Key Steps to Effective Sales Leadership - How effective are you?

I believe sales leadership is one of the toughest roles in business today. We have to be an inspiring business leader, top seller, coach and strategist. And, the adage is still true - what have you done for me today!

This speaks to both current performance and excellence. "Excellence is never an accident; it's the result of high intention, employee empowerment, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and vision to see obstacles as opportunities!"

Here are some key steps to become an effective sales leader:

Step 1. Create useful success metrics that mark progress, not just report results. Most sales leadership jobs demand metrics to indicate results that have been achieved. Revenue and profit contribution are classic examples of these very important measures. But there is another side of the metric scale which includes those measures that are indicative of progress toward those goals—successful sales calls, implementation planning meetings, training, better merchandising. The key difference is creating a balance of those that are backward-looking or lagging indicators, and others that are forward-looking, or leading indicators. Having both is vital to success!

Step 2. Provide visionary leadership. There are few audiences more cynical than sales professionals, so providing clear and definitive leadership is critical. Since most sales organizations serve as the engine of the business, as customer and product or service issues impact them first, they benefit greatly from having a vision for the entire team. The sales leader must be the exemplar of that vision, as the team will be watching. Pithy and concise are the themes for your sales team’s vision, which should dovetail with the organization’s vision.

Step 3. Develop talent and coach relentlessly. Many sales leaders have risen through the ranks as a great seller to a sales leadership position.  As I'm currently interviewing, I'm asked all the time - do you consider yourself a better personal sales contributor or sales leader? However, this is not always a wise question as Sales Leaders who were great "individual contributors" are not necessarily great sales leaders. Most of the time, the fundamental issue is a lack of coaching and development of talent. All too often they are narrowly focused on the role of super closer in an effort to drive business instead of building sales capability across a team.

Step 4. Pay close attention to your selling roles and understand how you get involved in sales cycles. There are four distinct roles: Runner—you run the call, Observer—you observe only with an intent to coach following the call, Joiner— you engage in joint selling with clearly defined responsibilities to take on specific topics during the call, and Strategist—you provide pre-call planning guidance and post-call support. Each of these selling roles has a unique purpose and impact, so it is imperative that the sales leader is intentional about what role they are playing as they support business development efforts.

Step 5. Focus on creating value in the sales process. For many, success in selling is far less about what they are selling and increasingly about how they sell. Said simply, it’s about how, not what! Interactions provide insights, new approaches and ideas for solving problems, and innovative opportunities to capitalize on, instead of simply a description of products and services.

Step 6. Forecast with an understanding of where the customer is in the buying process. By and large, forecasting tools are centered on a series of tasks that sellers perform during the course of a sales cycle. What they too often lack is the perspective of the buyer and where the buyer is in the decision process. One of my mentors often said “if you want to learn how to sell, learn how buyers buy.” When forecasting, include milestones of customer behavior and joint accountabilities like “mutually reviewing a proposal together” versus “proposal sent” to have a considerable impact on forecast accuracy.

Step 7. Motivate with recognition and rewards. Sales professionals have a reputation for being prima donnas, and, having spent my career in sales, I think the stereotype is correct. That means a good sales leader has the opportunity to use this to their advantage and develop a strong rewards and recognition program. Rewards and recognition ought to be timely and relevant, and while an annual awards banquet is great, in order to reinforce behaviors it needs to be much more frequent. Top performers value financial rewards for certain, but they also crave regular feedback on performance, autonomy, and degrees of freedom. Consider the myriad ways to reward and recognize in non-monetary form and you have a good recipe for an important element of sales team motivation.

"It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to take one giant leap forward only to stumble backward." Louis Sachar 

Also, if you are seeking a Sales and Marketing Executive to develop and articulate 4 c's, please reach out to me through LinkedIn or e-mail me at [email protected]. 

By the way, 4 C's are . . . Competence - Credentials, Skills and Experience / Character - highest level of integrity to represent organization / Chemistry - interpersonal connections / Culture - professional/personal style to enable positive work environment

Actionable Results from my career include . . .  

Aggressively grew sales from $27M to $115M, with a rise in weighted GPM from 28.4% to 39.75%. EBITDA, as % of revenue rose to 29.9%, improving 300 basis points.  Penetrated over 15,000 retail locations. 

Achieved $93.1M in sales (big box, club, furniture, specialty retail, e-commerce and Omni-channel) from organization start-up in just under 8 years.  Worked with Who's Who in Retail and E-Commerce:  Wal-Mart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Menard's, Amazon, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Ace, JC Penney, Wayfair, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Furnitureland South, Great Escape, Watson's and hundreds more.

Lead full P & L accountability for $320M division of $1Billion organization and orchestrated LRP, AOP, Demand Planning & Quarterly Barrel Meetings. GPM 38.1 % to 46.2% in 2 years & 7% EBITDA increase.