How Does Technology Impact Your Sales Team?
I've gone out with door-to-door sales teams, done blitzes, and knocked with roofing companies all over the place. It is always very troublesome to me when I see that they don't have some sort of knocking app, a program, a good CRM, or something like that. This is a big deal because if you have no scoreboard, whatsoever, who wins day in and day out? Who wins? I'm not saying that there always needs to be a winner. The ultimate competition that is happening daily is your rep versus your rep. If you give them no tracking, if you give them no way to know where they stand, how do they know if they've done better today than they did yesterday?
SALES IS A NUMBERS GAME
No matter how talented you are, you only have so much time. How you spend that time will directly translate into success. For instance, if I knock more hours than you today, I'm going to knock more doors than you today. If I knock more doors than you today, I'm going to talk to more people than you will today. If I talk to more people today, then I'm going to make more sales than you today. Considering that we're basically the same level of sales person, this is a formula that will always be true, right? If you don't give them a scoreboard where they can actually measure these metrics, you're doing them a huge, huge disservice.
SHOW YOUR ROOKIE THE LIGHT
Now, when a rookie is first getting started, you need to do everything you can to help them see the light. There's a lot of turnover in this industry right in the beginning because, as you know, onboarding and training are, typically, very poor. So, for example, in my first week as a rookie, how many sales am I probably going to make? Zero? One or two? Most likely, not very many and that will make me feel very discouraged. Especially if I'm hanging my hat on sales as the only metric of “was today successful at all?” You should realize, that is putting a lot of pressure on getting a sale. As a sales rep, if I don't see the sale, well, then I guess I'm not meant to do this. I guess I need to move on. I don't see the light. Does that make sense? But, when you have some sort of app like Canvass, Spotio, or Sales Rabbit, you are able to say to your rookie, “look at all of your hard work today. No, you didn’t get the sale. But look. You knocked 119 doors and you have some follow-up appointments tomorrow. That's awesome.” So now, as a sales rep, I don't feel like today was a total failure because I didn't hang everything on getting a sale. As an experienced rep, you can play the long game. You know how knocks turn into leads, into sales, and into referrals. You see the snowball and you can weather through, right? But a rookie cannot. Make sure that you set them up where they can quantify, see their hard work each day and feel a lot more motivated because of it.
DEVELOP YOUR CULTURE
Improve your company culture and values. This one is overlooked because leadership tends to think that it just doesn't matter or assume their people already know what the company stands for. Owners and managers may say, “I've had conversations with them. They see me do business. They know who I am. They know what I'm about.” And, while that may be true, that's not scalable. It's not scalable. And, it's definitely not going to activate the prey drive within your reps. They need to feel galvanized. They need to feel like there is a legitimate banner or flag that is being hung at the company that represents what they are all about. They want to feel the brand. For example, when they see your name on a piece of gear that they are all wearing, it makes them feel like being part of a team. Does that make sense?
POLICY, STRUCTURE, & PRACTICE
Alright. So, how do you improve company culture and values in a meaningful way that isn't just a bunch of bullshit? Because, typically, it ends up being bullshit a lot of the time. You may have talked about it once or twice but then, you know, you never revisit the conversation. You never talk about your values ever again. If I were to walk into a sales meeting and ask your team, “what are your company values and why?” How many of your sales reps could confidently spout those off and understand what's important about them? Well, here’s one way you can make this happen. Take an audit of your values and how your employee incentives match up to those values. Are you rewarding and incentivizing the behavior that reinforces your company values? If you want to really make it stick, go beyond the core value statements. Intertwine your values into company policy, structure, and practice. Determine which behaviors actually back up your principles and work them into the daily operations of your company by offering incentives and rewards for your employees.
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This article is an excerpt, Part 4 from the live presentation with Jake Bennington at Win the Storm 2021. Watch the full presentation by clicking on the button below.
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