What Makes a Successful Sales Team

You can read articles in business magazines or you can go to business seminars, they will all tell you pretty much the same thing. I'm not saying that my ideas are anything new or revolutionary, but they are fresh and simple. Simplicity can be an amazing tool in the world of business and especially in this market, it is often overlooked. When you get through all the "professional" ideas and expert lingo, there are basically five things that make a good sales team or a bad sales team. My five "things" are knowledge, trust, faith, respect, and team. I will dive into each of these in depth and explain what I feel each one means and what each one brings to the sales table.

Lets start with knowledge, this is a basic and a must for any sales team and any sales person. The knowledge of your products is essential as clients are looking for someone who can answer their questions while one of their clients is sitting right in front of them. Also a knowledge of your team mates and their capabilities, their strengths and weaknesses, and their breaking points. Knowing what your team mates are capable of is a great tool to use, to be able to know exactly where to go in a moments time to get an answer is a very powerful tool. Knowing your team members strengths and weaknesses is important as well, you need to step up when you know someone is struggling or be able to ask for help no matter how silly you might feel. What I am seeing in sales people today is a know-it-all attitude, where they are too important to ask for help, you may as well kiss your sales career goodbye. The worst thing about sales people is those who don't listen and those who don't take criticism, you should always want to learn and always want to better yourself. Knowing your team mates breaking points is essential as well, if someone on your team just can't get along with a customer and has just about had it, you need to step up and help them, maybe take over the calls or just give them a fresh perspective on the customer. Basically knowledge is a broad statement and it cover a lot of areas but it is vital. Know your products and know the people around you. Basically it comes down to caring about your team mates, take an interest and they will take an interest in you.

Trust is such a big word and is used in our every day lives like the word love is used. We say "trust" and most of us have never actually stopped to think about what it means. Trust is such an easy concept but an extremely hard reality. If you don't trust your team mates with your life, well maybe not life but with your financial future you need some help building that relationship. We as Americans spend what, about 45% of our time at work, at least if you are in sales you do. That tells me that you better trust the people you work with, if you don't you don't have a prayer to be successful. Let's flip the coin, you have to be trusted as well. If you do things to your team mates that make them trust you less, you are in trouble and you have to stop this immediately. Don't let your team down, always keep your word, if you say you'll do something, do it and do it well. Trust is contagious and can build quickly but it can also collapse quickly so don't take if for granted.

Faith is my next "thing" that creates a good sales team. Faith goes right along with trust but they are a little different in a few ways. First of all faith to me is having faith that your team members will go through with what they are supposed to. I guess the main difference between faith and trust is that trust is more internal, where faith is more external. What I mean is that, you can trust a guy to be honest and not throw you under the bus, where you can have faith that your operations crew is going to process the order and get it delivered in the appropriate way. You might say "the operations crew is not part of the sales team", yes they are, you are all a team. You represent your company as a whole, you back the operation crew and the operation crew backs the sales team, it doesn't work any other way. If you can have faith that everything is getting done, your confidence will rise and you will become a much more successful sales person.

We finally get to my favorite, respect. Respect is such a powerful tool and we don't even realize it. If you don't respect someone on your team or someone on your team doesn't respect you, the end is near. This comes into play alot in the management team as well. If you have sales managers, product managers, or even general managers that do things like take a three hour lunch, you're not going to respect that. If your managers throw you under the buss, you can't respect them for that. Respect starts at the top and works its way down the ladder. Respect is a touchy subject because you have show respect sometimes even if you don't actually respect that person. This is a tough situation and one that's hard to work with. If you are a true asset to your company you can start to step outside the lines and express your lack of respect to management, but you have to have proof, don't just go in and start spouting off things without something to back it up with. Respect is funny because it's one of the most important for a successful sales team but one of the hardest to confront if it's not there. It shouldn't be that way but it's the truth and we all have to deal with it. Respect those who deserve it and if you can tell those who don't why. Easier said than done, I know.

My last one is team, and it's basically an overview of the whole thing. It's a cliche to compare sports teams with business teams but when it comes down to it, it really is true. I played college football and have spent my entire life in the sports arena. I have found it easy to relate sports to business. If one person is not doing their specific job it lets down the entire team. Or if someone is trying to make up for someone else's faults and not concentrating on their job, it hurts the team. Managers are often reluctant to use the sports cliche, but go ahead and use it in your sales career, the basics of team are the same no matter where you go or what you do. Become a strong team and you will dominate your market because most sales floors are divided, it's wrong and anyone who lets their sales team operate divided is an idiot. Managers who play favorites should be exiled to moron mountain and never let back in the business world again. There is nothing that will kill a team faster than a manager who lets a member of the team get away with murder. Become a team player and you will be noticed.

In closing, there are many things that make a good team and these are my five things. I know there are lots of ideas out there and I would love to hear them. Team is key and I just don't understand why some don't understand that.