether your company can deliver, then they simply won’t be believable and are likely to lack the assertiveness that is required to provide the prospect the confidence to move forward with the sale.
Sales is fundamentally a transfer of enthusiasm and confidence, and the first person the salesperson needs to sell is themselves. Mangers of high performing teams understand that they need to constantly provide positive food to top up their sales team belief systems to keep them in the right frame of mind.
3. Sales competencies
High performing organisations are clear on their sales process, the steps to the sale, and the skills required to advance each stage.
They are also aware of any skill deficiencies of their sales reps so they can train and coach their team to execute on their sales process.
High-performing sales organisations also create a great coaching culture, where mentoring becomes a weekly practice – it is advisable that sales managers provide individual coaching of at least four hours per month per person. Role practice should also be part of the weekly discipline, after all it is better to practice on colleagues than to practice on prospects.
High-performing organisations are able to recognise that the two types of salespeople, hunters and farmers, are completely different and they ensure they have the right people in the right roles.
Hunters are responsible for doing what hunters do well, bringing in new business. Then there are the farmers who manage relationships and build accounts. Management know that if they don’t match the competencies with the role, they won’t get the best from their team. Lastly, a high-performing sales organisation uses science to assess whether their team have the will to sell, that their mindset is in the right place and are able to effectively determine sales competencies.
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