A passion for fulfilling potential and achieving success? It’s the people.

The other day I was a few emails into discussing an approach to sales team development from a forest through the trees perspective...while diving down a bit into the canopy. If you are interested in my skills to work with your team; or to lead your team, or being on your team - let’s chat. I am excited to dive into the next phase of my ongoing evolution.

My thoughts back to company who engaged me regarding training their sales team.

Your initial point is particularly relevant as insights and feedback will only have as much value as it relates to what I learn about XXXXXX, its ambitions, and what you and your team are currently doing and the associated results.

From personal experience that started with coaching in competitive environments, athletes of all skill levels on many planes, and the coaches themselves - the future success of a program/process/plan is incumbent on understanding the existing processes/paradigms/people/perceptions and outcomes. You have to listen and develop understanding before you even contemplate opening your mouth to share thoughts. It’s at that point they most likely have validity and, when shared, gain buy-in by desire and not force. I took that with me into Sales.

I believe I learned much from a variety of sales trainings and managers and at the same time much was standardized systems being applied to unique environments and people. It works and it doesn’t work. Much like we are learning with medicine and the human mind and body there is no one best answer to achieve optimal outcomes, but rather a foundation from which to work to maximize outcomes for each organism/organization and its individual microbiome/people. In some aspects there is a standardized protocol and in others you need to capitalize on the best characteristics of the individual. We have to know our people. They have to know themselves. And we have to know that they do and than where we insert ourselves into their work such that they appreciate it and excel because of it. You leverage the strengths of all, enable them to want to share and support one another, and accelerate the process of success.

Through my many years as a coach and than as a salesperson in just about every type of sales environment (recruiting is all sales as is convincing kids in college or any age that they should get in a pool at 5 am to make their bodies hurt as much as possible with nothing more than the idea of achieving a desired outcome as a motivator) and as a manager and sales trainer it has become evident that you have to have a clear understanding that comes from an open mind and perspective. Data analysis, and the collection of information to guide your team, as a team, and as individuals, goes on almost daily. Data is a very important starting point and an ongoing aspect of success. How it is interpreted, how the interpretations impact decisions at a managerial level in coordination with the team and by the individual members themselves, and how those interpretations are applied and leveraged via actions and behaviors are what determine outcomes. You are than also layering in the nature of being human and each individual’s life experiences that shape perspectives. Sales is both simple and complex at the same time.

It has always been my passion to enable people and teams to maximize their potential and that it is a combination of systematic behaviors and soft skills. From reams of data to emotional intelligence and everything in between. Systemically we are continuing to create ways to better understand/optimize a process for success, and at the end of the day we are humans - which can often be lost on sales leaders. It would make life simple to press a button and say “go” and just sit back and read reports to make adjustments but it simply doesn’t work that way if you want to get the most out of each individual human being and the team in turn. This is what makes sales leadership both fun and challenging. It is, as with so many things in life, both art and science. You are the embodiment of a great coach.

Looking forward to building your trust and process for accelerated success.