This article is the 1st place winner of the 2022 Sales Pro Central MVP Awards on Sales Leadership!

In our sales management training, we have developed 10 keys and a framework of activities that provide a new or tenured sales leader with a roadmap they need to put in place to help lead their team to greater sales success.

Most companies engage in sales training, but we have found over our 30 years of business that few invest in sales management training. In part, due to the theory that a successful salesperson can transition to teaching and coaching others to do the same. This theory is flawed because there are very different skills required of sales managers than salespeople- the most important being the driving desire to develop and achieve success through others. Both roles do include a focus on relationship selling and the ability to quickly and effectively find and develop a bond with others. However, the core skills of a sales manager involve understanding how to transition from actively doing to teaching and coaching. In our sales management training, we have developed a framework of activities that provide a new or tenured sales leader with specific activities they need to put in place to help lead their team to greater success.

Here are 10 keys to success for leading a sales team:

1. Guiding the team to set extraordinary goals
2. Managing excuse-making
3. Understanding the Will to Sell and Sales DNA factors beneath sales behavior
4. Following a coaching process
5. Coaching the deal and coaching for skill development
6. Establishing personal and business goal setting
7. Leading consistent sales huddles
8. Creating a hiring profile and having a candidate pipeline
9. Coaching a stage-based sales process
10. The shadow of the leader

Guiding the team to set extraordinary goals: One of the biggest complaints of most salespeople is that their goals are set by the company and are not realistic. What is interesting about that is if a sales leader effectively takes their salespeople through a process of establishing their own goals, salespeople will typically set them higher than the company might. In our sales management training, we help managers with a specific approach of establishing Extraordinary Goals. Utilizing a matrix like the one below, a sales manager begins by asking the salesperson what a good goal for their year is, then discusses poor and failing levels. Once those are established they have a conversation about what an Excellent year would look like and then what an Extraordinary year would be. Numbers are essential, along with a discussion of what would be needed to achieve these levels. Once all those numbers are established the sales leader asks the salespeople to which level they want to be managed and coached. Most high-performing salespeople will choose the top level. The key, however, is the sales leader must ask the salesperson if they will allow them to be coached to that level, and gains the understanding that it will be hard and challenging. Utilizing this process, the salesperson has established their own goal and will be more committed to doing what it takes to achieve it.

Managing excuse-making: We all make excuses, but one of the skills of top-performing salespeople is their ability to own their outcomes and results. In our sales management training, we help sales leaders understand the commitment levels of their salespeople and then how to coach to those various levels. We can all recognize some salespeople will do Whatever It Takes, which we call WIT. These salespeople rarely, if ever, blame the market, the company, or anything other than their actions for lack of success. So here is the strategy. When asked, "Why do you think you did not reach your annual goal, Joe?” Joe says, “Look how many accounts I am managing! How can I do this client servicing work and still bring in new business?” The sales manager replies, “If I did not let you use that excuse, what would you have done differently?” This approach reaps great success because it puts the ball squarely back in the salesperson's court, and they must think about how they could have adjusted their activities to achieve a different result. They must own it.

Understanding the Will to Sell and Sales DNA factors beneath sales behavior: When a salesperson does not prospect enough, avoids asking about the budget in the sales process, or does not ask enough strong qualifying questions, it is often the result of their underlying Will to Sell and Sales DNA. It is impossible to coach these behaviors without understanding what lies beneath the salesperson's actions. Relationship selling is a complex skill, and a sales coach will want to understand these underlying factors about their salespeople to effectively coach them to higher levels of performance. For example, if a salesperson does not believe that they have the right to ask budget questions or is uncomfortable doing so (uncomfortable discussing money), they won't ask. It is easy to teach a technique and help them with questions they can be comfortable with once they understand what is getting in their way.

1. Gain insight: find out what is happening or not happening through huddle data or observational coaching, schedule a coaching session
2. Provide feedback: have quality conversations that are timely and specific, asking questions of their salespeople to help them self-discover, and gain agreement on the real problems
3. Demonstrate and instruct: Identify skill gaps, demonstrate mastery of the skill, and instruction on critical steps to improve
4. Roleplay: Complete a pre-call for an upcoming call, RM roleplays, complete a post-call debrief together, coach gaps
5. Develop an action plan: determine action steps, observe, inspect and coach again, celebrate results, and address failure
   

Coaching the deal and coaching for skill development: Many sales coaches are great at coaching the deal, helping a salesperson understand if the prospect fits their target, researching the industry and issues, the complexities of the structure of the deal, etc. However, at a separate time, sales managers must focus on sales behaviors to help a salesperson make improvements in their strategies, skills, and approach. We recommend establishing coaching hours on the calendar. This is when a salesperson commits to a meeting with their manager, reviews a prospect pre or post-call and reviews the questions they will ask/asked, and completes a qualifying scorecard on the prospect. This is time to sharpen their sword. One of the most important jobs of the sales manager is to practice with their salespeople, take time to help them with a new approach, ask questions differently, and help them get comfortable with closing questions. This time is set aside not to focus on a deal but to improve skills and affect behavior change. Remember, change takes repetition and practice!

