BUILDING BELIEF FOR SALES SUCCESS
Building Belief for Sales Success
Building Belief becomes a cornerstone element.
Are your sales inconsistent? Are
you losing more opportunities than ever before? Does your sales team seem weak
compared to those of your competitors?
Any number of reasons-from rapid
growth to hiring mistakes-could be responsible for a “yes” answer to any of
those questions. But in working with our clients, we often find that the
underlying problem is actually an emotional one: lack of passion. Individual
team members or the entire sales organization-or both-simply don’t have the
combination of enthusiasm and belief that’s essential for success.
Salespeople have to be emotionally
invested in their work with a burning desire to achieve. They must also believe
that the company they represent is the best and the solutions or services they
sell are of the highest quality that impact the clients business. That belief
must be genuine, it can’t be just a marketing message and it’s not something
that they can fake. http://starisales.com/Account
With all the new products most
vendors have launched in recent months (and will continue to release this
year), that type of authentic belief is more important than ever for partners.
Most sales organizations don’t do any belief-building activities. Or if they
do, they only do so occasionally. Our experience shows that the most successful
sales teams constantly undertake belief-building initiatives. Examples include:
Storytelling
People from different cultures and
generations pass along stories about their ancestries, traditions and lore.
Partner companies need to take a similar approach to capturing and preserving
their histories. To do so, write down customer success stories when they occur.
Put together detailed descriptions of your company’s role in helping customers
implement new technologies, launch or salvage important projects or earn
recognition from a vendor. Then share these stories at sales meetings and other
employee events. You can also use the best stories to recruit top performers
and help orient new employees.
Monthly Meetings
When a company launches, its
first employees typically feel that they share a mission. Everyone knows
everything that’s happening and what’s needed to succeed. But when the staff
grows beyond about 15 people, that sense of mission-along with clearly defined
expectations and common beliefs-can be difficult to maintain.
We believe that monthly employee
meetings are crucial for keeping everyone engaged and informed. (Larger
organizations and those with remote offices may want to opt for quarterly
day-long events instead.) Such gatherings give you a chance to remind your
staff about your business philosophies, plans and expectations. You can also
use them to recognize outstanding employees, perhaps honoring a Most Valuable
Player chosen by the team at each session. Remember to make the meetings fun as
well. Consider sponsoring games or offering door prizes. One company meeting I
attended featured a surprise visit from an Elvis impersonator, who sang several
songs.
Customer Visits
Each quarter, have your
entire sales team visit a customer company that’s successfully implemented your
solutions. Ask the customer’s executives to describe the impact your company
has had on their competitive position or to review the savings they’ve gained from
your products and services. You might also invite customers to share their
experiences at some of your monthly meetings.
Reference Letters
Ask your best customers for
testimonials. While such letters are, of course, highly useful as tools for
future sales presentations, they’re also valuable for building belief in-house.
Frame the letters and display them in your lobby or sales presentation area.
Have new employees read them as part of the orientation process. HINT: it is
extremely easy to physically record a client’s testimonial and even place it on
your website and make your sales team are using during the sales process. http://starisales.com/Account
Why Strengthen the Sales Team?
Functional teams achieve their
goals because they are able to communicate well and make collective decisions.
Evaluating your sales team in terms of its skills in communication, listening,
creativity, decision making, and teamwork will help you find the areas you need
to work on. And implementing these “new” sales strategies – and how high your
sales can reach using them – depends on your team’s skills. So it will be best
if they are geared up for the battle ahead.
Trust and Interdependence
Every team needs to establish
trust and task interdependence to improve the quality of its output.
Accomplishing sales goals is also dependent on your sales team’s cohesiveness.
When the team is working closely together, the variable of having to completely
trust each other always comes into the picture. A simple team-building activity
that will help you enhance your team’s interdependence and trust is the game
called the “mine field.”
You will need to do this
activity in a wide indoor or outdoor space with materials like chairs, boxes,
or cones as obstacle. Build a maze where a blindfolded person can pass through
from start to finish – but strategically create “mines” using the obstacles you
have gathered. Divide the team into pairs; one person will be blindfolded and
will pass through the minefield while following his teammate’s verbal
instructions.
The Good Old Role Plays
There’s nothing old with
“experiencing” how to do the different scenarios when pitching sales to your
customers. This team-building activity will help you raise sales performance by
improving your sales team’s customer relations skills and creative thinking.
Divide your team into groups
that will act as customers and salespeople. The salespeople team should be able
to brainstorm the best sales pitch they can come up with for the product while
the customers team will need to make the act as realistic as possible by asking
questions most customers ask. Role playing this act will help you identify the
reasons potential customers do not buy your products – and how your sales team
can overcome those reasons.
Know Your Team Better
There might be instances where
some of your sales team are assigned through various regions and cities and
might not have even interacted with each other in person. One of the best “get
to know you” games we use for team activities is based on the American
television game show To Tell the Truth. We ask all members of
the team to state two truths and make up one lie about themselves – and the
other members have to guess which one is the lie. Unlike the old-fashioned way
of introducing yourself to the team, this game will help you build rapport with
your colleagues in a more fun and creative way. Knowing the people you’re
working with will help establish great working relationships. http://starisales.com/Account
Problem Solving
Your sales team will face a lot
of problems that will require them to devise new ideas that are outside of the
box. Organizing team events that will require problem-solving skills will help
your team enhance their cognitive abilities. Team activities like the ones
described above are just some of the team events your team can try to develop
their problem-solving skills.
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