The Fundamentals to Grow Your Sales Team and Results

Last week while out for my walk on Fort Myers Beach, I stopped to look at a picture of a house for sale in the window of a real estate office.  After a couple of minutes a friendly, burly guy named Marty popped out of the front door and asked if I was dreaming, looking or comparing houses.  I said I was looking for a friend who was staying with us. He then asked me if I was thirsty and because I had been walking I said yes.  He jokingly called out to someone, “There is a homeless, thirsty guy out here.  Can you please get him something to drink?”

He quickly educated me about the market, explained which areas were good investments and those that weren’t.  We jumped in his car to see three of the areas, and went through one of the houses……all within an hour.  We went back and got my friend and proceeded to show him the home that was listed.  He really liked it.

WOW!  Marty went from asking someone just walking by his office “What’s up?” to finding a strong prospect.  Incidentally, I found out that he is the #1 broker on the island….you can guess why????

In the past and in the future, our business, as in all businesses, is about sales.  It is about finding and seizing sales opportunities. It doesn’t matter if we are using LinkedIn, networking at community meetings, searching old accounts or old prospects who didn’t buy, our job is to find and cultivate opportunities.  If you are a manager, you need to put in the systems, protocols, and accountabilities that cause the team to do the things that uncover those opportunities.  On their own, most salespeople won’t do those things. Yet the top producers will.

Whether it is attending sales training, going to sales meetings, using market access or marketing nurturing systems, salespeople, generally, will not initiate these things.  Sometimes they think if they just show up, maybe something good will happen.  And generally, it won’t without a lot of organization and work. 

 

Selling is about failing until you succeed. This is what I read in Frank Bettger’s book, “How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success.”  I suggest all your salespeople read this classic masterpiece. 

 

Here are some of the fundamentals to grow your sales team and sales results we've gathered from our experience in helping companies grow.

 

1. Coach people to find opportunities, in a non-cheesy way.  Opportunities are everywhere and those that don’t go after them are usually so frustrated, negative and down they can’t see them.  Many of them aren’t interested in being coached.  Coach them anyway, especially your top producers who seem to be ignored.

 

2. Figure out the best way to educate, engage and sell your services to today’s market. Don’t believe for a minute that making more calls is the only answer. Markets change. Thinking things through should come before action every now and then. For example, create a system on a white board that spells out how you can access existing clients with new, attention getting, personalized offers and a follow up system. Hire people to follow it and give them the opportunity to be creative. Map out a way to know every targeted client and a way to keep prospects engaged for at least a year until they are ready to talk with you or buy.

 

3. Realize that your salespeople need inspiration everyday. They need a structured way to flush out their frustrations, worries, rationalizations and cynical excuses.  Their attitude and lack of organization is what generally kills them.

 

4. Hold effective meetings that inspire, teach, coach and connect people to new goals.  Do this in groups and one-on-one.  It is up to managers to stimulate the inspiration that causes action.

Using the technical tools to support your goals is definitely important but don’t believe that they are the number one answer to growth.  Your people are emotional beings and actions will follow inspiration.  I encourage you not to loose sight of these three fundamentals.

1. Coach people to find opportunities.

2. Think about how to access the market and keep customers and prospects engaged.  Turn it all into a system that causes the behaviors you need.

3. Structure your time and attention to inspiring your people.

What occurs to you right now?  What is the best action you can take to build your sales and your team?  Now act.

 Have a great week.