9 Truths No One Ever Shares with Sales Leaders #1

Truth No. 1: ‘Your Busy-ness Will Be Your Downfall.'

If forcing yourself to just?“work harder and put in more hours because you’re the boss?now” has gifted you with a perfect sales team, brought you closer to the ones you love, led to genuine happiness and lower blood pressure - then I suppose you should just keep turning that notch all the way towards ELEVEN until it won't turn no more.?

But most of the time, as I explain in my 1 Day Sales Leadership masterclasses, too many people who manage sales teams get to being busy on activities that aren’t working for them.

And putting more effort into things that already aren’t working is just dumb. Plus, it’s exhausting and extremely demoralising.

Today, while you’re watching that video of a motivational speaker getting the audience all revved up to “just do more” while shouting “no pain, no gain” through a face mic in front of a packed theatre of believers, picture this in your mind:

100 individual sailors waiting on the south coast of England, ready in their boats to race each other to Calais (which lies about 30 miles across the English Channel).

But because of the bad information they’ve all been given -?instead of sailing east, to Calais - they all go west – meaning that they need to circumnavigate the entire globe to reach their destination.

Sure, there's a possibility that a tiny handful of extraordinary, talented travellers will survive by strength, endurance and knowhow. But the odds are heavily tilted against them. Only the very, very best would survive, and very few would finish well.

If your only weapon in management is your grit and determination, then you are setting yourself up to continuously take the long way round. And as your team and targets get bigger, your problems are going to get worse, not better.

Think about this: about 30 years ago, the head of sales would sit in an office with no mobile phones or emails to bother them – hardly any surprises, fewer distractions, a greater focus on what was important - together with?a healthy respect from everyone else for the size and scale of the job.

But today your team, your boss and your customers can reach you whenever they have a problem that needs your – (often) immediate - attention.

Does anybody really want to live their lives continuously putting out fires and tending to the URGENT, while hoping that somewhere round the corner there will be a quiet space to take care of the truly IMPORTANT? Lots of sales leaders are doing just that.

Today, sales leaders are being asked to juggle everyone else’s weaknesses with their own strengths without the foundational knowledge of how that actually works in real life.

Imagine for a moment that you were building new houses and you were being paid each time a house was completed – but all the other builders on site have been given detailed plans, together with bricks and cement.

But you have to make it up as you go along - and instead of bricks you’ve just got odd-shaped pebbles - how would you ever compete?

It would be impossible. You'd starve to death. And you couldn't possibly put together the kind of building everyone was expecting.

A person trying to build a house like that is just like a sales leader who dreams of leading their team to glory, but is lumped with a group who keeping running off in different directions, while being watched over their shoulder by an impatient business that expects IMMEDIATE results.

But here's the TRUTH: IF you truly understand what needs doing, who should be doing it and are then able to motivate them to do so with?spectacular results (and I'll cover all those things in instalments #3, #6 and #9) and IF you set yourself up with a game plan designed to hit your target from the very beginning, you CAN increase the efficiency of your business and your team - and you CAN be successful.

And you won't needlessly waste all that precious energy - and you won't have to keep delving deep inside yourself to find those last few drops of self-motivation and belief.

Listen up: You MUST understand the different skill set required?between a successful salesperson and a brilliant sales leader, and you MUST understand how to focus on the tasks that will help you and your team achieve greatness.

Your company?doesn't?know how to help. Many sales leaders are given the top job while everyone on the board just hopes it will all work out for the best. Most companies don't have any idea how to point their sales leaders in the direction of the greatest opportunities. (That's why they constantly blame the sales team for letting the side down.)

BOTTOM LINE:

• You MUST be able to FOCUS on a specific set of numbers and tasks that will lead you to success.
• You must break those numbers and tasks down until you have an effective team strategy – and then learn how to get out of your own way.

Often, you'll have to re-evaluate a couple of of the tasks you're currently doing.

But... the good news is, once you find what works for you, it will usually work for YEARS.

That's why time spent on the initial stages of sales leadership is absolutely the best time investment you can make - AS LONG AS - you're educated about what really works and what doesn't.

Next time I'll attack “Truth” #2: ‘The Team Don’t Care About the Big Plan.'

All the best for a brilliant New Year,

Chris

PS: My new 1 Day Sales Leadership?Masterclasses will be taking place in Manchester and London again shortly – if you think it's time to start doing this sales management thing brilliantly, I'd love to see you there - you can find full details at this link

LucrumHouse.com/ChrisMurrays-Sales-Leadership-Masterclass