3 ways to accelerate your sales career

Who better to show us how to turbocharge your career development than Sales Confidence’s No1 SaaS Sales Leader? It’s Nicole Brooky.

Back in November, Sales Confidence staged another one of its exclusive events for sales leaders, at the Andaz Hotel in Liverpool Street. As always, we were treated to smart insights from a stellar line-up. Based on these talks, we put together some articles, so even if you couldn’t be there, you can still get inspired.

Nicole Brooky

Meet Nicole Brooky. Nicole is General Manager for the UK at Receipt Bank, the number one productivity tool for accountants and bookkeepers. In 2019, Nicole was awarded the prestigious title of Sales Confidence SaaS Sales Leader of the Year.

As well as leading a team obsessed with growth at Receipt Bank, Nicole has developed her career at an incredible speed, achieving success at every stage. During her talk, she shared three tips on how you can do it too.

‘A fast-growing company and fast-growing people go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other.’

1 — Understand your ‘why’

If you don’t know the reasons why you want to have and grow a career in sales, you probably won’t achieve Nicole’s level of development. Work out in your mind the reasons why you want to come into work every day. What drives you on those cold and dark Monday mornings?

As a leader, you should understand your ‘why’ and encourage your team to understand theirs. When you find a role that gives you what you need, you automatically bring your best self.

‘For me, it’s being able to impact people, influence change and drive growth.’

2 — Build a diverse team

One mistake that many leaders make is hiring a group of the same people, from the same background. They have the same mindset and offer the same opinions. So, results never change; growth doesn’t accelerate.

If, as a leader, you want to build a team that achieves levels of growth that supercharge your career development as well as your company’s bottom line, you need a diverse group of people. Diversity breeds innovation.

The key to achieving this diversity is a solid hiring strategy. At Receipt Bank, during the hiring process, candidates will go through a process of self-reflection and even take a mini-coaching session. After this, Nicole knows that when someone starts on the team, they can engage at the right level.

Once someone is hired, the company commits to supporting them in their professional and personal development.

3 — Ongoing feedback

As a leader at a hypergrowth company, you expect your people to deliver results in a constantly changing landscape. They need to embrace this change, be part of it, experiment, fail and try again. This is not a natural way to be, so leaders need to provide the structure that allows them to feel comfortable.

Feedback is essential in this structure. Leaders create an environment where everyone is continuously reflecting on what works and what doesn’t. They give people the vulnerability to admit that something isn’t working, while working together on a solution. They expand people’s way of thinking about how growth and development happens.

Over to you

Concentrating on these three aspects of leadership has helped Nicole accelerate her development, while achieving incredible levels of growth for her companies. Now, we want to know what you think.

What areas of leadership do you feel are the most important? How do you grow yourself while growing the numbers for your company?

Let us know in the comments below.