Tune in to our blog next week for the Sales Leader's final 5 keys to leading their team to success!

Once you have identified your area of expertise, the next step is to develop and master a well-honed positioning statement. This is used in short conversations when someone at an event asks you, “what do you do?” An expanded version of your positioning statement would be used when making a call on a prospect to uncover their needs, to help them understand how you work with clients and how you help them. Your positioning statement should leave a prospect thinking, “that’s me!” or “how do you do that?” In other words, it resonates with them. Of course, the key to that is calling on the right target audience, those who specifically will benefit from your expertise and knowledge. That is when personal branding is most effective.

Developing your personal brand for sales success involves identifying your “Zebra” or ideal prospect persona. Don’t call on anyone other than those that fit the personas identified. Then research the best ways to reach your ideal prospect. Is it via email or phone call? Is LinkedIn, Instagram, or X their preferred social media platform? Knowing how and where to reach your target persona will positively impact your ability to hunt, qualify, and discover potential new business. Identifying your zebra will bring focus and clarity to your prospecting efforts so you don’t end up chasing or pursuing opportunities that aren’t the best use of your most important assets: your time and personal brand.

Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, what isn’t a Zebra for you. If you know that as well, it helps to bring clarity to developing your expertise, personal brand, and prospecting efforts. Here are some reasons why knowing what isn’t a zebra is so important:

It Eliminates Ambiguity

• If you aren’t specific about who you serve best, it’s hard to get introductions; if you are vague in your prospect description, it will be more difficult to ask your advocates for introductions. Introductions have been proven to be the #1 way that top producers grow their business. Be specific and clear about what type of zebra you serve best.

It Reduces Confusion

• If you aren’t crystal clear on what you are looking for and what you are NOT looking for, your advocates might make an introduction for you, only to find out you can’t help the person they introduced. When working with introduction partners, tell them, “This is what type of business I’m looking for.” “Of equal importance, I really can’t help these types of businesses… and here’s why.” That brings clarity to the conversation.

It Reduces Your Opportunity Cost

• Your opportunity cost is simply this: if you called on Company ABC, that means you aren’t working on Company XYZ. Your opportunity cost is what you aren’t working on that may offer more value to you and your organization.

If you know what you don’t want and the reasons why, it will likely reduce the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. Once your expertise, personal brand, and zebra are clearly defined, your ability to find and win business will improve dramatically.

Most companies use a CRM to monitor the opportunities in their sales pipeline. Some of the metrics that we recommend sales managers consistently review with their salespeople include:

• Number of qualified leads
• Conversion rates for key sales process steps
• Close rates
• Average deal size
• Sales cycle length

Effective sales pipeline management involves setting specific times to review these key metrics with salespeople and coaching them for skill improvement. Ideally, a scorecard is established that allows a sales leader to track improvement as they review these metrics quarterly with their team. This discipline should not be overlooked and remains a key differentiator for highly successful coaches. If a sales manager does not know the quality of their pipeline, how can they help their people improve, and how can they forecast business for the company?

Assuming these metrics are available, here are some things to look out for in sales pipeline management sessions, with the end goal of improving pipeline quality and coaching the sales skills of your team.

Beware of Stuffed Pipelines

Having a “fat pipeline” can result from an overly optimistic advisor or relationship manager. They call on a prospect and come back thinking, “We really hit it off! They really liked what we can do... We have a LOT we can help them with.” Their deceptively full pipeline may give the salesperson comfort because it looks like they have plenty of opportunities, but in fact, it may be very misleading in terms of what will close. In other words, many of those deals in the pipeline are not properly qualified.

A sales leader plays a critical role in managing this problem with their coaching. The skill of asking great questions is essential. Tone and tonality are of paramount importance, and they must be firm and helpful. Questions like:

• What did you hear the customer say that leads you to believe they will be a great customer for us?
• When you asked them about the impact of not fixing this problem, what did they say?
• Who else in their organization will be impacted if they switch providers?
• What did they say when you asked about their decision-making criteria?
• When is the last time they chose a supplier that wasn’t the lowest cost?
• How much is in their budget to make this problem go away?
• When you asked them, “How do you envision working with us,” what was their response?
• How did they choose their current provider?

