How to create a 'can-do' sales culture

How important is creating a you can learn them or thinking that it will make winning sales culture for you little difference is entirely another. and your business? If you are like most of the sales and CLARITY business leaders I speak to, it is Salespeople need clarity – clarity in their critical. Everyone wants their understanding of their market, in who their clients sales teams to be chock full of salespeople who are are, in how to approach them, in how to spend their self-motivated and proactive, constantly sharpen time, in how not to spend their time, and so on. their skills, display consistent behaviours and work Life and business are more complicated today well both individually and as a team. Few achieve than ever. There are so many options for how to this, however, citing difficulties recruiting, having the spend your time. Where once prospecting was either wrong people on board, lack of time, lack of money, cold calling on foot or cold calling on the phone, external forces and many more. now you have LinkedIn, blogs, videos, funnels,

Surprisingly, developing high-performing teams branding… salespeople need absolute clarity about is not that difficult – there are three core building where to spend time and where not to. blocks required for nurturing superstar salespeople I see sales teams every day, full of skilled and world-class sales teams. salespeople but working on the wrong requirements, doing the wrong things and CONVICTION All salespeople need conviction – conviction in their business, “I see sales teams every day, full of skilled generally working very hard to get nowhere. And, to make matters worse, without clarity their products/services, their salespeople but working it is very hard for them to skills, the marketplace, the very hard to get nowhere” maintain conviction. price, their management, their Sales leaders needs total territories… you get the idea. clarity too – over what they If you want to succeed, you have to believe, and are trying to achieve, how they are going to develop whether you believe that you can or you cannot, you individuals, how they add value to their teams, what are probably right either way. the critical moments are in their day-to-day

Likewise, leaders need the conviction that they leadership function, and more. can and should develop their teams, that time Conviction and clarity are vital for success, but invested will pay off, and that there is a better way. you also need something else…

Without conviction, you will not even get out of the starting gates when it comes to sales. Conviction CONSISTENCY is at the core of everything. Even learning. Not The third essential building block is consistency. having the skills is one thing, but not believing that We have all employed salespeople who can do

the business some of the time: who can lift their PEOPLE INVARIABLY WANT game for short periods, who are good when you put THE ADVANCED STUFF the pressure on, and who are good when they are People always want the advanced stuff. “I am pretty on target. But we need salespeople who do the right knowledgeable at all of this Gavin, I need the things all the time – day in, day out. masterclass.” No-one is interested in “sales 101”.

Success does not come after doing something No-one wants the “introduction to sales leadership”. right once or twice. Success comes from doing the They know all that stuff because they believe they right things over and over. That’ s why Jonny are good at what they do. Wilkinson and David Beckham practised long after That’ s all well and good, but if you need the everyone else had packed up. advanced stuff, why are you not applying the simple

Not surprisingly, when you stuff? Why do you not ask do something over and over again with clarity and conviction, this creates more “Sales is not about knowing something, it is about doing open questions? Why is your objection handling so bad? Why do you jump into conviction and more clarity – something – it is about presenting your solution it’s a virtuous circle. taking action” before you have created

Sales leaders need sufficient value? Why do you consistency too. Forgotten say that coaching your staff is coaching sessions, cancelled sales meetings and lack important but then fail to do it consistently? Why do of promised follow-up are all too common. What people snooze through your sales meetings, moan message do these poor behaviours and complete about you behind your back, and sabotage your lack of consistency communicate to your people? sales culture? Bottom line? You need to master and apply the THE MAGIC TRIO simple stuff – brilliantly. That’ s what creates great Conviction, plus clarity, plus consistency fit together salespeople and that’s what drives winning sales perfectly. They represent the “magical” trio teams. Success in sales and sales leadership is all required for developing accomplished salespeople, about becoming a master of the simple stuff; an high-performing teams and a winning sales culture. expert in living and applying the basics. There are smaller component parts of each of these that help, but just thinking the following three PEOPLE DO NOT PRACTISE questions through will help you to dramatically THE SIMPLE STUFF improve the performance of both your individuals I can count on one hand the number of salespeople and your teams: I’ve met who do not know what an open and a l What do your teams need absolute conviction closed question is, and yet, under pressure, few about and how can you help them to create it? manage to use them correctly. Why is this? Why l How can you help them have absolute clarity do people not do what they know? The answer is about who they should be working with, how they simple: lack of practice. add value, how to find them, how to reach them, As humans, if something is simple, we think, how to engage and add value for them, and how, “I understand that,” and we move on… but sales is ultimately, to sell to them? not about knowing something, it is about doing l What behaviours do you need to make as something – it is about taking action. consistent as clockwork for you and your teams? Bottom line? You need to practise until you can be certain to kick the ball into the back of the net IT STARTS WITH YOU every time. You must practise until your sales, your You’re probably thinking this is pretty simple, right? negotiation and your leadership skills are spot on, You’re probably thinking that, as the founder of the not just some of the time, not just when everything #IAM10 success philosophy and an expert, I ought aligns the right way, but all the time. to give you something more complex, right? And that’s part of the problem. PEOPLE THINK THEY HAVE

