Pause and consider your organization’s culture. Every organization has one, and it’s critical to your business success. A Deloitte survey reveals that 94 percent of executives and 88 percent of employees believe a distinct workplace culture matters.
The good news is that sales leaders don’t need to strive for an unattainable “it” factor. To create a high-performance culture, Brian Trautschold, co-founder and COO at Ambition, says leaders must focus on the seven key habits of a winning sales culture. We explore these habits in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.
1. Hire great people. If your team doesn’t share a passion and excitement for the “why” of your company, Trautschold says you’ll forever run the risk of having a mediocre sales culture. It’s critical that you have the right people in the right places.
2. Define clear KPIs. How well does your team understand the metrics that matter? If everyone understands the metrics that indicate success and the activities that are directly tied to those metrics, your team is exponentially more likely to succeed. That means more wins, but it also means everyone is aligned and moving in the same direction.
3. Set intentional goals. Trautschold urges leaders to remember the importance of setting S.M.A.R.T. goals—those that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Goals should be structured around the activities and metrics that move the team closer to the defined KPIs.
4. Develop a solid coaching program. Every sales organization needs an effective, long-term coaching and development program. While a coaching program impacts win rates, it also works wonders for your sales culture. Much like setting individual goals for your reps, taking time to develop your team sends a clear message that you care about the team’s success and that you want to empower them to become better salespeople.
5. Create healthy competition. Sales competitions present great culture-building opportunities. Just remember to run your competitions the right way and get creative with your incentives. You have an opportunity to push the high performers while finding ways to keep the rest of your team engaged.
6. Be fully transparent with your team. As a sales leader, you should know where every person on your team stands in terms of performance. But your reps should have easy access to this information too, so they understand how they’re doing and how they measure up to their peers. Trautschold reminds leaders that this level of insight can be an incredible motivator. Being fully transparent with your team on all fronts (from expectations to goals to day-to-day progress) promotes trust and alignment on your team.
7. Embrace data-driven decisions. Giving everyone access to clear and clean data means that reps can be comfortable knowing they’re on track to hit quota or knowing when they need to ask for help.
When striving for a high-performance sales culture, leaders must commit to establishing the habits above. There’s no silver bullet. Instead, it’s an ongoing, measurable process that leads to happier, higher-performing employees.
Source: Brian Trautschold is the co-founder and COO at Ambition, a sales performance management platform built for data-driven and millennial-fueled sales organizations.