Managing Sales Teams - Gaby Awad

Gaby Awad - “Buying Customers”

S4 Episode 7: Managing Sales Teams – May the Sales Force Be With You

Introduction

My name is Gaby Awad AKA The Coach on Wheels (you have to watch my YouTube channel to know why 😉), and I am your host for the BUYING CUSTOMERS radio show 🔥🔥🔥

It would be awesome if I could hear from you in real time during the show. If you’re listening live or to one of the recordings, you can always connect and interact with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter at IBGRNetwork.

Listen LIVE every Wednesday 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm: GMT 

 
Show Objectives 

In the information age, personal branding is necessary for the success of any company or individual. A positive brand is necessary for success. 

At the end of this episode, you should be able to:

• Define a sales team success
• Know what is needed from you as a leader to drive change towards sales team success
• How to train, develop, and coach sales teams
• Motivate and reward behavior and results, and
• How to manage remote sales teams

Like always we will be providing an action plan for you at the end so that you can jump into implementation immediately.

Key Issues 

Managing a sales team is no easy task. You have the potential to either make or break your sales FORCE.

Before discussing how to lead and manage sales teams, we need to know WHAT MAKES A SALES TEAM SUCCESSFUL? So the key here is to how to take your team from an average team towards a world renown sales force?

What You Need to Know 

Well successful Sales Teams:

Are results oriented and every member is meeting their targets – go back to the previous episode where we talked about sales metrics 

• Successful Sales teams are also passionate
• They Test & Measure
• They believe in Teamwork
• Leadership provides them with ongoing training, coaching, and personal development initiatives
• They understanding customer needs and their target market
• They are service delivery focused and deliver on their promises
• Self-Motivated
• They have excellent listening skills 
• They are driven by the company goals
• They follow through and follow-up
• They ask quality of questions 
• They know their product / service very well 
• They have confidence & beliefs

How relevant are these points on us?
Rate yourself and your team against those points. 10 is absolutely world-class 
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How do you rate yourself compared to them?
Where would you want to be?

Managing a sales team is no easy task. You have the potential to either make or break your sales FORCE.

What You Need to Do 

Step 1: Learn the differences between sales team models like the island and the assembly line. Decide which one better serves your clients and grow your business at the same time.

Step 2: Find and hire the best team members, head hunt the champions and the heroes. Don’t settle for the average and the non-experienced. Think about it this way; if you are the owner of a top football / or soccer team with unlimited budget, would you hire Leonel Messi or me? It’s a game and you want to win it… When hiring sales teams don’t worry about how they would fit into the company culture. Instead focus on their attitude: their empathy, focus, responsibility, optimism, and drive.

Step 3: Once you hire now give them the ongoing training they need, set inspiring examples, and create a sales onboarding process that works. Provide them with access to on demand learning tools and track their progress. Reward the ones who achieve more in learning and self-actualization. You can even hold weekly lunch-n-learns where everyone has to prepare a topic to present to the team. By learning you will teach and by teaching you will learn.

Step 4: Develop powerful sales strategies with your business coach, take it and challenge it with the team. Get their feedback and buy in and then set clear goals and metrics with them. Remember to keep it simple. 

Step 5: Know what needs to be tested and measured. Buy the tools needed to analyze your metrics and provide regular, consistent feedback. Constantly stay in communication with your team using tools like Slack, Trello, or Clickup.

Step 6: Motivate and reward great results and great behavior at the same time. Draft a reward and recognition system. Keep it simple again… and while at it encourage the team to get the learning they need to do the job, and don’t forget to plan for having fun with your team. Brainstorm fun ideas, outings, and social events that you would like to do with the team.

Step 6: If you have a remote team, it’s important to invest in technology and security. What IT hardware and software do you need to invest in? List them and get help from your IT experts to streamline their use. Train your team on using them and trust the professionals you hire and build healthy team relationships.

Finally, check out a few sales management books to take advice from industry leaders. Read 5 to 10 pages a day. This is a book a month and 12 books a year. All the knowledge is in the book. Research some platforms for growing your knowledge as a leader and enroll in a few sales team management courses. Give https://www.goodsession.me a try.

Here are a few sales management books that can help you on your sales management journey.

1. Cracking the Sales Management Code by Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana.
2. To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink
3. The Accidental Sales Manager: How to Take Control and Lead Your Sales Team to Record Profits by Chris Lytle
4. Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com by Aaron Ross

Another great model for coaching is the TGOROW model. The TGOROW model provides a funnel for the coaching dialogue, allowing you a process by which to take any person with a subject to provide clarity, encourage accountability and responsibility, raise awareness and establish actions and commitment.

T stands for the Topic: What do you want to discuss?
G for goals: What do you want to achieve?
O for Outcome: What do you want to achieve in this session?
R for Reality: What is happening now?
The second O for Options: What could you do? And the 
W for Way Forward: What will you do tomorrow?


Shows 

• Previous: You Are The Brand
• Next: Season 4 Episode 8 - The Loyalty Journey - How to build the strategies needed to plan, build, and maintain customers, etc.

 
Written by Gaby Awad 
 
As a Business and Executive Coach, Gaby helps business owners, leaders, and teams grow and achieve their goals through alignment, business re-education, coaching, and mentoring. He has more than 25 years of experience in executive positions and transforming businesses. Currently, he is the Franchise Owner of ActionCOACH in Lebanon and in this position he also coaches Business Owners, CEOs and other top level executives. Gaby hold international accreditations as certified coach from ActionCOACH, Marshall Goldsmith, The John Maxwell Team, and Jeffrey Gitomer Sales Academy. Gaby is also the founder of Good Session Coaching,  an online learning platform for executives and business professionals where leaders can go through self-paced learning.

You can connect with Gaby on any of his seriously social platforms
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Send an email: gabyawad@actioncoach.com

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