Episode 139, How do you make Winning look easy?

Simplify Your Sales and Business meetings. Lisa Thal is an Author, Speaker, and Business Coach. She has over 35 years of marketing, sales, and leadership experience. She wrote the book "Three Word Meetings."  Lisa coaches leaders on simplifying sales and business meetings with fun and interesting 3-word  topics to get your sales team motivated and inspired.

 

Episode 139, How do you make Winning look easy? Work For It!

 

We are days away from the Super Bowl! And Who Dey Nation - The Cincinnati Bengals are in the big game. The last time our city was this excited and united was when the Reds won the World Series in 1990, thirty-two years ago. 

 

The Bengals' last time in the Super Bowl was 1989 when they played against another Joe - Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers. Thirty-three years later, a new Joe has emerged -Cool Joe Burrow. Along with Evan McPherson and Ja'Marr Chase. After each win, there have been words shared to describe this team.

You know I love three-word phrases for apparent reasons, but there have been many shared: Why Not Us! It IS us! It's Our Time!

 

Well, in addition to those three-word phrases are three words that have defined their season: Worked For It!

 

Sure many of the games came down to seconds on the clock. Money Mac Pherson- kicking a game-winning field goal to advance us or the defense stepping up big and creating a takeaway. Again, they Worked For It! 

 

And now they have loyal fans so Worked up and excited that grown men and women (count me as one of them) are crying over these come from behind victories with seconds left on the clock and the possibility of winning Super Bowl LVI!  

 

What can we learn from the Cincinnati Bengals team, a team a year ago only won four games and is now heading to the Super Bowl? They believe in teamwork, focus, dedication, hard work, resilience. The key is that they don't just say it; they put it to practice!

 

I started to think about the team I have the privilege of coaching and how I could apply what I learned from the Bengals to create the best game plan for my team's success. 

 

Here are a few things I thought I would share.

 

Prepare for each game - Prepare for each call. 

Each week the team prepares for its opponents. They know their strengths and areas of opportunity.

What skills do you and your team need to perform at the highest level?

As a Coach, have you prepared your team with the knowledge necessary to have a successful call? 

We must Define the Goals. Make our objectives clear. 

The Structure calls. 

Know our Value.

Do the Research. 

Visualize Success.

 

Practice for the big call.

Practice makes perfect! Or, at a minimum, practice prepares us. If you don't create the time to practice your first call, your presentation meeting, how can you expect to win by winging it? You learn by being in the field with your team on calls. If you cannot join them on the call, you can practice and role-play the call before meeting with the client. You can support and coach your team to be better each game. As a manager or leader, you have to design the best game plan for your team and each player by understanding their strengths. You, too, are trying to create game-like situations. If you do this enough times, your seller will gain more confidence to perform at a higher level.

 

Accountable.

In Football, each player is accountable for themselves and the team. Sales accountability is both a "how" and "what ." It is how you, as a sales manager, work with your team to stay on the same page regarding expectations and sales goals. And it is what allows reps to take ownership of their activities, efforts, and performance.

 

How do you hold your sales team accountable?

 

Set and Communicate Clear Expectations and Goals

To be accountable, salespeople need clear and consistent instruction on their responsibilities. Consistency and clarity in sales expectations are essential for maintaining motivation and accountability across the sales team.

 

Establish your expectations individually and as a team. Set specific sales goals for your team to get buy-in and create a healthy sense of competition and camaraderie.

 

With clear expectations set and your team focused on success, there should be no excuses for not reaching goals or making progress. You want a team that has resilience.

 

If you want your team to succeed, you must recognize their successes. In Football, someone gets the game ball for making a play that impacted the win.

 

The Salespeople I know are very competitive. In fact, according to a recent study, about 55% of salespeople prefer competition. Leverage your team's competitiveness by making sales numbers and activity across the team completely transparent.

 

Tracking performance is a great way to improve sales team accountability. It gives you the data to better understand where you are winning and perhaps need additional practice or a new game plan to win the sale. You could do this by showcasing a scoreboard or leaderboard (and other performance graphs) on a screen prominently displayed in the office or shared each week.

 

Here is what I know for sure—every member on your team wants to contribute and be a part of something bigger than themselves. They want to get better on each call because progress equals happiness. It does not matter if you are new to sales or have been in the game for a long time. You can make an impact today. It's about how you Prepare, Practice, and hold yourself accountable.

 

More importantly, you have to Work For It!

 

Learn more about Simplifying Your sales meetings using 3-word topics at http://www.threewordmeetings.com .