39 Sure Fire Ways CEOs Can Perfect Sales Recruitment - Part 2

In yesterday's article, I wrote about the first 10 of 39 ways CEOs can perfect their sales recruitment. If you didn't see it, you can find it here. Today I will focus on the next 10 best practices, most of which have to do with effective sales leadership. But it all begins with you, the CEO, taking a deep dive into your strategies, your systems and processes, and your people.

If you were buying your sales organization today and had to evaluate it, what would you find?

How effective are you at generating more of the right kind of business?

How much more effective could you be?

What would it really take?

How long would it take?

And what is it worth?

In other words, what is the opportunity in dollars and cents for you to get the answers to some pretty difficult questions and commit to making the changes you need to make for those dollars - typically millions of them - to manifest in your business?
These are just a few of the answers we provide our clients before they launch a sales hiring or sales force development initiative. If you'd like to see the rest of them you can find them here.

Now for today's 10 ways to perfect your sales hiring:

10. Develop Coaching Leaders

Great coaches inspire greatness, command respect, and breed winners. In sports they do it day-by-day and on game day they do it inch-by-inch and play-by-play. They're not the ones running the ball down the field or making two-point throws. No, that's the team's job. Their job is to coach the players to make the right moves in the right way at precisely the right time. Coaching should represent 50% of your sales manager's time. What does a coaching call sound like in your company? What should it sound like? How much time do your sales managers spend coaching? Probably not nearly enough. And how effective is the coaching?

11. Develop A Formal Sales Coaching Schedule

Okay, now that we've established your need for coaching sales leaders, it's time to formalize it, make it routine. Every day, every player. Surprised? Most CEOs are. And your sales managers may have too many direct reports to be able to effectively manage the individual performance of every contributor. But that's the job. If you want to keep star players you need to invest in them. Effective coaching is an investment that pays dividends. Spend some time right-sizing your teams. You may need to hire more sales managers but, if you do a good job and develop them for high performance, you'll make your money back 1000% and then some.

Take a look at the size of the average sports teams in the table below. Only two sports have more than 13 players on a team. Keep your teams small enough for the manager to spend quality time each day with each salesperson and you'll start winning more sales.

Sport
Number
Baseball
9
Basketball
5
Field Hockey
11
Football (American)
11
Football (Australian)
18
Ice Hockey
6
Lacrosse (Men's)
10
Lacrosse (Women's)
12
Polo
4
Rugby Union
15
Soccer
11
Softball (Fast Pitch)
9
Softball (Slow Pitch)
10
Ultimate Frisbee
7
Volleyball
6
 

12. Schedule Daily Pre-Call Prep Time

Now that your teams are sized properly, your sales managers will have time to work with each sales rep on their individual sales calls. Each call should have a plan with a stated goal. Make sure your sales managers are coaching each salesperson to make the most of the opportunities they have and to know what a good call for each prospect and customer sounds like. How are your managers doing this?

13. Schedule Daily Post-Call Debrief Time

Your manager-coaches should also spend time to debrief the salespeople on the calls they had. What went well? What didn't? What was said? What was promised? Is it the right time to say or promise that? What could the rep do better next time? Spend time looking into how and how well this is done in your company.

14. Schedule Daily Practice Time

Teams don't win games by simply showing up on game day. Winning takes daily practice. Players need to perfect each part of their sales training so they can access the knowledge, the questions, and the steps easily when they're in front of prospects and customers.

What are the routines and drills each individual on your sales team needs to practice? This is the back-to-basics sales playbook that each salesperson gets so they can master the skills, competencies, and conversations they need to win more sales. Skip practice and doom your team to the mediocrity that comes from shoot from the hip sales practices.

15. Observe Sales Performance Daily

One of the things we tell our clients is that each of our findings from our diagnostics is observable. Whether it's a finding about a salesperson, a manager, a VP, or a CEO or a finding about a process, strategy, or methodology - the finding can be observed and verified. This is critically important to correcting what's not working. Equally important is observing what is working and replicating it.

Observe your sales leaders and salespeople in action. Sit in on calls and meetings to observe what they are doing and listen to what they are saying. Listen to the conversations they are having and make notes for your coaching and development time with them. Your goal is to help them move the sales ball down the field, not do it for them.

We give our clients coaching handbooks customized for each of their salespeople and sales leaders so they know exactly what to look for and can focus their development on the specific areas where each person needs the most help. This information is openly shared with the salesperson and they are expected to find the areas where they agree they need the most help and create an action plan to make changes.

