“How do you motivate your people? You hire them that way!” he said.

I agree.

As sales managers, it’s not our job to motivate our salespeople. It IS our job to create an environment that kindles their fire rather than smothers it.

My Journey to a Successful Sales Team

My evolution as a sales-based entrepreneur is similar to the one I see many of our clients take.

I learned to become an effective salesperson by necessity. I launched my company with blood, sweat and tears, generating all of the initial revenue myself. I had to. There was no one else to do it.

As the company matured—and my tolerance for 80 hour weeks faded—I began to invest in systems and processes to make selling easier and more efficient, while also generating new revenue.

It was working.

Then, I realized I could train someone else to make sales for my company. What an idea!

I began hiring salespeople and taught them the systems and processes I had created.

But the new responsibility of finding, managing, and training a fledgling sales team came with its own set of challenges. Some people worked out fabulously, while others floundered. And maintaining those early successes required more and more effort.

Fortunately, I found Jack. He taught me that I had the answer all along. The same tools that had made selling more efficient could be applied to my new leadership role.

I got to work creating systems and processes for finding, managing and growing my sales team.

Before long, my efforts paid off. Not only was I freed of the annoying parts of scaling my team, but my company’s success began to sky-rocket!

Lesson learned:

Only when we create repeatable systems to find, measure, and grow our people, will our companies truly take off.

Three Keys to a Successful Sales Team

I’ve seen firsthand the dramatic impact that installing sales management processes can have on an entrepreneur and their growing company.

While each company must find their own blueprint for a culture that works, there are a handful of ideas and values that have been successful over and over again for our clients and here at Juicy Results. 

1. Communication

I really can’t stress communication enough. Unfortunately, it’s typically the area we overlook the most as leaders. I know I’ve been guilty of assuming my team knew exactly how things were going and what our strategy was on more than one occasion, only to later learn they were actually stressed and unsure about the current state of the company.

If we don’t have systems in place for maintaining regular communication with our teams, many of us will put it off far too long. For that reason alone, it must be on our calendars.

Decide what your communication rhythm will be on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly level. Then, put it on your calendar. Make those items recurring and untouchable.

As Jack and I discussed, communication is a lot like working out or eating healthy. Neglect either for too long and you’ll wake up with some unwanted inches on your waistline.

It’s a lot easier to maintain our bodies than to repair them. Our company’s culture is the same way.

If you don’t  keep up with your communication habits, you’ll end up with extra pounds of drama on your team.

You may be thinking:

That’s a lot of communication! What the heck should I be talking about?

That brings us to the second area of focus:

2. Metrics

We have a phrase we repeat around here a lot: Winners Keep Score.

I’ve found that top performers love to be measured, recognized and challenged. Sub-par performers hate to be measured and challenged. Sub-par performers hide under the cover of ambiguity and lack of clear goals that most companies operate with.

Some of the most healthy businesses I’ve seen look like an ever-evolving game to their people. Each role has a clear set of metrics and they know with absolute clarity what winning looks like on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis. Once you’ve defined these metrics and set goals for the company and each team, it’s your job to make sure everyone knows where you stand on a regular basis.

There are no sports or games that I know of where the scoreboard is hidden until the end of the game. Competitors want to win, and winners keep score.

For that reason, we help companies install scoreboards and dashboards in their CRM so that information about progress flows freely and in real time. We also teach sales leaders to recognize and reward every win they can.

What should you do when your people aren’t winning?

That brings us to the third area of focus:  

3. Behavior

I’m not talking about your team’s behavior. I’m talking about yours as a leader.

Real company culture is defined by two things that are 100% up to you: What you tolerate, and what you reward.

As Jack talks about in the interview, holding onto the wrong people is one of the fastest ways to demotivate and frustrate your top performers.

We talk a lot about rewards and recognition systems in the sales community because it’s fun and exciting to high five the team and give out bonuses when we’re winning.

But it’s equally important to have the same level of attention in place when our minimum standards are not being met.

Yes, your people will pay attention to who and what kinds of behaviors you reward. But I can assure you, even if it’s subconscious, your people and your clients know what you will tolerate as a leader, and they will act accordingly.

