You just landed your dream sales leadership role, what's next?

Leading a group of account managers with diverse skills requires a strategic and inclusive approach to drive collective growth. Let’s say you just accepted a new position leading a team of account managers. What would be your initial plan to effectively lead your team? This article highlights some of these strategies and provides insights based on my 15 years of experience in managing sales and consulting teams. Some of these strategies were standard practices and others I had to learn the hard way.

A successful sales leader should put together a growth plan to effectively manage a team with diverse skills and achieve overall growth. The leading strategy should be understanding the diversity of these skills by conducting assessments to uncover the team’s strengths and weaknesses and addressing the weaknesses through individualized training and development.

Once this strategy is executed, it would be very important to define roles and responsibilities for the team based on the resulting matrix of skills. This ensures that individuals understand their contributions to the team's success and helps avoid role ambiguity.

Setting goals for the team should be a collaborative process.? It is highly recommended that the manager Involves the team in the goal-setting process. Encouraging each account manager to contribute their insights, aligning individual goals with overarching team and organizational objectives, and tracking these objectives and goals through regular performance reviews and feedback. The Sales leader should implement a regular performance review process, provide constructive feedback that acknowledges strengths and highlights areas for improvement, and create an environment where feedback is a two-way dialogue.

Through cycles of performance reviews, you should take advantage of your team’s strengths by introducing a mentorship and peer support system to share knowledge. You may discover that certain account managers may have certain practices that could benefit their team members if they observed and applied the same practices. Creating a Buddy System can in many ways increase your team building and help increase your sales. You can pair account managers with different skill sets for mentorship or peer support. This fosters a collaborative culture and allows team members to learn from each other's unique strengths.

Cross-functional collaboration can also be very valuable to the team. The sales leader should encourage knowledge sharing, and best practices, and facilitate regular team meetings, workshops, or forums where account managers can exchange ideas and experiences.

If for some reason account managers with weaknesses are not rising to the bar as fast as required by the company to achieve its objectives, the sales leader should promote skill-building workshops as well as targeted workshops that address the diverse needs of the team. Whether honing negotiation skills, improving communication, or enhancing technical knowledge, tailor workshops to meet specific skill gaps.

A sales leader can use these workshops to include team-building activities to encourage team members to attend these workshops regularly. These activities promote collaboration and communication. They also help build camaraderie and strengthen the team's bond. In one of the companies I worked for, we dedicated a session for recognition and rewards as part of the overall agenda. Recognizing and rewarding achievements across diverse skill sets is a must-do approach. Acknowledge individual and team accomplishments to motivate account managers and reinforce a culture of success as this is a strong factor in building a culture of growth. Cultivating a growth mindset within the team requires emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and improvement. Encourage account managers to embrace challenges as opportunities for growth.

These events can be great motivators and learning drivers and they should be held regularly at a fun venue. The manager should organize regular team-building activities that promote collaboration and communication.

My last piece of advice is to be a data-driven leader! Leverage data analytics to provide insights into individual and team performance. Use these insights to identify trends, areas for improvement, and opportunities for optimization. It is also important to use the data to include your team in decision-making. Involve the team in decision-making processes related to strategies, tools, and processes. This inclusion fosters a sense of ownership and commitment among account managers.

?

By implementing these strategies, a sales leader can harness the diverse skills within the team to achieve collective growth. The key is to create an inclusive and supportive environment where each account manager feels empowered to contribute their unique strengths to the overall success of the team.