Ultra-competitive Sales Management, the Servant Leader Way

By Max Cates, Author of the sales management book, Serve, Lead, Succeed!

As a sales manager, one of my most enlightening moments was when a friend told me to quit obsessing about reaching objectives. He said, "You can't compete looking at the scoreboard. Focus on what makes you a great competitor: preparation and practice. If you master those things, the numbers will come automatically."

This is a lesson Servant Leaders in sales across the nation are using and teaching with extraordinary results. As the old saying goes, "It's not the will to succeed that's as important as the will to prepare to succeed."?This takes competition to a new level. It means a shift of attention from merely winning to a focus on preparation that leads to the intrinsic joy of selling. Instead of paralysis by analysis, pressure to perform and a myopic focus on numbers, Servant Leaders are helping their sales reps become the best they can be. Successful results follow naturally. Perhaps the best college basketball coach of all time, UCLA's John Wooden, said, "If there's anything you can point out where I was a little different, it was the fact that I never mentioned winning." Wooden emphasized being better than yourself each day; you can't control outcomes but you can control your effort, your preparation.

Here's how it works in sales.?

1. Prepare - There are two components of preparation: Learning and Practice.?

As a leader, crete a learning environment, not only through training but learning from each other formally and informally. Encourage your reps to share their secrets of success. Emphasize learning at sales meetings. Have your reps discuss successful strategies at sales meetings, round table discussions, etc. Put them in charge of training sessions.?Teaching is a great learning experience. Make sure that you are the example for learning, be teachable, ask questions, learn from your reps, go to training yourself. Expect and inspect preparation: Do spot checks on your reps' preparation before sales calls.?

Practice develops muscle memory, allowing sales people to efficiently coordinate their words, body language and use of sales aids. Take time for, and encourage formal and informal role playing sessions. Urge your reps to rehearse new things in sales calls. Provide a safety net for your reps to practice innovations?even if they fail... Invite your reps to practice new sales pitches with you or in front of other peers. Help your reps get in the zone, a place where their muscle memory works automatically, effortlessly. A place where their presentation flows smoothly, where the right questions and the correct answers occur without struggling. A place where the rep and customer are aligned and moving to the same goal of mutual winning.

2. Constructive competition - Beat your personal best, and beat them at their best. Encourage continuous self-improvement. Help your sales reps understand their strengths and weakness, and how they can get better (even the best can get better!). Create constructive team competition, in which your sales people help each other become their best. As coach Wooden said, "Learn from others, and be the best you can be." Sure, your reps will compete openly and ferociously with each other for sales awards; however, there's no glory in beating a weak opponent. Compare yourself first to yourself - are you becoming your best? Forget the scoreboard, it's a performance measure only, not a goal. The real goal is optimal personal performance.?

In summary, replace the pressures on your reps with the confidence they get from being prepared. That's what makes them competitive. If they win, celebrate. If they lose, celebrate -- they just learned some new lessons (and losing is a much better teacher than winning).?Help them fully engage their passion for selling and compete with tenacity. Remember, the best way to score is to take your eye off the scoreboard, and focus on performance.

For more on competitive sales management and Servant Leadership, go to the non-profit association, Servant Leaders in Sales?at: www.thesalesresourcecenter.com/servant-leaders-sales