How to be the Best Team Player

While interviewing Ken Gordon on this week’s episode of the podcast, we were able to spend some time talking about teamwork. I thought this was very interesting, because in a professional known for lone wolves, we haven’t spent much time talking about teamwork on the podcast.

Ken is very adamant about team selling. He spends a lot of time emphasizing the importance of selling the value of your team rather selling the value of just yourself. He also spends a lot of time talking about the importance of cooperating with all of the members of your team and working with them more effectively.

I think this is extremely valuable, because sometimes in sales it’s very easy to become focused on only ourselves. To be a fully effective sales professional who has a future full of success and upward growth, you have to be a team player. Below are three keys that I have found to be very helpful when it comes to working as a team:

1. Let your teammates help you – Another thing that many salespeople tend to struggle with is accepting help. We are hunters and we tend to want to make things happen ourselves. But one of the best ways to build a strong team dynamic is to open the doors to help each other.
2. Listen – It’s funny because we talk about the importance of listening to your prospects all the time, but we don’t talk about listening to our teammates. A great way to build strength across a team is to listen to each other. It makes everyone feel like a valuable part of the team and increases morale.
3. Volunteer to do the dirty work – It’s difficult to set aside your pride and do the things that nobody else wants to do. But reciprocity is real. When you’ve put your feelings aside and done something that nobody else wants to do, you earn the respect of your team and they start to want to go to battle for you.

These are just a few ways to better yourself as a team player, but I can promise you that they are effective. A team that will go to battle for each other is a team that outperforms the others. If you’re looking for a way to up your sales numbers, watch what happens when you have a team behind you. This coming week, I challenge you to start looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of your team and you’ll start to see improvements in both your individual numbers and your team numbers.

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