Today’s sales management training insight is focused on the culture of proactivity we create through our daily actions and communications with our sales team. We as sales managers and leaders are constantly training and molding our sales culture with our actions and responses to challenges. Whether we realize it or not – we are the number one sales trainers for our teams.
As sales leaders, one of the biggest traps we can fall into is to work for our teams, rather than empower our team to work for themselves. From a coaching context, it is easy to fall into the trap of becoming an encyclopedia of sales knowledge and tactics for our sales team. They come to us with problems and expect us to provide the answer or solution. They often want us to make a decision for them – after all, that’s the safest path for them. However, this approach can lead to a culture that may even discourage initiative.
In the short term, it may be more efficient to simply provide them with the answer, but over the long term, this approach undermines our ability to scale our team and create interdependent salespeople who can take initiative and have a proactive mindset.
To overcome this challenge, we must adopt a different approach to coaching and mentoring. Instead of giving them the answer, we should teach them how to think, lead, and problem-solve for themselves. This means slowing down and facilitating their journey to finding the answers on their own. It’s a more challenging approach in the short term, but it will ultimately lead to a more self-sufficient and capable team in the long run.
Instead of finding the answer to a sales challenge for a salesperson, put the person and one of their teammates in charge of finding the answer together, documenting the process and then teaching it to the rest of the team. These micro-projects can be tools for developing initiative. Even if the process isn’t 100% effective, it’s their process and it will build confidence and initiative and a culture of trying new things – without waiting for permission.
Sales Management Training (Short Video) on empowering our team to think:
Another example could be an outbound selling experiment: If they’re trying to improve their outbound prospecting process, instead of re-writing their emails for them or having marketing do it, create a personal growth project for them. Teach them the process of A/B testing subject lines, openers, message length, tone etc.
Get a handful of the sales team members together and have them record the tests and experiment with what works. Get them to learn the art of iterating and experimenting to help them to give over the habit wanting to be told what to do. You could also assign them a sales training course or module on the topic to help establish a working knowledge of best practices.
In summary, as sales leaders, we must recognize the importance of fostering a culture of self-sufficiency and independence within our teams. By teaching our team members how to think, lead, and problem-solve, we can create a more resilient and effective sales force that can drive growth and success for our organization. It also means we get to build the bench strength of our team as future sales managers and sales leaders.
