The Sales Evangelist TSE 1062: Sales Leaders, Stop Falling For The Reactive Trap
Sales leaders who neglect their own workload in an effort to help their sellers solve problems will find themselves falling behind, so it’s vital that sales leaders stop falling for the reactive trap.
You hired your sellers to handle their assigned responsibilities and to solve problems. When your sellers distract you with problems, you’ll have less time to focus on sales plans or strategies. You won’t have time to conduct meetings or create reports because you’re trying to keep deals from falling apart.
DISTRACTED LEADERSIn his book, The Sales Manager’s Guide To Greatness, Kevin Davis talks about all the ways that sellers can distract their sales managers from their own workload. The problem with this kind of distraction is that the sales leader’s responsibilities are to grow the department or the business.
The business will suffer if sales leaders aren’t freed to do their own work.
Additionally, you’re teaching your sellers bad habits and cheating them of the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems.
This is why many leaders feel stretched too thin.
LIMITED GROWTHSellers who never learn to solve their own problems will limit their teams’ productivity. Your team will never have extraordinary growth because you’ll always be limited by your own ability to solve everyone else’s problems.
The sellers will never learn to solve problems, and they won’t learn to focus on solving problems for their customers. Instead, they’ll focus on features and benefits.
Additionally, they won’t be able to function as well in your absence, which means they will struggle any time you aren’t available. So what will happen if you decide to take vacation?
IMPROVING SELLERSSellers will only improve if they learn to solve their own problems and handle their own accounts. As each rep learns to handle his assigned responsibilities, you’ll be freed to focus on other things that will improve the team as a whole.
You may be tempted to think that you’re helping your sellers accomplish more, but the truth is that they’ll never learn to manage their own schedules and their own time if you consistently help them manage it.
Kevin points out that your involvement won’t likely encourage them to use their time for other tasks. Realistically, your sellers will simply be freed to do things like check social media or email.
Forty percent of sellers don’t like prospecting, so they won’t likely do it if they don’t have to. They are likely bringing you problems they don’t want to handle themselves.
TEACH PROBLEM-SOLVINGKevin suggests asking two questions of your sellers:
- What have you done to solve the problem so far?
- What do you think ought to be done?
Your sellers likely have basic problem-solving skills; otherwise, you wouldn’t have hired them. If this isn’t the case, you might have to start by making sure you have the right people on the bus.
Perhaps we’ll discover that the rep didn’t really qualify the prospect in the first place. Maybe the rep isn’t talking to the decision-maker.
Assuming those things aren’t true and that the buyer suddenly backed out of the deal, you must discover what caused the problem.
ROOT CAUSECoach the rep to ask questions that get to the root cause of the change. Teach your rep to use the 5 whys to figure out why the prospect changed her mind.
It’s tempting for sales leaders to try to “save the day” and be the hero. Instead, you need to teach your seller to act as a guide to the prospect and teach your seller how to frame the customer as the hero of the situation.
Consider identifying team leads who can help your sellers when they encounter problems. Maybe a senior sales rep can help answer questions or coach your sellers in weekly sales meetings.
Schedule coaching sessions where you can teach your team members how to use these techniques to identify why their deals are disintegrating. Help them identify the common objections so they’ll be prepared when they encounter them.
Sales leaders must help their sales teams to work independently to maximize the efficiency of the team and the company as a whole. #SalesCoaching BUILD REPLACEMENTSNo doubt you hope to be promoted someday and you’ll need someone to take over your role so you can advance.
Allow them to be part of the dialogue when you’re addressing issues in your area. Provide reassurance that it’s ok to try things and make mistakes.
If you have a hard time saying “no” to your sellers, make yourself unavailable to them. Insist that they begin working on the problems themselves. If they make a mistake, you can still step in if you must, but give them a chance to try solving the problems.
Take the time to coach your sellers. Make sure you give commands, give guidance, and give them room to run on their own.
Whether you’re a sales rep, a sales leader, or a business owner, use these concepts to improve your efficiency and your output.
“STOP FALLING FOR THE REACTIVE TRAP” EPISODE RESOURCESGrab a copy of Kevin Davis’ book, The Sales Manager’s Guide To Greatness. You’ll be glad you did.
This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.
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Mentioned in this episode:
HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS
HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com