Together, involvement and empowerment create an environment in which sales people can have responsibility for their own actions. Responsibility cannot be given – it can only be taken; therefore a Sales Leader can only give sales people the opportunity to take responsibility for their work demands.
High performing sales teams require clear objectives so they know exactly what they must do and why, good communication and trust so that having created such a situation, a Sales Leader will let sales people get on with things. These elements build higher motivation because sales teams enjoy having the authority to make decisions and get the job done.
A sales person’s willingness to participate collaboratively as a team member does not guarantee that the team will create their desired outcome. If sales people are thrown into a collaborative situation and simply told to work as a team, they will lack the structure to make this happen. After all, why should a sales person care about their sales team?
Promoting understanding of why sales people need to be a team is vital. The team needs to understand its shared goals and what each team member brings to the team that is relevant and crucial to its overall successes. Therefore, to optimize the talent capability within a sales team it’s important to identify what each sales person’s unique ability is, and how their unique ability can be shared for the betterment of the team.
Maximizing a sales team around one common goal that creates value for the customer, the organization, and the individual sales person is the only way to focus the activities of a sales team.