Building an authentic, motivated and successful sales force takes someone who is motivated with a clear vision. Every day, you must walk into the sales meeting with an attitude of success, no matter what is going on around you. The power and psychology of positive thinking goes a long way with building a team, and is the cornerstone of success and productivity when it comes to team building.
Display Trust
When you’re building your sales force, you will need to let go of the reins a little bit and allow the team to take over. As a leader, you can’t always be present. You must trust in your team to be able to act for your company in your absence. In team meetings and briefs, openly display that you trust your employees. When employees feel like they are trusted and part of the bigger picture, they are no doubt more productive (and happy).
Know Your Team Members’ Strength and Weaknesses
As a leader, you must be well-versed in what your employees are capable of. As a leader, you obviously don’t want to bring up their weaknesses (although constructive criticism is a must). You want to build on their strengths. Assign different tasks to different members of the sales force, based on their skills. Make this clear in team meetings. While constructive criticism is needed, do this privately and away from the team.
Encourage Friendly Competition
One of the best ways to strengthen a team is to encourage a little friendly competition between the members. Most likely, you will do this using the reward model. For example, motivate the team to work toward having the highest sales this month. The top two reap a reward at the end of the month – perhaps a bonus or a paid day off – something that will really jumpstart them into selling.
Use Reputable Sales Techniques
While you do want to trust your sales force, you also want to make sure that they are not using some of the less reputable tactics of sales. Car salesmen, for instance, have a bad reputation, with bait-and-switch tactics that leave customers feeling angry and tricked. Your sales force is better than that. While you want to be a example of positivity, you must reinforce good tactics all of the time. Especially with friendly competition in place, you must ensure that your sales force is acting on the behalf of your company.
Training Is Important
As leader of the company, you should not be training an entire sales force yourself. While for some, selling can come naturally, others need a little work in areas. Schedule mandatory, but rewarding training sessions with an expert or with a team every so often. Training sessions in six-month increments is a good idea to refresh techniques, and also to talk about new techniques for sales pitches and strategies.
Communication Skills
Communication is of the highest importance when building a sales force. You must be able to communicate effectively while remaining positive. Effective communication does not always have to be face to face, as well. Busy CEOs often send out memos to employees in between team meetings. This gives employees a chance to think of questions beforehand. Motivation during communication is key.
The Generation Gap
Encourage creativity with all members of your sales force, and don’t dismiss ideas that might be new and fresh. There may be a bit of a generational gap between you and your employees. They may share you exact vision for the company, but may go about accomplishing it in different ways. Don’t be closed-minded to new ways of doing things. In sales and marketing, nearly everything is worth a try. Employees also need to feel as if they can communicate with you without the fear of being turned down every time.
Hire the Best
Building a good sales force begins with hiring the staff you feel is going to do the best job. Whether you interview directly or use HR, when you are more discriminating in your hiring, you will experience less problems later on. Ensure that all new employees share your vision and can meet your standards.
Conclusion
Building a team requires attributes that you should hold as a leader to begin with. This includes positivity, open-mindedness, thoroughness, and a good temperament. Build your own team from the ground up with motivation and the power of positive thinking, and you will have an authentic sales force that is effective and productive.
How did you build an authentic sales force?
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