If you want to discover how we can help you build the kind of high performance sales culture that will attract fired-up, motivated salespeople and keep them burning bright for years to come, watch this video!

I know that’s frowned upon by the US government… but I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out on my illicit video game bootlegging career.

But I digress.

The thing was—and this is still true with modern disks today—if you tried to copy over a file that was larger than the disc could hold, the file simply wouldn’t transfer. Not the first part. Not the best part. None of it. It was all or nothing.

How does this relate to sales and marketing?

It might seem counter-intuitive, but our minds work the same way. We like to think we’re able to recall the most important details of a conversation or that we’ll remember everyone’s names from a party. But, I’m sure we can all relate to seeing someone a week after meeting them and realizing we have no idea what their name is or what we even talked about.

This is exaggerated at crowded events like parties or conferences because of the high number of interactions we have.

Our prospects experience the same thing when they’re actively shopping for a new vendor and pick up the phone to call three of five providers.

We may be walking around with a 1TB hard drive in our minds filled with all the reasons a prospect should do business with us. I mean, it’s pretty natural right? We’ve built a company or are selling a product we love, it’s our job to evangelize all the great things we do differently and better than the competition.

But our prospects may only have a floppy disk worth of space to store all the information we want to share. And why wouldn’t they? Our product or service is probably one of 15 problems problems they have to solve this month or quarter.

So here they are, with maybe 1.4MB of space, and we’re trying to download a 1TB program. No wonder we lose prospects on those first calls!

What should we do?

We need a program that perfectly fits the mental storage space that prospects show up with.

That’s where positioning comes in.

If you knew a prospect was only going to remember one thing about your product or service a week after your first meeting, what would you want it to be? And just in case I wasn’t clear, that’s all they’re likely to remember. Why not be intentional about it?

I think this is important for all businesses, but I’ve found it particularly powerful for companies who are in a highly competitive industry. In other words, it’s typical for buyers to call multiple vendors and review 3 – 5 options before making a decision.

In these situations, buyers want to quickly eliminate possibilities before spending too much time combing through details or setting up time-consuming interviews. Some buyers will simply make a “good enough” decision if a vendor seems to be the ideal solution for their company.

Your positioning is what the buyer will use to make these critical, up-front decisions.  

Be an Orange in a Sea of Apples

I like to tell my clients to be an orange in a sea of apples. Rather than trying to win over a prospect based on one or two features or pricing points, why not make it impossible for them NOT to hire you.

Your positioning can reshape their buying criteria in a way that makes you the obvious choice.

A prospect may come into a conversation thinking their decision should be based on some variable like “speed of delivery.” But when they leave your conversation understanding that success is all about renewal rates, you look way more valuable than the competition.

Let me give you an example of how some of my clients are doing this.

Here at Juicy Results, we’ve worked with a number of residential property managers all over the US. These are the firms you hire to manage your rental properties. You might think all property managers would use the same sales script and process, but that’s not true when you consider that each of them has their own positioning.

We have a client in Utah who is The Most Transparent Property Manager, another in Texas who is The Investors Choice for Professional Property Management, and a third in California who has The Most 5 Star Yelp Reviews.

Your positioning should be something that your competitors either can’t or won’t claim as their own. Something you can burn permanently onto their little mental floppy disc. To make it stick, you need to make sure your positioning is firmly installed before they leave.

Let’s talk about how you can do that in the first interaction.

Back to our example. If you were The Most Transparent Property Manager in Utah—a meaningful benefit to a prospect who is trusting you with investment properties—then you would want to make sure that radical transparency is a cornerstone of your branding. Every time a prospect sees, hears or interacts with your brand, you want that message reinforced.  

Perhaps you would answer the phone like this:

Hello! This is Jeremy with Boardwalk Realty & Management, the most transparent property manager in Utah. How can I help you today?

When pressed to explain how your services differ from the competition, you might reply with:

Boardwalk Realty & Management was created to give property owners the best home rental experiences possible. We believe transparency is the key to a keeping our customers happy and we’ve been doing that for over ten years.

Then you might list all the material business practices you’ve installed that deliver a radically transparent experience for the customer.

