SALES LEADERSHIP LESSONS

I have been participating in a discussion on LinkedIn, with sales leaders about selling, sales training and sales management. I'm very concerned and have been for years that business and sales leaders have been sabotaging the relationship between consumers and salespeople. 

If you’re in a position of sales leadership, ask yourself, "What attitudes and actions do my messages create in my salespeople? Is your sales culture sabotaging your sales?

Just a few of the phrases being used in the discussion have been a 'hunter who can find 'em, stalk 'em, kill 'em and eat 'em" or "you have to know what you're hunting so you’ll now how to kill them". 

These phrases create attitudes and actions that turn people off. It's also left the consumer and salesperson, or buyer and seller, with a dysfunctional relationship that's creating a whole ‘new economy’.

My concern is that the majority of salespeople hear 'hunter' and "find 'em, stalk 'em, kill 'em and eat 'em" and it creates attitudes and actions that chase more buyers away than it creates sales. 



The salespeople that can improve a business are not the elite salespeople, it's the majority, from low producers to average producers, and these attitudes have sabotaged their ability to improve. It's also created a sales engagement that has damaged the buyer and seller relationship to the point of sabotaging sales results. 


No one started out to create the dysfunction that exists today between buyers and sellers but the message too may sales trainers, executives and sales managers deliver is translated into the intention to sell and not serve and doesn't produce the best results. 



The intention to make a sale is what buyers and consumers 'feel' that chases them away. Knowing how to put the customer first is an act of long term selfishness. It will produce the best results, highest sales and customers that will grow your business. 



The attitude that new business is what matters most, is what's brought the economy down and it's still damaging salespeople's ability to succeed today.

Customers create sales growth. Businesses and the economy are suffering from the business focus of getting new subscribers, new sales, instead of making customers. 


Years of traditional sales engagements, demographics, multi-cultural issues, the access to information on the internet, unprecedented economic pressures and social networks have changed buying cycles along with buyers and consumers attitudes.

New sales increase fastest when people are engage with the focus on making them a customer, not a sale.

Start sending a message of service and help. Implement a culture of caring about customers more than sales. Beginning teaching and coaching salespeople to be 'servants on a mission’. When you do, sales will increase, your business will grow and everybody will win.

Look for "Traits of a Servant on a Mission" in my next blog.

By Mike Moore