By asking great questions, sales managers coach their people by example. The questions listed above are the type of questions salespeople should be asking the prospect. Coaching sessions are similar to a sales call in nature. By asking great questions of their team, leaders find out where their people need to be coached. If they hear a salesperson say, “I didn’t ask that question” during their pipeline discussions, they need to find out if the salesperson is unable to ask those questions (they need more sales training) OR if they are unwilling to ask those questions.

During sales pipeline management sessions, as managers review and discuss the metrics, it becomes clear if the salesperson is prospecting enough and regularly finding opportunities. Sales managers will know if their team understands that prospecting is a consistent effort necessary for them to reach their sales goals. Coaches can guide them on how to consistently make calls, ask for introductions, and network among their target prospects.

It’s healthy to “flush” a pipeline regularly. Opportunities should move through or out of the pipeline continually. If a relationship manager wants to cling to an opportunity and defend keeping it in their pipeline, it is probably because they have nothing else to take its place. Coach them, encourage them, and challenge them.

The first step is to recognize that motivation is an “inside-out” job. When the topic of motivation is discussed, we typically think about incentive compensation, sales contests, and recognition programs. All of these certainly encourage sales teams to focus on selling because they are rewards. However, you will gain true engagement and enthusiasm if you create an everyday environment that encourages each individual to identify and visualize their own internal motivation.

Do you remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid? The bottom two largest tiers are Physiological and Safety because these are the most basic needs of every individual, including salespeople who are starting at the bottom and working their way up to self-actualization. They must first have income for food, shelter, safety, etc. Only once they have attained all of these basic necessities can they turn their attention to the higher tiers of Love/Self-Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. This still holds true and is an important concept in building a high-performance sales team!

To put it another way, salespeople do not care about corporate shareholder value unless they are shareholders themselves. What they care about is food, shelter, clothing, recognition, paying for college education or weddings, saving for retirement, etc. These are personal desires and make up the vast majority of things that are important to people. So, the solution is to create an environment where this internal motivation can take place. (See The Dream Manager book by Matthew Kelly.)

Creating a Culture of Goal Setting and Recognition

This means that it is up to you to help your salespeople identify what is important to them. Make the effort to set up time off-site that is dedicated to planning and spend time developing each individual’s dreams and goals. This is time that you will spend on your business instead of in it. Take a day or two to help you and your team take a giant step forward to plan for the future and help them achieve their personal best performance.

Create a process where people can establish personal goals because this is where the motivation comes from. This is also where the passion and desire come from. Hence, this is where the business plan must come from. Very few companies spend time understanding the personal goals of their people, yet they are the basis for any salesperson achieving their goals.

You might position this as though you are the coach and the salespeople are players on a competitive team. Each of you has a part to play so that the whole team wins. Salespeople will usually understand and relate to this because they are competitive by nature. If someone does not get this, they may not be suited for selling. Selling requires desire, commitment, and a need to win.

Create an environment where people get a chance to unplug and sit down to outline their goals and dreams, and establish timeframes, attaching financial values to these items. Once you have attached financial values, you know what level of prospecting and selling activity is necessary for each salesperson. You will also have a much better idea of what realistic standards look like.

Reward yourself and your salespeople when they achieve success. So, as your people go through and identify their goals, and as you sit down as an individual salesperson to identify your goals, be sure to identify how you will reward yourself when you achieve them.

In some ways, salespeople are like kids in that they want to be recognized for their successes. In almost every home in America, we have a kid’s Hall of Fame, otherwise known as the refrigerator door. Every time one of the kids does something great, they come home through the door and look for attention: “Look at this. Look at my art. Look at the A on my science test.” And what do we do? We put their success on the refrigerator door, where everyone can be reminded of this accomplishment.

Somewhere, you will want to create a theoretical refrigerator door for your salespeople to recognize their successes. A visual reminder, even a poster board with a graph and names that is posted where all can see, is a great way to keep everyone motivated and to reward those who deserve recognition.

A good sales manager will also have a system for helping a salesperson get back on track and correct problems that have led to failure. For instance, you must have a conversation with Jane, who did not reach her prospecting goal for the month. You will ask her, “How important is it for you to succeed?” “What do you need to do to fix this problem?” “What kind of process or program could you put in place to get on track to succeed?”

