Skilled sales representatives should easily achieve their own independent goals. But what sets genuinely great sales representatives apart is that they contribute to creating a culture of success. This results in a team that can rely on each other, which will increase not only revenues but also job satisfaction. Company culture can even ripple into personal areas of your employees’ lives.
Sales skills often focus on what gets done, whereas company culture focuses on how it gets done and in what environment. Sales leaders who give meaning to sales metrics can motivate and engage their staff, creating a successful culture.
Employees who understand the deeper meaning of their work have a sense that they are part of something bigger than a numbers game. Sales leaders can create a positive sales culture by connecting employees to the company’s mission, values, and beliefs. Top-quality performance is the natural result of a sales team that is aligned.
8 Steps for Creating a Culture of Success in Sales
Step 1: Train Your Leaders
A company culture of success starts at the top with its leaders and trickles down to its employees. Hire your leaders with these tips in mind and train them to exemplify the qualities you want to see in your sales representatives. This training on company culture should include your key players, such as your VP of sales, VP of HR, CEO, and CFO. Ongoing sales coaching should result in these individuals leading by example.
Step 2: Set Clear Goals and Expectations
The quickest way to kill your sales team’s motivation is to confuse them. Overly complex or vague goals will stop them in their tracks and leave them wondering which way to go. Simplify your goals and watch how they contribute to a positive sales culture in your company.
Clear goals are:
Specific. Easy-to-understand goals tied to distinct KPIs will directly motivate employee behaviors. No goal can be too specific.
Guiding. Employees need to know what is required of them. To help your sales representative succeed, provide clear instructions and achievable goals.
Concrete. Clear goals include a definition of what success looks like and what failure or falling short looks like. Concreteness gives employees a compass to follow.
Rewarding. What will happen when your sales representatives achieve the goals you’ve laid out? Both you and your employees should have a clear vision for the rewards, celebrations, and changes that will come from reaching a goal.
Step 3: Provide Regular Performance Feedback
To keep employees informed of their progress, give them personal and impactful feedback on their performance.
Providing your employees with feedback on where they can improve proactively will bring a spirit of empowerment to your organization’s sales culture. Employees who understand what they’re doing well and how they can shift their efforts for optimal results will grow to appreciate and even look forward to receiving feedback.
The toxic sales culture focuses too much on yearly reviews and ignores the importance of regular feedback. Don’t limit your feedback to yearly reviews. Make your company’s long-term goals relevant to shorter-term actions with monthly or, at least, quarterly reviews.
Step 4: Encourage Open Communication
Your sales representatives should also be able to give and receive advice on a peer level. This is a valuable skill that is often underdeveloped in sales professionals. Instead of feeling at ease offering their knowledge and expertise to others, they often hesitate, struggle with imposter syndrome, and fear backlash. On the other hand, employees can get defensive when a colleague offers them advice or questions them.
Tackle this part of your company culture from both sides. Encourage open communication and train your employees to approach opportunities for giving or receiving advice with an open mind. Advice is better received when an employee intends to support the receiver in doing their job more easily, efficiently, or effectively rather than criticizing and telling someone how to do their job.
You should assure your employees that on your sales team, advice is to be given and received graciously. When organizations foster trust and encourage collaboration, they can achieve goals faster.
Step 5: Recognize and Reward Success
A bit of friendly competition is a healthy part of a positive sales culture. To nurture this, sales leaders should look for opportunities to recognize, reward, and celebrate small and large successes. You might make a point to shout out employees who have made meaningful progress toward company goals, acknowledge ways that employees have taken initiative on your sales team in a monthly meeting, or offer bonuses and other financial means of gratitude for an employee’s hard work.
The more seen your employees feel, the more likely they are to contribute to your company culture actively. This practice can also help boost employee morale.
Step 6: Cultivate a Growth Mindset
When a sales leader approaches change with curiosity and courage, their team will follow suit. This is vital to inspiring agility in your sales representatives. Show them that taking risks and facing challenges head-on is valued in your company culture.
Without this acceptance of change and growth, employees will fear the new and uncertain. Since selling is repeatedly stepping into the unknown, sales representatives need an environment that encourages them to exercise resilience and actively strive to achieve. Notice, affirm, and celebrate how your employees show a growth mindset and contribute to creating a high-performance sales culture.
Step 7: Create Learning Opportunities
Sales representatives who are eager to learn are an asset to any sales team culture. These representatives are not complacent. An instinctual hunger drives them to improve themselves and those around them.
Developing your employees can be as simple as encouraging them to read quality sales and leadership books or as extravagant as sending your sales representatives to educational sales conferences. You can also think about using online education, courses, and platforms for training. Providing continual learning opportunities will increase your employee engagement and lead to a successful team.
Step 8: Hire According to Your Values
Start building your culture by building your team strategically. One way to do this is to assess candidates’ values to see if they match your company’s values. Aligned employees will automatically reinforce your company culture. A high-performing team is one that works towards a common goal.
Are you looking for culturally aligned candidates for your sales team? We can connect you with a global network of sales experts to find you the perfect fit. Contact us today to get your hiring process started.
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