Over the past 18 years, I have worked with many STRONG WILLPOWER sales leaders and the biggest issue they have is There are various characteristics that people like to themselves. They fall down on core issues that stop think they have. One is “perfectionism” (which, for them manifesting change in their businesses and many, is an excuse for not taking action) but an even that hold them back from creating the sales more common one is the belief, “I have strong behaviours, results, cultures and businesses they willpower.” Well, good for you. And maybe you do, desire. This is not surprising because sales leaders but in a battle of willpower versus habit, habit wins are people, and the same things that hold back their time and time again. people, hold them back too. Here are the main Willpower is like a muscle. Using it does improve blockers I encounter time and time again: it, but it also tires. The more you use your willpower

in a day, the harder it will be to use it as the day goes on. And that is across everything, so it is quite possible that your willpower gets used up on things that have absolutely nothing to do with what you are trying to achieve professionally.

The way to beat unresourceful habits is not with willpower, it is with other, more resourceful, habits.

Bottom line? Use your willpower to build new habits. Focus on what you need to do, schedule it into your diary first, and then use your willpower to do it, every day, until it becomes habit. PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE REPETITION How do you nail the simple stuff? How do you build strong habits? Practise. Practise. Practise. And then practise again. As Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within, says, “Repetition is the mother of skill.” In my experience, a lot of salespeople have an inbuilt dislike of repetition –think prospecting, admin, reports... They seem to think they are the only ones who have to undertake tasks that are repetitive and maybe even boring.

If I had a pound for every salesperson who has told me they get bored with repeating the same thing over and over, I’d have a fairly sizeable pot of money. But the truth is that any skill learnt, any profession mastered, is the result of extended practice and repetition.

Bottom line? Get over your fear of repetition. Be a grown up and realise that being good at anything requires monotonous practice. I have not heard surgeons, accountants and lawyers using this pathetic excuse – so you shouldn’t either. PEOPLE THINK MOTIVATION IS ALL THEY NEED Not unlike their belief in willpower, many people think that motivation alone will get them where they want to go. Oh, if only this were true... I am a motivational speaker. I am good at motivation. But there is plenty of stuff that I want to achieve but haven ’t yet managed to. You can know what you want, know how to achieve it, be incredibly motivated and still not accomplish it.

Bottom line? Motivation is rarely enough by itself. Do not rely on motivation for your success. Instead, have a plan, work out your actions and schedule them into your diary. PEOPLE DO NOT ALLOW FOR DISTRACTIONS We have all set out to do something, come into the office motivated, arrived at work with a plan, but then become distracted. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes – from colleagues to clients, from emails to phone calls, and from home issues to office chat or self-interruptions.

Distractions are bad news. Research suggests they not only hamper your productivity but impact the quality of your work too. It has been suggested that three-quarters of workers feel distracted at work, 2 hours a day can be lost refocusing after distractions, 31 hours a month on average are spent in meetings and 40% of work time is spent on non-productive activities.

Bottom line? If you want powerful sales habits and a winning sales culture, you need to take account of distractions, not just hope they won ’t happen. You need to work out how you build positive habits that minimise avoidable distractions and produce maximum productivity for those that are going to happen anyway. PEOPLE REJECT HELP (EGO) A couple of years ago, a former client invited me to a meeting at his new business. The business was in desperate trouble. Sales were down and no-one was biting the bullet and going after new clients; the sales culture was just not built that way. He knew he needed help to create the business he wanted, and he thought #IAM10 could be the way to do it.

I visited him in London and met the senior management team. They were all enthusiastic about doing something, except for one executive who was incapable of admitting that they needed help. Whenever one of the other team outlined a challenge or a weakness, he would contradict it. To my knowledge, they are still struggling to this day and have laid off people and downsized the business – largely because of this one guy’s inflated ego.

Bottom line? If you want to build strong sales teams, you need humility, you need to acknowledge areas for your personal improvement, and you need the courage to deal with them. Even minor changes in the key behaviours of sales leaders can have a dramatic impact on the sales function. PEOPLE JUST WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN Many sales leaders know they don’t have the sales culture they want. They know this is impacting behaviours every day. They know this colours their relationships with their clients and the reputation of their business. They know they will never get the results they want unless something changes, but still they do nothing. This damaging state of inertia may be because of fear, lack of knowledge, lack of belief, or because they wrongly perceive other things to be more important.

Bottom line? Your sales culture stems from everyday sales behaviours, and everyday sales behaviours drive sales results. Sales results are everything. If you are serious about your business, creating a winning sales culture is the most important thing you should be doing.

So, it’s time to act. What is the most important thing you can do right now to start building that all-important winning sales culture?

GAVIN INGHAM (FISM) is the founder of #IAM10, through which he shares inspirational keynotes and executive coaching programmes focused on installing key sales behaviours. To find out more about how #IAM10 can help you build a winning sales culture, visit GavinIngham.com