3 Tips For Coaching a Sales Team

Are you managing a sales team? In this online video for sales leaders, Coach Sarah Graves gives tip for coaching a sales team. https://www.inviteCHANGE.com.

Have you put together a great sales team on paper and now you're looking in the mirror, asking yourself, how can I coach this team to their greatness? How can I unleash their potential, hit our goals and do a great job? My name is Sarah Graves, Chief Relationship Officer with inviteCHANGE. Join me for three tips on how to coach your sales team.

🔷 Connection. How much do you know about each one of your individual team members? What makes them tick? What's their motivation? What's personal to them? Many times we, as leaders, can be very transactional. We know where they are on the succession planning grid, what their individual development plan is, and where they rank as far as their sales achievement, but we don't know what makes them tick. Many times when I have met with individuals, I find out that they have a side business, they play a band on the weekend and have a collection of 12 guitars. We have a senior manager at inviteCHANGE who met with 140 individual team members, only to find out that what they thought they needed to bring to work was much like a one-lane highway, and who they were as an individual, was a six-lane highway with lots of turnoffs. So we, as leaders, are asking not enough of our team, because we don't know what motivates them. We don't know what animates them, so spend that time and connection getting to know your team and if your team's large, get to know the team leaders and have them meet with the individuals to make that relationship piece that goes hand in hand with transaction. If you build your connection higher, you will have more success. I had a sales leader who was a bass fisherman. Everyone in the state knew that that leader fished for bass. When I was in San Francisco, everyone knew me as having a flute of champagne in my hand, celebrating my team, celebrating the restaurant, and celebrating the people that made success happen for customers.

🔷 Collaboration. Many leaders are very clear on direction. Here's the goal, here's what I want you to do. And again, they're missing, who is my team? Be collaborative, get curious, ask questions. Many times teams will bring forward solutions or problems that you were not even aware of. And when they bring up those problems, you, as the leader, put that on the top of your list. Make sure that whatever problem is keeping them from making that sale, that you get it taken care of. Get it out of the way so that they can go and win the race.

🔷 Champion and Challenge Be their champion in the way that when achievement happens, tell them, appreciate them, and make sure that you run it up the flagpole. Let other people in the company know what's happened, who's responsible, and give a cheer for that team member. There's nothing like excellence and celebration to say, I want more excellence, I wanna celebrate more. So that's first. Get the champion in you to champion your team and then add to that challenge. I always challenge my team to be better. What's the one thing that if you just add it to your day that would make more sales, that would create deeper relationships? Are you taking risks every day? Are you at the edge of yourself and taking a risk and doing something that you wouldn't do before so that you're developing yourself and being more transparent, vulnerable, and honest with your customers and with your team members? If I challenge my team, if you challenge your team, they are gonna rise to the occasion. And give them the support that they need. We had a challenge years ago in Oregon where we had so many growing sommeliers and in the wine business sommeliers are experts on wine. Our team was an expert in sales and relationships. And what we needed to add to that was the wine knowledge so that we could be in the ballpark of talking to these experts in a way that really resonated for them. We took an exam called, The Certified Specialist of Wine, a normal about 50% pass rate. Our team took it on, we had an 85% pass rate and it raised the bar for our reputation in Oregon, for our relationship with the sommeliers. So be willing to invest and challenge your team to be the very best that they can be.

Today I'm gonna ask you a question. How would you like to champion your team? What do you love about your team? What do you know about it? And put it on the comments below. Let's create some positive energy out there for sales leaders everywhere.