Assuming that Jane has desire and indicates she is willing to do the work, you will say, “OK. This is what we are going to do. Every Thursday at 10 a.m. for the next four weeks, I am going to come to your office and listen to you make prospecting phone calls.” Then, you must follow through each week. This is the kind of discipline and structure that will get Jane back on the road to success. This is also the kind of hands-on coaching necessary for building a high-performance sales team.

Read more in our free eBook - The Extraordinary Sales Manager!

From Listening to Leading. Customer-Centric Strategic Planning

From Diana Jennings, Director of Global Experiences at IBISWorld

When I first started in a client-facing role, I received a piece of advice that has stuck with me ever since: “Listen more than you speak.” 

While it is important to enter client conversations with a clear plan to add value, you must also bring a willingness to truly listen. By occasionally setting aside my own agenda, I found it easier to understand the customer’s real needs. Although I’m no longer on the phone with customers daily, I still believe that listening to your customers is critical to any business function, particularly strategic planning. 

Being a customer-first organization is not just a catchy slogan, it's a strategic imperative. At its core, customer-centric strategic planning means aligning your business's goals, products and services with your customers’ evolving needs and expectations. Yet customer centricity goes beyond just implementing their feedback – it’s about deeply understanding their pain points, preferences and aspirations, and using that knowledge to drive every decision you make.

Over the years, customer centricity has evolved from a buzzword to a fundamental part of strategic planning. Initially, it was about addressing customer complaints and providing good service. These days, it has morphed into a comprehensive approach that shapes entire business models and drives innovation. However, this shift hasn’t been without its challenges. Some companies still struggle to integrate genuine customer feedback into their strategies, often focusing too much on internal processes or short-term gains.

The key to successful strategic planning lies in achieving synergy between industry research and customer insights. By combining these two sources of information, businesses can develop a more holistic view of their industry and customers, leading to more informed decisions and better outcomes.

What is customer centricity?

A customer-centric business approach prioritizes customers’ needs and preferences at every stage of their interaction with the company and within the business’s internal processes. It means designing products and experiences that aim to not only meet but also exceed customer expectations. 

The purpose of customer centricity is to build long-term relationships that foster loyalty and advocacy. When customers feel valued and understood, they’re more likely to stick around, recommend your products or services and contribute to your business’s growth.

Some of the most successful businesses in recent years are known for taking a customer-centric approach, resulting in a loyal customer base, high customer satisfaction, a competitive edge and, ultimately, revenue growth. However, a key aspect of customer centricity is continuous listening. Customer expectations can change swiftly, making it critical to consistently monitor satisfaction metrics and be prepared to pivot when needed.  

How to center the customer in business strategy

Creating a customer-centric strategy involves understanding both macro trends across your business’s industry and direct customer feedback. By combining this data, businesses can develop products, services and experiences that truly resonate with their customers. Here is how to effectively use industry research and customer feedback to create a customer-centric strategy:

Gather industry data

Begin with a thorough analysis of the industry and market landscape. Starting at this macro level helps to understand the broader trends and competitive dynamics within your industry and adjacent industries up and down the supply chain. Is there a product or service with a growing or declining market size? Does that growth or decline present an opportunity or risk to your business? What are the most successful companies in your space doing? This industry-level research will provide the context needed to frame your customer-centric strategies effectively. 

Start tracking customer-centric metrics

Every business leader has their own set of performance metrics at the forefront of their minds when they consider long-term strategic plans. However, there are foundational customer satisfaction metrics that every business should monitor to effectively measure their customers' sentiment.

These include Net Promoter Scores (NPSs), Customer Satisfaction Scores and, if applicable, customer retention or renewal rate. Having a read on metrics like NPS and monitoring fluctuations in these scores can provide early indicators of any underlying problems across your customer base that warrant further investigation. 

Gather customer feedback

Depending on what stage your business is at, this step will likely require the most effort. Start by conducting interviews with new, existing and former customers and run quantitative surveys to gauge their experience with your organization, your organization’s support network and, of course, your product or service itself.

Structuring your customer interviews to be more open-ended typically returns the best results, so listen actively and document their needs, pain points and suggestions. You can combine these qualitative interviews with more structured surveys to collect feedback from more customers.

Analyze the data

Gather all the available data you have on your customers, including satisfaction metrics, qualitative and quantitative feedback and any other customer data you may have. Depending on your business, this could include support desk tickets, usage trends, user behavior trends and revenue performance metrics like renewal and churn rates.

Once you have aggregated all your data, you’ll be able to leverage data analytics to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences. Use this data to identify patterns, trends and correlations that can inform your strategy. 

