Whether you're on a first date, interviewing for a job, or running a political campaign - sales are all around us.
As a business owner, you want to see your entire team doing well and build a culture that supports your staff's performance.
Most industries rely heavily on professional sales, a defining health metric for your business. Poor sales figures can be caused by various factors such as lack of training, support and coaching, or the market might be weak.
Here are six ways you can guide staff to realise their potential:
1. Mentorship
Create an open relationship whereby staff feel encouraged to come to you and ask for support. Be proactive in reaching out to your staff and asking how they are going. Staff may not feel they can come and ask you for help because they feel they shouldn't be wasting your time. Share some helpful tips you have learned working in the industry and early on in your career.
2. Accountability
Provide your team unlimited support, but ensure your staff are taking the responsibility to be proactive in reaching their goals. Check-in with your staff now and then, but allow staff to learn from their previous mistakes.
3. Brainstorm
Bring the team together and brainstorm new and creative ideas to help build a more robust sales focus. For example, have staff who are meeting sales targets can share their tips as to how they managed to hit targets. You could also include role-playing activities to help staff overcome objectives or approach a sale differently.
4. Motivation
Implement different motivation practices in your workplace to boost energy and production. Understand what interests your staff and have a motivational prize or added incentive. An example of this might be an extra day off, movie tickets, or free lunch. Find out what motivates staff and give them bonus incentives.
5. Coaching
Provide mini-coaching seminars for groups of staff struggling to meet sales targets. This can be less formal and allow you to understand everyone's weaknesses and work to strengthen them. Your staff may have similar weaknesses or objections which you can help work together to combat. You can listen in on sales calls and provide real-time feedback to improve. You could even go on sales calls or on the sales floor with your staff to offer support then and there.
6. Plan
Have your staff plan their day and write down how they will meet the day's objectives. You can then discuss how they went with sales and listen to any feedback they may have.
Professional sales is a challenging skill set to master and requires discipline and hard work to achieve your company's goals. Staff can develop their sales skills with training and coaching seminars but will also need to be responsible for being proactive in hitting their sales goals.
It may take some time for staff to be consistently strong in sales, but with great support and encouragement from the team, they will be able to find their feet. Ensure you and other managers check in with your staff.
Professional sales is a skill you can utilise in many professions and industries. Before even getting the job at your company, applicants will try to sell themselves to you, and you will try to sell your company to applicants.
Building a solid and supportive sales team will help build the foundations for your business and growth in the years to come.
Best Wishes!
Chris Fordyce
Customer Success @RosterElf
