PROCESS AND COACHING BEFORE DEVELOPMENT

My research over the last thirty years suggests that the team’s sales success is significantly influenced by line managers and the existence of a strong sales process, but what about the individual salesperson? The big mistake many companies make is concentrating their primary focus on the personality, skills, and experience of the individual salesperson. However, as I have said hundreds of times in the past, the place to start is to systematically define the sales process and ensure that all salespeople adhere to the process. The latter is achieved by ensuring that line managers learn how to a) monitor process implementation and b) train process improvement. Only then does he focus on the development of the individual salesperson.

That is not to underestimate the effort required to get to this third stage. How to accomplish the first two stages has been covered extensively in other publications.

It is also worth noting that “personal development” means exactly that development that is personally focused on an individual. It’s about taking someone’s performance to the next level. Train someone to implement the sales process; train someone to improve; provided that person has already reached a basic level of acceptable performance. The scope of this article is that personal development of the type described here is for people who already meet the minimum standard, and that does not necessarily mean a sales goal (an explanation of this will follow in future articles on the subject). Therefore, you will primarily seek to develop people who, in your own opinion, may already be successful. And that’s where your problems begin.

THREE KEY FACTORS FOR PERSONAL SALES SUCCESS.

What I have discovered is that there are three key factors in relation to personal sales success:

1. The way the individual salesperson communicates with clients, colleagues, and managers.

2. If the individual is motivated enough to take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviors.

3. How they perceive themselves as qualified and capable of success.

COMMUNICATION

Sellers must accept that the way they communicate with the customer ultimately determines the outcome of the sale. Effective customer-centric sales communication involves:

• Establish common ground with the client.

• Speak the client’s language.

• Read and interpret customer responses.

• Explore solutions with the client.

• Build long-term customer relationships.

If you’ve read my ‘Transactional Analysis in Sales’ article, you may already accept that our past relationships with people in authority can often have a dramatic effect on the style of our sales communication with clients that our authority figures may represent. current.

SELF MOTIVATION

Recruitment ads for salespeople tend to solicit “self-motivated” people. However, in most management training programs, employee motivation is a recurring theme. That said, many professionals in the fields of sports and performing arts seem driven to succeed without external, in other words, self-motivated motivation. By motivating themselves, other professionals focus on the things that will improve their performance.

SELF ESTEEM

Selling has not enjoyed a particularly positive reputation as a professional occupation. Partly because of this, most people currently in sales roles would not have chosen sales as a career path. The premise is that many salespeople lack the level of self-esteem that exists in many other professions. This in itself may seem to many to disagree with the perceived image of the stereotypical marketer.

While these are important factors in the success of sales, their existence at the optimal level is often lost mainly due to a lack of feedback on the seller’s communication style, a lack of focus in terms of what they are personally responsible for. and, often, the existence of self-doubt.

These are all extremely personal factors and any implicit criticism that any of these factors may not be operating at a maximum level can generate a negative reaction. You may have heard people say, “I don’t care about criticism as long as it’s constructive.” What they really mean is, “I don’t care about criticism as long as it’s not personal.” However, the factors that you may have to deal with will inevitably include all three of the personal factors mentioned, so it is highly likely that you will encounter resistance, be it overt or covert, the latter being more difficult to deal with. Basically, you are asking people to change. So how can this be facilitated?

PEOPLE CAN CHANGE

While most publications on the subject of change will correctly state the view that any change is difficult for people, enlightened writers will also say that the key to enabling change is participation; give people a reason for change; and explain the benefits of changing work practices or personal behavior. That’s where transactional analysis can help.

Transactional analysis is essentially a deep understanding of how we relate to other people and offers suggestions for improvement. It is based on the premise that people can change if they know why and how. So how do they find out?

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, TA AND THE COACH

If the key to improvement is self-awareness, the tool may be transactional analysis and the locksmith is the coach.

As I’ve already explained, selling is a macho business and any admission of flaws in supposedly ‘soft’ factors like communication, motivation, and self-esteem is usually hidden under the rug. Exposing people to TA theory and application (both salespeople and managers) can facilitate self-awareness and through this the willingness to improve. The key to enabling this and implementing realistic improvement plans is the coach.

How to achieve this is the subject of a future article.