You might even ask the prospect to rate, on a scale of 1 – 10, how important transparency is to them when choosing a property management company. I mean, what would you say to a salesperson who asked you that? Would you tell them you’d prefer a vendor who likes to keep all decisions and financial reporting about your investment to themselves?! Of course not… but no one else in their market owns this position—only they do.

Being The Most Transparent Property Manager in Utah makes our client an orange in a sea of apples. Potential buyers will have a hard time ignoring them when choosing a property management company.

That’s the power of positioning. It creates more effective and successful sales conversations right from the get-go.

So, what’s your company’s position in the marketplace? How are you using it to strengthen your sales language?

As you think of ways you can make your competitors look like a sea of apples, here are a few things to consider about a great positioning statement.

1) Be Materially Different

Avoid overused arguments like “better quality” or “customer service”.

2) Be Meaningful to Your Prospect

Why should they care? Why will your products or services make their life better?

3) Offer Something Tangible

While I recommend to avoid competing based on “customer service,” check out how Rackspace successfully breaks this rule by promoting their “fanatical customer service.” They offer a 15-minute response time guarantee and give out straight jackets as awards for employees who go above and beyond to support their customers.

4) Be Authentic

Does your company live and breathe your positioning statement?

5) Be Memorable

When planning a cruise and someone suggests “the fun ship”, who do you think of? Carnival Cruise Line’s positioning is so entrenched that their Wikipedia page comes up as a recommendation when you google “the fun ship”. Strive to be like Carnival.

“Aha… Now I get it!”

We’ve seen companies restate their positioning four, five, even seven times on a single introductory phone call. If it’s interesting and relevant to the prospect, it’s a game changer.

Imagine how your prospects will feel when they finally hear your unique positioning statement after calling 3 of your competitors who all sounded exactly the same.

They’ll be so glad they found you.

So, what are you waiting for?!

Let’s talk about salespeople and drama for a minute.

What do I mean by “drama?”

Let’s take a look at this definition:

noun: an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances.

Assuming you actually want things to go as planned and achieve your goals, let’s strike the “exciting” part of that definition. What we’re left with is what business owners constantly explain to me when struggling to grow their sales team: emotional and unexpected circumstances.

When I say drama, I mean:

Salespeople didn’t make sales.
Salespeople bring on the wrong clients with the wrong expectations.
Salespeople are too hard to find.
Salespeople are hard to manage.
Salespeople are hard to train.
Salespeople are expensive.

I could go on all day.

I’ve served business owners for almost two decades, and built my own sales teams at two different companies. And, I can assure you that this drama you might be experiencing is all too common. I bet you can relate.

But I’m writing this to tell you… it’s all so unnecessary.

For years, I ran a marketing agency that worked with high performing sales teams, many of which made the various lists of fastest growing companies. I always took notice when I saw patterns—both good and bad.

One thing that stuck out to me was just how many businesses plateau at just one or two salespeople. With these clients, there always seemed to be drama in their sales department.

People missing quotas, blaming the product line or their manager when they did, and just an overall frustration with the team and the results.

Meanwhile, other companies just seemed to skyrocket to new levels of growth year after year and their salespeople multiplied like rabbits. And in these companies, there wasn’t any of that distracting drama.

It turns out, there were just three things that all of my best clients had in common.

I created this video presentation to illustrate the three systems you must have in place to scale your sales team, and how you can implement them in your company. Check this out so that you can scale your sales team without all the drama!

Eskimos are famous for having over 50 words for snow. And we’re not just talking about 50 synonyms for semi-frozen water. Each word is unique to the texture and formation of a particular type of snow. Knowing the difference is a matter of life and death. Some snow may be perfect for building igloos while others may cave in and crush your family.

Think about the education a young Eskimo gets while learning these various snow-terms. They’re not just learning words. They’re training to notice the different forms snow can take, as well as the applicable uses, and dangers of each.

There’s no room for ambiguity in igloo building… or in sales.

I find a clear contrast when working with average sales teams compared to fast-scaling organizations. Average sales teams have loose vocabulary and often, each salesperson does “what works for me.”

In other words, they only have one word for “snow,” and each sales rep has their own interpretation of what that means.

