Scary Sales Goals? How Sales Leaders Can Ensure Sales Growth Each Year
The business has had success; that’s evident by your sales results and the fact that you have a growing sales team. But your CEO expects growth year over year. That’s why the sales plan shows growth. The CEO believes the growth expectations are fair. You know you can hit the targets, but it's going to be hard work for you and the sales team.
In order to be successful in the upcoming selling year, your sales plan is going to ask the team to do something differently. To produce results that maybe haven’t been seen before. I’ve never worked with a successful sales team that didn't have to pivot from one year to the next. Some reps are going to have targets bigger than they could ever imagine. You’re going to ask them to change what they do and how they do it, every day. Here are some typical changes your plan may include:
Higher sales targets
New, unproven offerings with aggressive goals
Restructuring of teams and roles
Changes to the team’s makeup: people we care about leave; new, unknown members will or have already joined the team
Expect the sales team to resist. The resistance you will face is not to the plan but to having to act differently. Change can create chaos. It’s uncomfortable. Your team will resist change because it requires them to do something differently. Resistance isn't to an idea; it's to doing things differently.
This is why you must lead your sales plan positioning with the mission of the company. A mission gives meaning to the pain and sacrifice required from the salespeople.
Leading a sales team is hard work and requires a certain moxie to overcome challenges and adversities. Pain, sacrifice, challenges, and adversity aren’t attractive characteristics of a job opportunity — unless you know and are passionate about the mission of the company. Mission is bigger than the individual. Mission creates community by bringing together a collective of people committed to solving the same problem. Mission put man on the moon. It’s won super bowls, created social change and has grown countless companies.
Most sales professionals want to sell something noble — an offering, and a company, that elevates the significance of the work and their individual contribution to solving a problem. A problem that's relevant to them. The nobility of the company’s mission makes the pain and sacrifice worth it. Enduring the struggles with a team that’s committed to the same cause is more powerful than any motivation a sales leader can create. A clear mission is a sales leader’s tool to move a team forward in the face of adversity.
Answer the following questions:
How clearly can you and your team articulate the mission of your company?
How many of your teammates are here with you primarily because they believe in the mission versus because they love the compensation plan?
Can you reference real-life examples of your company’s mission delivering success to your accounts?
What are you ultimately here to do?
Knowing the answers to these questions is an essential responsibility of leadership.
To properly position and lead your sales team, you and the team have to fall in love with the mission. Too many leaders fall in love with the plan, but are shocked when the sales team balks.
For more information on how to position a sales plan for success read this free PDF.
