working with my clients, I have had the opportunity to look behind the curtain at these companies and see how they utilize their customer relationship management (CRM) systems, how they develop their sales funnels and marketing, and how they approach the hiring, training, and on-boarding of new salespeople. I’ve seen how companies struggle to implement tracking systems and get the team to use them, and then how the team reacts to various tactics to get them to utilize a system. I’ll share these insights.
Outside of the business arena and prior to my work with sales teams, I was deeply involved in a religious cult, being raised inside the group from birth and breaking free from its control as a young adult. I won’t go into the details, as that would be another book entirely!
So why do I mention this detail of my life here? Despite all of the wrongs of the cult, it did give me an insight into how people’s beliefs about themselves and their environment can be shaped. I was able to witness the power of belief in the daily actions of people. I learned how to overcome and change deeply held habits – not only my own, but also those of the people in my group. The cult was a gigantic laboratory of human nature. I learned a lot about motivation tools outside of money or the threat of unemployment, as the entire group, including the leadership team, were volunteers who chose to be involved.
I spent over 10,000 hours voluntarily knocking on people’s doors and giving them the cult’s sales pitch. I also recruited, trained, and mentored many others to do the same. I spent many thousands more hours in one-on-one coaching sessions.
In many ways, building these “religious sales teams” and managing their activity was much harder than building a team for a company. I wasn’t paid, and neither did I have any money to offer converts. To join the Cult Team, you’d be an unpaid volunteer, give up many of your family and friends, and live as an outsider! This was not an easy sell, but I admit I had a pretty good conversion rate! Many of the lessons I learned as I witnessed human nature have shaped the insights I have utilized in helping companies find, train, coach, and mentor a top-performing sales team. While I rejected the teachings of the cult, I believe this experience has given me some unique insights into what it takes to create a winning sales team or to turn an underperforming one around.
In this book, I will describe all of the key areas that a Sales Boss should be focused on in performing at the highest level and building the best team. First and foremost, if you want to have a superstar sales team that wins consistently and demolishes the competition, then YOU as the sales manager must be a superstar. No superstar works for an average boss for long. Are you a little fluffy? Or are you game-ready? We’ll look at mindsets and specific actions that must be taken consistently for top results.
As you read, mark up the pages identifying the ideas that you can apply. When you read something familiar, the question should not be “Have I heard this before?” It should be “How good have I been at applying this?” When you read something new or something that you might initially disagree with, ask yourself: “What would this mean to my results if it were indeed true?” You might also ask: “What makes me disagree with this statement?” Perhaps you’ll discover that it is some past experience with a previous manager or your personality preference that is causing you to dismiss the suggestion.
I would recommend that before you dismiss an idea or thought I’ve presented here you fully understand the “why” behind your dismissal. I know that not all of the thoughts I’ve presented here will serve every manager in every type of company in every situation. I do know, however, that what I will describe works when skillfully applied. I won’t have accomplished my goal unless something in these pages makes you uncomfortable or makes you acknowledge that you could be better than you are today as a leader of your team. I believe that real change only happens with a bit of discomfort. In some instances, I will give you actual wording and phrasing so that you can visualize yourself having effective conversations with the people on your team. Adapt the phrasing to suit your personality, but first make sure you understand the impact the words are intended to have as you craft your unique style.
As you take on the role of the Sales Boss, you will be leading the sales team, but remember which team you are on. You are a member of the management team. You can’t just be “one of the guys” on the sales team. A good relationship with every department head and other managers will be essential to achieving the best results. Because tools utilized in the field of sales change rapidly and to offer you additional resources, we’ve created a place for you to download these tools. Please take a moment to register at www.jonathanwhistman.com/thesalesboss.
Let’s get started.
CHAPTER 2
The Importance of Sacred Rhythms
I love jazz and think the jazz club is a perfect metaphor for a top-performing sales culture. Think about what happens when you enter a great jazz club. In fact, imagine going to the club after a hard day’s work when you aren’t in the mood to have a good time. What happens? Isn’t it true that before long you are tapping your foot to the rhythm? Pretty soon your body starts to sway, a smile lights up your face, and as you look around the room, everyone is moving in time to the music. Usually you end up staying longer than you intended!
What’s happened? The rhythm has infected you and you can’t resist. The beat tells you what’s happening and pulls you along for the ride. The beat also informed the members of the band of the structure, and so a great jazz ensemble can allow an individual musician to riff over the top of the beat, adding his individual gift of expression, and then land back with the rest of the musicians right on the beat. As the musician takes off on his journey of notes, you can feel the rest of the musicians falling in line behind to support the beauty, and the audience relishes each surprising note. A great performance always takes you on a journey, even when you enter the club “not in the mood.”
This is what you are striving for when you build a great sales culture. You create an environment with enough motivational power that when a new member joins the team he or she is infected with the rhythm of your team and can’t resist getting in sync with the group. It is almost effortless. New members can express their unique talents “riffing” over the top and adding their gifts, but in the end landing right on the beat of the team. The rest of the company supports them and effortlessly integrates them into the team’s successes. You create an environment that carries even the seasoned salespeople through the times when they are not in the mood to perform at their best. Does this describe your sales culture today? Or are you more like a grade school band struggling to find the beat?
I’ve seen sales organizations that have rhythm, and you can see the transformative effect it has on people. I was interviewing a saleswoman inside of one such company and she said with excitement: “There is an energy inside the building as the month draws to a close. Everyone just seems alive with the certainty that we’ll exceed the sales target, just as we do every month. You can’t walk through the halls without noticing the tempo.” That’s magic.
If you were to walk through the halls of this company, you’d notice large TV screens with all of their sales results by individuals being continually updated for everyone to see. You would find screens that highlight which customers they’d recently lost to competitors and who were on a win-back list. This team didn’t like to lose, and they didn’t often lose as a result.
Imagine walking into this company as a new salesperson. What would you be thinking? You would instantly know that you were about to play on a great team and would perform better as a result. Any smugness you had about being a star player at your last company would disappear in your desire to prove that you deserve a spot on this A-team. This is the environment you will design for your team when you are a Sales Boss. It makes everything easier.
It’s all in the rhythm. What rhythms have you established for your team that inform them about how the game is played at your company? A great Sales Boss has well-established “Sacred Rhythms.”
What do I mean by sacred? One typically thinks of sacred in a religious context, but the word means that we hold something as highly valued, deserving of respect or devotion. To have Sacred Rhythms within your sales department, you must have established rituals that the