Almost all sales organizations have some form of operational standards. However, these guidelines are typically ignored and only loosely enforced by management.

The most effective sales teams have a unique language that only they speak. If a stranger walked into one of their sales meetings, they’d feel like an outsider at an Eskimo council. Top teams use a finite set of precise terms to describe their pipeline and where each prospect fits into it.

A prospect is not “a hot lead” or “closing any day now.” Instead you might hear phrases like “qualified with a decision timeframe” or “holding a revised contract and making a decision by Tuesday.”

A sale, is not just a sale to them. It is the culmination of a consistent process made up of a clearly defined stages—each with their own title.

Every sales rep can tell you what actions will move a prospect to the next stage. That’s a result of the training. Similar to the way young eskimos learn to decipher subtle shades of snow, new reps need training. They learn the scripts and process that drive sales at their company long before they start selling.

Communication is easier and more precise on teams with a shared vocabulary. Any team member hearing the stage of a potential deal immediately knows the next step to take. No time is wasted on figuring out which type of “snow” they’re dealing with.

Scalable Sales Teams Have One Operating System

For scalable sales teams, standards don’t just exist, they become religion. Training creates a shared knowledge base for the sales reps, and templates ensure a consistent experience for every prospect.

I call this combination of the team’s vocabulary, processes and templates their “operating system.” And, I find a strong operating system whenever I work with a scalable sales team.

A stark contrast to the companies that allow each rep to do “what works for them.”

When setup correctly, your CRM can naturally install a consistent operating system across your sales team. No matter how large or remote it may be. The CRM screens can use your team’s labels and sales stages so that reps are fully immersed in the vocabulary all day, every day.

You can then use the CRM data and eskimo-like vocabulary to keep your sales meetings tight and effective.

This is an imperative step if you want to scale—be it each salesperson’s volume or the number of sales reps at your company. Make sure you’ve defined the operating system and installed it into the tools and meetings your team will use. This shared operating system is the difference between building a scalable sales team and having a band of salespeople at your company.

What makes up a sales team’s operating system?

• Vocabulary
• Templates
• Processes
• Systems
• Metrics / Scoreboards
• Technology

When we work with companies to roll out a CRM to their sales team, we start by learning and documenting the operating system. From there, our goal is to integrate these systems and processes into the salesperson’s day as they manage their pipeline through the CRM.

Talk to us today about how to install a scalable operating system at your company.

In fact, it’s often born out of experience. It seems everyone has a story about how they burned thousands of dollars on a system while the team kept on working the way they always have.

Change is hard. But, it’s also necessary for growth.

What got you here isn’t going to take you where you’re going. Scale requires consistency and optimization. And when it comes to sales teams, fully adopting your CRM is the best tool for accomplishing these goals.

Our work with scalable sales teams showed us that there was a proven road map to fanatical adoption. By reverse engineering what the most productive teams were doing differently, we found a plan that you can use to bridge the same gap at your company.

We call this roadmap “The Three Keys to CRM Adoption.”

Key 1: Design a system to add zeros to your day.

Have you ever dealt with a salesperson who was convinced that they could not sell your product without feature X, or at this price point? You probably learned that like Vince Lombardi used to say, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t… you’re right.”

Unless you were able to change their belief, they never came around.

Show them they “need” the CRM to sell more and watch their reluctance disappear.

Before I ever begin talking about how to use the CRM, I make sure I’ve made a compelling case for how the new system will add zeros to the rep’s day. By showing them automation tools and templates, I discuss how a pipeline can multiply from ten deals to 100 potential deals. How one sale per day can turn into ten. I am essentially changing their view of their own potential by showing them how other teams have eradicated the busy work and overhead that steals their selling time.

I want them to lose sleep every night they don’t have these tools.

Once a salesperson truly sees how the CRM will “add zeros to their day,” you won’t be able to get them to stop asking for it.

Key 2: One operating system.

If I asked every sales rep on your team what defines a sale at your company, would I get a consistent answer? Would Jane say a signed proposal equals a sale? Or will Tim argue that deposits are what count the most?

Now, what if I asked each rep to list out the key stages of the sale at your company? I bet the variety of answers (or blank faces) might concern you.

