Sales people really have to have three beliefs in order to perform at their highest level. We as owners, sales managers, presidents and CEO’s have to understand that we must build these for our teams. Bad sales tactics with a strong belief system are more effective than the opposite. People buy belief. In fact, the best sales people really don’t sell, they transfer conviction.
When we design a program for a client, it has to have three components of belief (in order of importance below) to really make the impact we are looking for:
- Self
- Company
- Product
Self: You must always start with the individual going out to take the arrows for the company. They must believe in themselves, and if they don’t, you better believe in them enough for them to borrow some confidence or they WILL NOT be successful. This game of waiting to see if they perform after you have hired them will keep you both in the dance of just barely hanging on to their job. Get rid of them or get behind them!
Company: People want to belong to something greater than themselves. Sales people are people too and nothing embodies that “belong to” more than an organization or people coming together for one mission. A company is nothing more than a team of people serving others in some manner and collectively creating more value than their customers could do themselves. The difference in the value they create and the value they consume is profit. The number one job of the leader of the sales team is to sell the company back to his or her sales people every day. It is a daily occurrence that involves inspiration and motivation and companies that get bored or tired of this become weak and stop growing. Your people have got to believe in your mission, your organization and the leadership that drives it.
Product: Sales people need an “unfair” advantage, at least in their mind. I always try to find the unfair advantage we have in the market place with our product or service and really get our sales people excited about that. It could be speed, strength, durability or a special feature no one else has, but product and service design without talking to your sales team is like sending soldiers to battle without consulting them on weapons they would like to carry. I can believe all day in the war against Hitler but it is really going to be tough to get me to jump out of an airplane with a bow and arrow. When we don’t listen to our sales people about the product, we tend to undermine the two other beliefs they need in order to sell.
All of these beliefs are related, but if you can organize your motivation, education and inspiration accordingly to make sure they are all there, your sales team will be a powerful force to be reckoned with!
