As I continue a deep dive into Steve Siebold’s psychological performance/attitude training for sales teams, in this article I look at key questions that sales leaders can ask in order to determine the overall health of their sales team(s) as well as which direction they are headed in. On that note, here are some questions for you to consider regarding your sales teams:
- What percentage of your team is fully engaged?
- What percentage of your team is operating at their full potential?
- What percentage of your people have the right attitude?
- What percentage of your people are excuse makers?
For comparison purposes, top sales teams have a number that is 80% or higher on each of the first three questions, and an answer that is 20% or lower to the last question. If you’re looking at numbers below 80% in any of the first three questions, or a number above 20% on the fourth question, your team has some issues. If that’s the case, consider these follow-up questions:
1) How is this costing the team?
In other words, if less than 80% are fully engaged, operating at their full potential, have the right attitude and/or more than 20% are excuse makers, where and how is this costing your team?
2) Is this fair to the best performers on your team?
Is it fair for your top people to be in an environment of people who aren’t fully engaged, are operating at a fraction of their potential, have a bad attitude, or are making excuses? How do you think it affects their performance and what are the odds of them staying in that toxic environment?
3) What are the consequences of continuing down this path?
Is addition to these problems affecting the top performers, how else are these problems affecting everyone else at the company and the customers you serve? What are the current and long-term ramifications of that?
4) Does this put your job in jeopardy?
If your sales team keeps doing the same things with the same attitude and effort, and continues to get the same, or worse results, are you safe, or is this going to put your job at risk? As we know, problems not acted upon get worse, not better. With that in mind, what does the future look like a year, three years, or five years down the road if you keep doing the same things the same way?
Here are a couple additional questions to consider. First, is there anyone on your sales team that you know should not be on your sales team? Second, are there issues, other than people who should not be on your team, that are not being addressed?
If this is the case, ask the same four questions: how is this costing the team, is it fair to the top performers, what are the long-term consequences of not dealing with this/these, and do any of these issues put your job in jeopardy?
Look, no team is perfect. That’s one of the reasons why even the top teams are at 80% or higher on the three questions and 20% or lower on the fourth. Also, as things change constantly, you’re likely to run into an issue here and there. The reality, however, is that you know whether or not you have a problem or problems, and the truth is, most of the sales leaders reading this article do have some sort of problem somewhere. The only question is: will you deal with the issues? Perhaps a better question is can you deal with the issues, do you know how to solve them?
One final question: Do you know what percentage of your sales team is actively looking for another job right now? The answer might surprise you, especially if you have unaddressed issues. Would you like to know? Would you also like to know your percentages on the first four questions, what your real problems are, and find five or six eye-opening blind spots you’re not aware of? That’s one of the things that Steve and I do through our proprietary, extensive research process. If interested, go to: www.completeselling.com or email me: johnchapin@completeselling.com.