Here’s a pattern you’ll notice with rainmakers at small companies. They tend to have loose definitions and vocabulary around the sales process. A stark contrast to larger teams where standardization is key to organizational growth.

Whenever I see a clear difference in companies who have scaled vs those who haven’t—I take notice.

Standards are rampant on the teams that have broken through, and elusive to the rest of us.

I call this combination of the team’s vocabulary, processes, templates and strategies the “operating system.” When setup correctly, your CRM can naturally install a consistent operating system across your sales team, no matter how large or remote it may be.

See Habit 6 in 7 Habits of Scalable Sales Teams for more on how to start the process of defining a sales team’s operating system.

Key 3: A show—not tell—environment.

How often do you ask your salespeople for a result—such as calls made today or demos given last week—and they give you a story instead of a number?

We salespeople like to talk, but when it comes to keeping score of our efforts and outcomes, the words can get in the way. Setting up concise reports in your CRM not only allows a salesperson to see if they are on track but it provides a huge payoff for working through the CRM and ensuring all of your data is up-to-date.

Imagine walking into a meeting every Wednesday morning where your manager and peers will be looking at your scoreboard. Right there, up on the big screen. I bet you’re going to be damn sure that every sale you’ve made and every proposal you created is being accounted for when those numbers go up.

Winners love to keep score, and a “show—not tell—environment” will attract and motivate your best performers. And, it will make them better.

Effective dashboards and scoreboards strip away the noise and let organizations see what is really moving the needle. Don’t settle for verbal reports from your team. Keep score and coach them on how to raise the score and win more.

These “show—not tell” sales meetings police CRM use in a sneaky way.

. . .

The combination of these keys naturally brings the team into alignment and makes it virtually impossible for salespeople to go rogue and manage their pipeline in spreadsheets. If you’re ready to build a Scalable Sales Team, start by committing to the The Three Keys to CRM adoption. Your team, and your bank account, will thank you for it!

If you want to use this proven system to scale sales at your company, I’d like to help. Reach out today to set up a consultation about your sales technology.

Want to crush your competition and get more out of your sales team? Subscribe here to get these video tips in your inbox each week.

What do you do with all of those forms you collected at that big trade show? What if you have walk-in traffic at your office that results in new leads every day? In this video, I am going to show you a trick and some technology to make it easier for your team to capture that information in your CRM.

Here is the free OCR tool I mentioned in the video: http://www.onlineocr.net/

You can find my concise CRM guide here: http://amzn.to/2fMlZHT

Subscribe here to get these video tips in your inbox each week.

Leads, leads, leads… give me the leads! We all know new leads light up our salespeople, but if we are sloppy about how we deliver those leads, we might be leaking opportunity as they work outside of the CRM. In this video, Jeremy shares an inexpensive tool that will automatically place your leads in your CRM for your salespeople in real time.

You can learn more about the tool at Mail Parser.

Each week, the Juicy Results team invests the time to share one idea with you that will help you to use your CRM to grow your revenue.

Want to crush your competition and get more out of your sales team? Subscribe here to get these video tips in your inbox each week.

This week’s tip is a very low tech one—1997-low tech! But it is powerful.

There is a single question that is far and above the most powerful question to ask your prospect in the sales process. I am going to show you how to make sure every sales rep on your team asks it every time.

Want to crush your competition and get more out of your sales team? Subscribe here to get these video tips in your inbox each Wednesday morning.

This tip is for any company with a long or complicated sales process. Particularly one that requires you to follow up repeatedly.

No matter what you sell, or who you sell to, there are three questions that a prospect must have answered before any sale is made. If you can answer these over the course of the sales process—and reaffirm them at every step—you’ll be money.

Subscribe here to get these video tips in your inbox each week.

We top performers are known to bite off more than we can chew. If you’re like me, your to-do list can feel like crab grass taking over your otherwise peaceful yard. No matter what you do, it multiples each week. It feels untamable.

I want to share a tip I discovered that allowed me to nearly eliminate my to-do list and be dramatically more productive in my sales role.

Each week, the Juicy Results team invests the time to share one idea with you that will help you to use your CRM to grow your revenue.