Maximising Performance of a Sales Team through a personal lens - Part 2

Part 2 - Basic Sales Hygiene / Transparency

After the Story you have such an important and necessary but basic requirements of sales opportunity management, its always been important to understand the WHY and HOW this allows us and the team to be left to do what we are good at, getting in front of customers / prospects and helping them solve their problems as it aligns to what we are good at as a company. 

Transparency is king here, my role as a sales leader has always been to manage the “numbers” but in order to do this its no good having things hidden away. The days of the hero who delivers a deal that never matured through the pipeline are well gone… I will always accept there will be an exception, but not the norm. It needs to be done, and everyone has to do this… if its not in the CRM, its not real. And in larger organisation's it's often a requirement (or should be made one) as a means to qualify the need for sales support resources. 

Easy to say, takes time to build the trust wth your teams, but this cant be glossed over, its a basic need and must form part of the core of sales leadership. Use the CRM and ensure everything you are working on is captured. Trust your manager to manager whats in there upwards.

Do what you say you are going to do, whether its a call back, a phone to a client, a proposal out of the door or importantly closing a deal. Do it when you say you will… 

Its amazing how simple this is yet its what differentiates a high performing team from an average one. Predictability is crucial here.

What this will do is allow the team the time / "air cover" to do what they are good at, closing deals, spending time in front of the customer, solving problems and not have them reporting in every 24 hours on deal status. A Good sales leader will have all they need to manage the business upwards.

So simple in principle, just needs to be made to happen....

Part 3 to follow.....