Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/215553
Sales By Jim Pancero, Sales Consultant jim@pancero.com T Is your sales team functioning as a collection of independent gun fighters or a trained selling unit with process, structures, coaching, strategy and direction? oday we are entering a profound generational shift as aging Baby Boomers are retiring and being replaced by the younger and more teamoriented Next Generation. As Baby Boomers, we prided ourselves on being independent and needing little help from anyone, including our sales managers. How many of your sales team members still don't trust your sales support organization and believe their job as a sales professional is to protect their customer from the incompetency of the rest of the organization? Things were, of course, a lot simpler back then. Remember when the stuff that used to win business for Baby Boomers— superior product quality, great service and a strong personal relationship with the main buyer—actually gave the team a competitive edge? Most reps already had their own style of selling and strong relationships with their customers, so managing them was a lot easier, too, and consisted of more sales support and 12 FEDA News & Views less coaching. Eventually, the job of sales manager evolved into reactively supporting their reps with special pricing, expediting, problem solving, customer thank-you calls and keeping upper management buried in forecasts and sales performance reports. Today, the majority of sales managers are still just that, reactive managers assisting and supporting their reps and providing little sales coaching, account strategy or selling direction. How consistent are the selling approaches, processes and results within your team? Today's more challenging hyper-competitive marketplace has forced newer reps, the next generation of sales performers, to need (and demand) more involved leadership that can help them identify the best strategy to engage a prospect or customer. But most sales managers are so buried in administrative efforts that they have little to no time left to actually lead their sales team. How much proactive, future-focused coaching and leadership are you providing your sales reps today? What are You Doing to Strengthen Your Team's Competitive Advantage? The most leading-edged companies realize that how their sales team sells, and supports their buyers, is a major competitive differentiator, and have embraced a more effective way to sell called "SWAT Team Selling." The foundation of "SWAT Team Selling" is based on the same leadership foundations of police SWAT teams, that of having a consistent and clearly defined team message and goals, following defined "best practices" and having active team leadership and coaching. Applying this approach means working as a team to communicate a consistent and effective response to the question "Why do I want to buy from you?" Identifying and following a defined set of selling best practices to continually strengthen and