Sales Leaders Can Stop Declining Sales in 2016

Lets assume of a moment you had a magic wand and I told you you could have anything you wished for in your sales team, what would that be?

I would presume that most answers would look like this;

A sales force that never complaints about business being tough, constantly exceeding targets within specifically targeted markets, with return customers and referrals streaming in. Would that be nice!

Not always so simple. When looking at some of the leading sales organisations, they have one thing in common: They can answer these 4 questions below:

Critical questions every leader must ask:

• Why aren't we more effective?
• How much more effective can we be?
• What will it take to accomplish that?
• How long will it take to accomplish that?

In order to work towards your magic wand situation, you need to evaluate where you are, and structure a plan towards your perfect world. Many get it right and continually break record sales with a great team. What we don't see is what went into that behind the scenes. It's quite similar to an Olympic athlete breaking the 100m record. We see a few seconds of fantastic running and a crowd going mad, but we never see what they had to go through in order for them to reach the top.

Sales is the same; do the right things during your strategy, planning and execution phases, and you will break records and become heroes.

Before you get started though, you need to know where you are. It's like a GPS; how will you get to your destination if you don't know your starting point? 

Here's some of what you can learn from an evaluation: 

• How Does Sales Leadership Impact Our Sales Force?
• What Are Our Current Sales Capabilities?
• How Motivated Are Our Salespeople and How Are They Motivated?
• Why Aren't We Generating More New Business?
• Are We Reaching the Actual Decision Makers?
• Why Isn't Our Sales Cycle Shorter?
• Are We Selling Consultatively?
• Is Our Value Proposition Consistent?
• Do Our Systems and Processes Support a High Performance Sales Organisation?
• Are We Being Consistent with Our Sales Process?
• How Well Are Our Sales Leadership Strategies Aligned?
• Do We Need to Change Our Selection Criteria?
• Is Our Ramp-Up of New Salespeople Fast Enough?
• Can We Improve Our Pipeline and Forecasting Accuracy?
• Can We Improve Our Sales Culture?
• Who Can Become More Effective in Their Roles?
• What Are the Short-term Priorities for Accelerated Growth?

Start here:

Not many companies run evaluations on their current situations and teams, hence they don't really know what to do in order to fix it. Start with an evaluation of your team, markets, current status and then you have the tools to grow. 

About the author

Riaan works with leading Sales Organisations, Sales Managers and select Individuals who want to improve sales performance, design and implement winning strategies and cultures that leads to more deals.

 Since 1985, Riaan has been in Corporate | B2B | High-level Sales and led teams to maximise performance. He provides strategic oversight and serves as executive sales coach and advisor to clients ranging from small, rapidly growing start-ups to well-established, large corporations.

His experience has allowed him to work with organizations and executives within entities such as Old Mutual, the Telecoms Industry, Siemens, Capgemini, Accenture, BWI in Hong Kong and many others, to help them improve sales performance.

www.blue-oceans-consulting.co.za