Unit 5: Sales Teams
It may be helpful to look at your career from a team member and sales management perspective. At most companies, sales staff are part of a team. A hiring manager probably recruited you to work in your new position, and you will likely participate in sales training. Management will use various motivational approaches to engage you in the team. Before you begin your sales career, you should understand these dynamics that will likely guide your work efforts.
Eventually, you may be interested in accepting a sales management position. In this unit, we explore how to be a good team member and how to lead a sales team. We present some ideas of the skills you need and the roles you will fill in a leadership position.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- describe how teams function in an organization;
- identify the skills needed to communicate effectively as part of a sales team;
- articulate the dynamics at work in conflict;
- recognize the elements in the process of problem-solving as a team;
- articulate how salespeople are recruited;
- recognize appropriate compensation levels for different sales positions;
- articulate the role of training in developing salespeople;
- explain motivational strategies used in the management of salespeople;
- explain how to give constructive feedback; and
- distinguish different approaches to leading a sales team.
5.1: Working as a Sales Team Member
We often think of sales as a solitary position, but at most companies, you will likely be part of a team. This involves working with others and an element of competition. Being a good team member requires excellent communication skills, navigating conflict, and a problem-solving approach.
Before we jump in, read this summary of some dynamics at work in any sales team.
5.2: Communicating Well as a Team Member
When working in a professional environment, good communication skills are a must. This is especially true when working as part of a sales team! In this section, we explore general advice and tips for developing relationships in the work environment that translate well to being a good team member.
Watch this video on how to develop practices that build good professional relationships. Consider the impact of building and maintaining good and positive relationships with your work colleagues.
Watch this video on a more successful approach for talking with your colleagues. Think of ways to practice these skills with your teammates and customers. Concise communication can make you a good leader.
Watch this video, which builds on the concept of being concise in your communication practices. Clarity is a second component that will help you develop a robust set of skills for working with your teammates. Practicing clear communication can help you converse with your customers in addition to your coworkers.
Listen to this conversation on how you can lead from your position on the team. The speakers suggest a powerful way you can contribute to your work environment.
5.3: Conflict Management
The ability to navigate conflict can create and maintain a positive communication climate within your team. In this unit, we define conflict and explore different approaches for helping find a resolution. When managed carefully, conflict can build positive growth and development. At the end of the unit, we explore constructive framing and transition, adopting a problem-solving approach as our perspective.
How can we manage conflict in the professional environment to develop a positive climate? Read this text, which presents communication tools to use when we confront differences of opinion.
What considerations should we make when we face conflict in the workplace? This text explains how viewing alternatives to the methods we typically employ to resolve conflict can be instructive.
Watch this presentation on the potential conflict unlocks in our relationships when we learn how to manage disagreement. Canfield describes his VOCAB method for approaching conflict, which involves vulnerability, ownership, communication, acceptance, and boundaries.
5.4: A Problem Solving Approach
We ended our conflict discussion with descriptions of how conflict can benefit us when we approach it with care. We also previewed another way to approach tense, complex, and potentially contentious situations – a problem-solving focus. In this section, we will get a better sense of what it means to use a problem-solving approach.
Read this text, which explains the problem-solving process to help manage the challenges you and your team face. This approach to conflict resolution can be a game-changer!
Watch this video on how to adopt a problem-solving approach. This approach is one of many options, but the key here is that we become solution-minded.
Watch this video on the SPACE problem-solving tool. The steps include building a stage to contain and display the problem, populating the stage with accurate, relevant data and information, arranging your data according to what you can control (your "what is state"), choosing actions you can perform to alleviate the problem (your "could be" state), and executing or committing to a plan. The most valuable part of this technique is making problems and issues visible to create a collaborative work environment built on problem-solving and teamwork.
5.5: Managing Sales Professionals
Those who excel as salespeople and valuable team members may be able to move into management positions. How would you perform as a sales team leader based on your previous work experience? What are your skills and strengths? What type of leadership or managerial approaches would you use? What skills and knowledge should you develop now or during your sales career so you become a qualified sales team leader?
As you consider these questions, let's take a look at some of the aspects of team management you will be in charge of as part of management. We will start by looking at the process for assembling teams and offering appropriate compensation to your sales professionals. Then we will look at how to provide training, evaluation, and coaching to your team members, and lastly, we will explore some of the basics of leadership and motivational strategies.
Let's talk about how to create a successful sales team. How can you identify the individuals who will work best on your team? While we often lack the authority to choose our team members, when we do, knowing how to choose the right people is critical.
Read this text on how hiring managers recruit sales professionals. How would you approach this process?
Watch this video on how to build a powerful team to help achieve your sales goals.
5.6: Salary Ranges and Averages
As you add members to your team, you should know how salespeople are compensated for their work. Understanding these practices gives a full picture of the sales context and helps you know when you and your team members are compensated fairly.
This short article outlines how to recruit salespeople you want on your team using attractive and fair compensation models.
This blog post asks essential questions about sales professional compensation with commissions and salaries.
5.7: Training, Coaching, and Evaluating Salespeople
Training, coaching, and evaluation are important aspects of developing your team's performance. Training is the basic starting point. Companies that fail to invest in good training tend to run into problems when team members become frustrated or make wrong choices because their role is unclear and confusing. After the initial training, proper coaching and evaluation methods are critical to building and developing a high-performing team.
There are several approaches to the evaluation process. You may employ a more traditional evaluation model or adopt a method that looks at what it means to coach your team. As you work through the material in this section, pay attention to the different options. What do they require of you as a leader? What are the potential costs and benefits of each style?
Listen to this conversation on coaching and some key ideas that emanate from a coaching perspective.
When evaluating others, think about how you will share your positive and negative assessments with them and how they will react to your feedback. This article focuses on giving and receiving criticism. It offers some dos and don'ts and things to consider when preparing for a feedback session.
Finally, let's talk about motivating your team. As you train your employees, coach them, provide feedback, and evaluate their performance, remember that, at their core, these activities can motivate or deflate your sales personnel.
A driven, motivated, imaginative sales team will do wonders. However, a defeated, uninspired team will not get you where you want to be. They may destroy your team's morale or cause members to leave altogether. Motivating others is a critical skill for anyone managing a team.Listen to this conversation to explore ways to become a more motivational leader.
5.8: Leading a Sales Team
Taking on a leadership role may be a dream you have been actively working toward. Or, you may be assigned a position that requires you to adopt leadership skills. Either way, learning to be a good, effective leader who achieves their goals is a robust skill set. In this final segment of our course, we explore leadership basics and different approaches to leading a team.
Let's begin by exploring teamwork and the basics of leadership. This article offers a solid introduction to this aspect of professional life.
Watch this video, which helps you ask the right questions about the type of leader you want to be.
Watch this presentation on how good leaders inspire their coworkers. How do these leaders work? Remember the advice we have studied throughout this course, such as the importance of ethical leadership, communicating clearly with your team and customers, building relationships, and adopting a problem-solving approach. Your colleagues are watching and eager to be inspired.