Have you developed a plan that drives your high performing sales team? Listen in to learn how Marketing Leadership can create a vision and a plan in collaboration with Sales Leadership to develop the most successful high-performance sales teams. Bernie’s guest on this episode is Meshell Baker, Director of Global Sales Development at the National Association of Sales Professionals and the founder and spokesperson for the Women of Sales & Influence.
The National Association of Sales Professionals (NASP) is the largest online community of sales professionals in the world. NASP is dedicated to empowering dynamic leaders, teams, and professionals to be focused on value first and provide them the tools and resources to succeed.
Listen as Bernie and Meshell, discuss the six steps to building high performing sales teams through a 45-day challenge series that empowers sales professionals to develop their conscious competent approach to selling.
The Role of Marketing in Supporting High Performing Sales Teams
The role of marketing has been evolving rapidly. In episode 246 Darryl Praill, CMO of VanillaSoft discussed the importance of helping sales make their number. It’s imperative for marketing and sales to team up to build a vision and a plan to help sales teams be successful. Read on to learn the six steps and the role of marketing in helping to build great sales teams.
The First Step In Creating High Performing Sales Teams is Vision
The first step in empowering a high performing sales team is to build a foundation with a vision of success. The sales team must have a clear goal in mind to maximize their interactions with their customers. This first step focuses and directs the sales mindset in pursuit of a greater goal.
Marketing’s role is to provide clarity on the company’s brand promise so the sales team can build their vision around their customer’s success.
The Power Of Breaking Old Habits
The next and most important step involves analyzing and breaking down current habits to cull out those habits that do not align with the vision. Once the old habits have been broken down, new and stronger habits must be built that better align with the vision. The marketing message must support the creation of new habits to develop conscious competent sales professionals. They should know what their responsibility is, how to execute, and be empowered and encouraged to practice, practice, practice.
Building New Habits
Now it’s time to focus on building new habits that align with the vision. This is what is meant as becoming a conscious competent. This point of the 6 step program is around the 21-day mark. Sales professionals need a lot of marketing support to enable them to use new approaches in order for them to become conscious competents.
Disciplined Imagination: Capturing The Mind Of The Buyer
The human mind lives in the past, present, and future. The best sales professionals are able to capture the imagination of the customer by asking the right questions and help the customer imagine the desired outcome. Disciplined imagination is the conscious act of asking the right questions at the right time and embracing the art of storytelling to guide the customer on their journey to success. The role of marketing is to provide the resources for the sales team to know which questions to ask in each situation and equip them with relevant stories that can align with the customer’s path.
Model The Beliefs Of Others To Strengthen The Sales Message
A high performing sales and marketing team will look to model the beliefs and practices of other highly successful people. The goal for each sales professional is to apply their own style to the modeled belief to create their own unique approach while leveraging a consistent message that represents your brand’s promise to the customer.
Leaders should empower their sales teams to connect with their why and the experiences that make them unique so that their approach falls within their strengths and aligns with the vision. Marketing should provide vaulted content that is branded and relevant to the buyer’s journey, but customizable to empower the sales teams to play to their individual strengths.
Operate In Intelligent Risk And Become Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
The messaging is solidified, the processes are in place, training has been completed, and the sales professional is prepared and confident in their role. Success is the ability to confidently adapt in any circumstance and take intelligent risks in any situation. The messaging provided by the marketing team should allow the sales professional to adapt as needed to confidently respond to any objection while taking intelligent risks.
Upon completion of these 6 steps across the 45-day challenge, the team has been prepared for success and it is up to them to continue to practice and develop their skills and mindset. The partnership between sales and marketing is a necessary ongoing process that fosters the creation of the best high performing sales teams. In fact, 91% of top performing sales organizations collaborate well with marketing.
If your Marketing team is looking to make a measurable contribution to your sales team’s success, focus on building a collaborative relationship with Sales.
