Last month we talked about getting your team together. How to hire the best, match skills to the job at hand and, notably, hire based on growth potential rather than experience. While having the right team members is a great start, as we all know, coming together is just the beginning. It is what comes after that determines success or failure.

Most of the American sports world these days is talking about the possibility of basketball superstars LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade playing on the same team. Right now, the Miami Heat is a TEAM, but it is TEAMWORK that will determine whether or not they are successful. Can they work together? Can they get their supporting cast involved? Will your coaching staff be able to implement strategies to maximize their potential and empower the rest of the team to perform up to expectations?

Good to excellent

As coach Phil Jackson said, “Good teams become great when members trust each other enough to give up Me for We.”

Not only that, outstanding workers must be supported by experienced leadership and effective systems.

In business, as in sports, trust starts at the top and teamwork (which doesn’t work well without trust) is essential to success. Companies that “win” create a culture of success from the top down. They hire with confidence, expect results, and make sure those expectations are clearly communicated. They recruit the best employees, employ realistic and measurable performance standards, and maintain constant two-way feedback. They provide ongoing training, not only on the product/company knowledge, sales strategies, relationship building, and systems needed for CRM, but also to help each team member understand more about themselves, their strengths, and their abilities. weaknesses. In short, they foster an environment where “we” is more important than “me.”

Empowerment Through Systems

Leading sales organizations also provide their teams with a well-communicated sales process that serves as the foundation for enforcing sales discipline.

A sales process is like a game plan: the details may change from week to week, or customer to customer, but the overall goal and the steps needed to reach that goal remain the same. What respectable coach puts together a game plan without first assessing both his players and the competition, assessing matchups, and adjusting his strategy accordingly?

Before outlining your sales process, you need to know your market and yourself. Know what you do well. Know where you need help. (This isn’t always easy. If you run into difficulties, you may need to step back and look at your organization with a more objective eye, or hire an outside expert who already has the systems in place to do it.)

Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to tailor your efforts for optimal results. You will be able to see where your current efforts are falling short. You will be able to outline the variables that you will use to measure activity and productivity. You’ll have a general idea of ​​how long it takes to move a sale through the pipeline and any training that can help reduce that time.

A 2006 Harvard Business Review article, “The New Science of Sales Force Productivity,” notes that the most successful sales managers are those who use an approach that “places systems around the art of selling, relying not only on on intuition and native sales talent – the traditional qualities of the rainmaker – but also on data, analytics, processes and tools to redraw the boundaries of markets and increase sales force productivity.”

The authors argue that “in today’s sales environment, it’s not enough to trust your star reps and hope for the best.” They assert that any organization seeking to increase productivity must employ a systematic approach comprised of targeted offerings, optimized automation, tools, procedures, performance management, and sales force deployment.

measure for success

A scorecard system is one way to bring all this together: a company scorecard to review the market and the business itself to get a clear picture of the playing field; an individual score card to rate the players.

In sales specifically, an obvious way to measure results is in dollars, however, if you measure only monetary results, you don’t get the big picture. A critical aspect is being able to measure effort. Sales can often be a numbers game. Rejection is an inherent part of the process. For this reason, the individual scorecard should measure both leading indicators and results. By looking at quantifiable activity metrics to gauge effort and productivity, you and your reps can end each week with a clear view of what has been accomplished. How many phone calls were made? How many conversations took place? Have all required reports been submitted?

Flexibility through structure

Adhering to a structured system makes it possible to spread information quickly, especially in an ever-changing market. A key benefit of a well-executed plan is that when it’s wrong, processes are in place to tell if it’s wrong. You can step back, reevaluate, and change direction midway if necessary.

As Tom Landry once said: “I don’t believe in team motivation. I believe in preparing a team so that they know they’ll have the confidence to step on a pitch and be ready to play a good game.”

Arm your reps with a plan, train to win, and set the stage for success.