Chart the customer experience

Begin by mapping out your business’s customer journey stages and the key touchpoints within it. By identifying how customers interact with your organization, from their initial discovery to purchasing, using and retaining your product or service, you can demystify the journey and shed light on how customers really engage with your business to determine potential pain points. 

Understanding where customers encounter the most friction allows you to address these issues effectively. For instance, if you’ve identified that prospective customers struggle to discover and learn about your offerings, it’s time to involve sales and marketing. On the other hand, if customers use your product once but don’t become repeat users, it might indicate a gap in product-market fit or the support they receive from customer success teams. As a strategic leader, assigning ownership to these problems ensures they’re tackled head-on, paving the way for a truly customer-centric approach.

Create customer personas

Develop detailed customer personas to represent the distinct segments of your customer base. Creating these personas will allow you to identify each group’s specific needs and preferences so you can tailor your strategies effectively. These personas should include firmographic data, their goals when using your product or service, typical behaviors, pain points and challenges they face.

Once you’ve developed these personas, you can start segmenting your customer data and satisfaction metrics to help your teams prioritize where to focus. Is your NPS dropping for one persona specifically? Are you overserving or underserving one persona in a particular touchpoint across the customer journey? Having these personas mapped out will provide a comprehensive understanding of your customers that you can consistently reference when building products or enhancements and prioritizing long-term strategies. 

Cultivate a culture of customer centricity

This stage is about fostering a customer-centric culture at your organization, and the first step to that is communicating what your customers are feeling and why with stakeholders across your business to help them stay connected to customer needs. The customer must be considered in all areas of your business and at every level to really achieve customer centricity, not just within your client services and customer experience teams! Product, marketing, operations and even developer teams must be connected to customer problems and understand what’s important to your user base to make decisions centered on the customer.

The most successful companies do this by establishing a brand promise or even a set of principles that serves as a commitment to what their customers can expect when they interact with the company and, ultimately, the experience they’ll receive. Your brand promise should be based on what’s most important to your customers and can serve as the north star that internal teams and stakeholders look to when making decisions.  

Embed the customer as a pillar of your strategy

To truly keep the customer at the heart of your business strategy, it’s essential to make customer insights a cornerstone of your planning and prioritization process. This means constantly reviewing feedback and making strategic decisions around product development, marketing, sales and customer support priorities with these findings in mind.

A key aspect of this is ensuring it’s a continuous, dynamic process. Establish regular review cycles where your teams assess the latest customer feedback and industry trends to adjust your strategies accordingly. Establishing an ongoing process ensures your strategies remain aligned with evolving customer needs and preferences. This approach not only keeps your business focused on its customers, but also positions you to anticipate and meet customer needs proactively, driving long-term success.

Common obstacles and how to overcome them

Implementing a customer-centric strategy can be challenging. By understanding and addressing these common obstacles, businesses can navigate the process more effectively and ensure a smoother transition to a customer-centric approach.

Siloed Departments

Break down silos by implementing regular meetings and shared goals that emphasize customer-centric outcomes and foster cross-departmental collaboration. Encourage knowledge sharing and ensure that customer insights are accessible to all departments, not just customer-facing staff.

Resistance to Change

Address resistance by clearly communicating the benefits of a customer-centric approach and providing training and resources to help employees understand and embrace new processes. Highlighting success stories and quick wins will build momentum and demonstrate the value of customer centricity to those that’re still unsure.

Data Overload

Implement advanced analytics tools to sift through large volumes of data and extract meaningful insights. Focus on key metrics that directly impact customer satisfaction and business performance to simplify data reporting and make it accessible and actionable for all stakeholders.

Limited Resources

Prioritize customer-centric initiatives that offer the largest impact while leveraging technology and automation to optimize resource allocation. Collaborate with external partners or consultants to gain expertise and scale efforts efficiently without overburdening internal teams.

Final thoughts

The journey toward true customer centricity is continuous. It demands constant monitoring, evaluation and iteration. However, the rewards – loyal customers, sustainable growth and a competitive edge – make it a journey worth undertaking. By combining industry research with customer insights, businesses can create strategies that are not only effective but also resilient in the face of change.

Next time you find yourself in a meeting discussing long-term priorities or your business's strategic goals, strive to be the voice in the room advocating for your customer. Are we considering the customer here? Does this plan align with our customers' expectations? If we can all commit to making the customer the guiding star of our strategic plans, we’ll remain agile, relevant and dedicated to exceeding their expectations.

Source: https://www.ibisworld.com/blog/customer-centric-strategic-planning/99/1127/