70% of your sales team's engagement is influenced by their leader. Yet 43% of leaders feel they do not receive effective training for their role. This is a difficult cycle to break. One of the top concerns business owners have is sales. Questions like:
- How can we be better at sales?
- Why aren't my sales reps producing?
- Why didn't we reach our goals last year?
- How can I future-proof my business to succeed in any climate?
Addressing these questions starts with leadership. There are 4 common reason why sales leaders fail. We'll talk about each below and, most importantly, what you can do about each. If you're looking to future-proof your sales team in 2023, join us at our next free executive briefing on, "Building A Future-Proof Business."
1. Lack of training and support:
43% of sales leaders do not receive effective training for their role. Strong sales performance is not an indicator of strong leadership. Promoting your top producer to sales leader will not guarantee team success. Ensuring your sales leadership have access to leadership training is critical for your sales team.
2. Finding, and retaining, top talent:
Finding, choosing, and onboarding new team members can be challenging while expensive turnover of staff can be crippling. Do your sales leaders know how to identify the right candidate for your sales team? Navigating the candidate interview process is tough without the right training. Ensuring your sales leaders know how to interview, what to look for, and where to find talent reduces the risk of turnover and understaffing.
3. Spending time fire fighting:
Trying to be the chief problem solver leaves no time to motivate, lead and develop the talent on your team. Develop a proactive approach to sales. Increase communication across all departments to ensure promises made to the customer are met and the promises set are realistic to your current business environment. A sales leader constantly stuck in a reactive response cycle has little time to focus on results.
4. Leading an unmotivated and underperforming team.
Sharing the vision, managing the mission, and maximizing your team’s performance is rarely taught in school, which leaves sales leaders to figure it out on their own. Coaching is the most critical management skill. Yet only 12% of leaders were considered "very effective" at coaching their employees. Empower sales leaders to coach, listen, and support their team.
Success starts at the top. If your sales leaders, or leadership team, are not aligned with your organization's vision, you're leaving revenue behind. Join us at our next executive briefing or contact us here to see how we can support your team.
Kevin Hallenbeck is a Principal of Sandler, a national consulting firm specializing in business development strategies, sales and sales management training. Kevin holds both a B.S. and an M.S. in Engineering. He lives with his wife, Diane, and their five children in Bedford, New Hampshire. Kevin is active in church, community and professional organizations.