16. Learn to Deal with Resistance from Sales Managers

You're going to get push back. It's normal. People are naturally resistant to change. But if you want to create a high performing sales culture, you're going to have to grow a thick skin and lead through the push back.

Think about how Bobby Cox's conversations with Dale Murphy must have sounded. Marvelous Murphy wasn't cutting it as a catcher and Cox moved him to the outfield where he later dominated. Murphy said, "baseball is a humbling sport." So is business. If you had the chance to talk with him today, I'm sure he'd tell you he's glad Cox did it. That's because he allowed himself to be coached and developed. If your sales managers have the ability to open to your leadership and you have the guts to stand by your decisions, they'll be glad you did it too.

17. Weed Out the Fear of Hiring Top Performers

You'll never grow into the company you dream of if you or your sales leaders harbor a fear of strong sales performers. It's more common than you may think for sales managers to be afraid that a salesperson is stronger than they are. Talk about humbling. But that's the goal. Remind your sales leaders that their job is to lead now, not sell. You are not hiring their competition. You are hiring their A-team, their Hall of Famers, the players that will make their job so rewarding they'll jump out of bed every day to experience the "thrill of victory".

18. Train Sales Managers to Effectively Manage Top Performers

The sales function in your company is different from every other function in your business. That means salespeople need to be managed differently than other employees. Sales managers need to understand the specific challenges that salespeople face in their roles and what it takes to win.

High performance sales management means helping salespeople manage their time, their actions, their priorities, their attitudes, their critical ratios for success. Sales managers and sales VPs must develop the attributes of leadership that foster respect, enthusiasm, and loyalty. They must be able to develop strong relationships with their teams, be accountability ninjas, be skilled in the art and science of performance coaching, be adept at motivating both individual and group performance, and be strategic thinking, action-oriented leaders. They must know what each of their salespeople is capable of; where their weaknesses are; how, when and why each salesperson performs their best. It's the sales leader's job to try to leverage the best attributes of their team and to minimize shortfalls.

If it sounds like a lot, it is. And as CEO, it's your job to ensure that your managers and VPs have these skills and are using them as effectively as possible. If they don't (and they won't have all of them to the degree you need them to), you must invest in their training and development. You must get involved in their growth; you have a vested interest. Get training. Get a plan. Get a coaching and development playbook for each of your managers. Diagnose the weak spots and skills gaps and get them filled.

19. Teach Employees How to Respect Top Performers and Only Hire Respectful Top Performers

There is no doubt that top performers can be a handful - or at least seem like a handful to a colleague unfamiliar with the terrain. People are quirky and salespeople are people too. Quirks notwithstanding, you must teach your team how to respect the sales role and help them overcome their fear and judgement of salespeople. Salespeople are responsible for top-line revenue, the life blood of any business. Look at any P&L and income is at the top. That income doesn't just miraculously appear. Your sales team goes out and earns it every single day.

That said, you need to show your egomaniacs and narcissists the door - no matter how much they sell. There simply is no room for grotesquely inflated egos, bullying, backstabbing, or jerks of any kind in a winning sales culture. I don't care how great a salesperson is at selling or how skilled a manager thinks they are at managing, your people deserve to spend their days with respectable people who are pulling for the same lofty goals. Nothing sucks the life and passion out of a company faster than having to work closely with someone who is chronically disruptive. If you need some encouragement read The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton.

20. Teach Managers to Lead with Heart and Soul

This point can not be overstated. People need your energy, passion and enthusiasm. Make sure your sales leaders perform their role well but not robotically. If you've ever watched a live performance you probably noticed the lead singer "check in" with the other performers, letting them know how much they appreciate their skillful playing or checking in on rhythm and pace or simply to share the moment. Great sports coached do a similar check-in with players. They ask them about how they feel, how it's going, what they need. They encourage them after a loss and have a bit of fun with them after a win.

This kind of authentic and personal connection shows your salespeople that your managers care about them as people. Your managers must show their team that they are honestly invested in their success, their goals, their wins. This builds an energy and a culture that can weather the tough times. And it makes celebrating the victories even sweeter because it's personal.

Well, we've covered a great deal and we're only half way there. Stay tuned for tomorrow's article, Part 3 of this series. As always, please share your thoughts, ideas and best practices in the comments below. I look forward to continuing the conversation here or by email at [email protected].

© Copyright 2018 Cheryl Powers All Rights Reserved

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