Irrespective of whether you're a completely new sales manager, a tenured sales manager, a small business entrepreneur, a VP of Sales or perhaps a sales coach, you may well find that leading salespeople is one of the more tough sales management training tasks a person encounter. The explanation for this difficulty is salespeople don’t like to be "led" in the traditional sense. Salespeople in general, are a fickle lot. They like to think of themselves as fiercely independent people who need to do things by themselves. They're typically extremely opinionated, and quite often combative.
And consequently, they will only "follow" a sales leader who they think is capable, has their motivations foremost in their thoughts and even more importantly of all a sales manager that they trust.
The true secret to excellent sales leadership lies in establishing trust with your front line salespeople.
The regrettable aspect is the fact most "leadership" textbooks don’t actually bother to teach this concept. Nearly all feel it’s a given.
How wrong they usually are.
Instead there is an art and a science to leadership and it all starts with first establishing a firm foundation of trust. This is an extremely crucial principle to perfect. And it is important to the long term health of your company.
The truth is, consider trust building with your sales force exactly like building a house. Trust would be the foundation of that house. You can’t start laying down floors putting up walls until you have that foundation set first, correct?
It’s exactly the same thing with leadership and trust. A sales manager cannot lead a sales team to spectacular sales heights, let alone merely make sales quotas without initially developing that "trust" foundation.
There are three proven tactics that will enable you to not only establish trust with your sales force so that you can drive your company’s sales revenues:
1. Evoke the Law of Reciprocity.
The law of reciprocity states that if one does some thing nice for somebody, then human instinct requires that the beneficiary will feel obligated to try and do something nice for you in exchange. It’s especially powerful because human instinct requires that at the exact moment that you do something nice for an individual, that person feels compelled to return the favour.
Consequently if you continually do nice things for your sales person, then they feel motivated to do something nice for you in exchange. That nice thing in return, is usually increased sales. Don’t manipulate this particular rule; merely utilize it to your benefit. Additionally, don't count on the favor being returned as soon as you complete it. Be discreet. But make use of the laws of human psychology to obtain what you want to have which is success for your organization and your sales team.
2. Just let The Salesperson Get All the Credit
Individuals always operate far better if they never need to worry about who gets the credit. If a sales manager is on a call with a salesperson that generates a sale and following the call the sales manager returns to the office and explains to everyone exactly how HE made the sale, how do you suppose that salesperson would feel?
Don’t be concerned with who takes the actual credit. Sales managers are paid for how well their sales people do. A sales manager must never take the credit for the good work of his sales people
Ensuring that each salesperson gets the proper credit will just assist build more trust and will inspire them all the more at the exact same time.
3. Don’t Dictate, Advise Instead
There will probably be lots of times that you’ll have to tell your sales reps, in no uncertain terms, what they need to do in any given circumstance.
On the other hand, the remainder of the time avoid spewing direct orders at all costs.
For instance, rather than stating: "I want you to go to the O’Neil account and give to them the new prices."
Change that somewhat and suggest: "You may want to give some thought to bringing the new pricing to the O’Neil account."
Your sales rep listens to that and thinks, alright, he’s not dictating to me what to do, instead he’s giving me a suggestion and I’m going to decide if it is right to execute. This kind of approach empowers and motivates, and does not command.
Apply these types of trust building techniques to lead and inspire your sales reps and you'll start experiencing exponential increases in your sales leadership.
Article Source by : http://ralphburn.articlealley.com/the-strategy-for-superb-sales-leadership-2279942.html
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