“Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything, for better or worse.”

                                                                                                Simon Sinek

I’d like to start with a question: “What determines the success of a business?”
Revenue? Profitability? Marketshare? Year on Year growth?

Let’s say it’s profit, or revenue – or ideally both. What typically drives both is sales and marketing.

But mainly sales.

If you believe in that then I would also expect you to believe in the importance of sales culture.

You’d be surprised at the number of successful businesses that generate huge profits and revenue despite having no sales culture.

Alternatively you’d not be surprised at the number of businesses that fail because they don’t have a clear sales culture?

For a business to keep the graphs pointed north, sales culture must feature as part of your overall sales strategy – it’s the driving force of your business.

If your company hasn’t got a sales culture, then get one.

Define Your Sales Culture

The first step to creating a winning sales culture is to define what it means for your company. Begin with a simple question:
“What kind of sales culture do we want to create?”

What are the values, beliefs, and behaviors that will drive sales success in your business? Once you’ve defined your sales culture, it’s important to communicate it clearly to your sales team.

Having a clearly understood sales culture is as important as your  sales goals.

Hire the Right People

The 3Rs – revenue, recruitment and retention.

Hiring the right people is critical to the success of your team. You need people who share those values and beliefs.
Recruit for attitude and train for skills – look for candidates who are passionate about sales with or without a proven track record of success. Previous success is never a guarantee of future success – attitude is hard to learn.

Build a real team

Sales success is a team sport – especially when you add in marketing support. Having a collaborative environment helps when you are working towards a common goal

Let communication underpin everything – with customers, prospects, across departments and with each other.
From quarterly meet ups, to weekly 1-2-1s, get together for solid reasons. Move quickly, take notes, make actions and keep everyone accountable.

Set Clear Expectations and Goals

There is an old saying “you get what you tolerate” so make sure that everyone knows what is expected of them AND what the non-negotiables are.

Sales people are like water – they will take any gap at every opportunity – make sure there is no doubt about the standards expected, what is acceptable and what will not be tolerated.
it doesn’t have to be communicated like a dictatorship – it just needs to make sense and it needs to be consistent.

Goals don’t need to be financial – it’s important to reward the right kind of effort especially when there are lengthy buying cycles to contend with.

Make everything achievable and measurable

Reward hard work

Reward effort as often as you reward the arrival of POs – hard work needs to be acknowledged all the time, especially if it’s a cornerstone of your culture.
Remember sometimes the small victories will have the biggest impact and that ultimately it is all about keeping your team inspired to work harder and stay focused on the long term objectives and goals.

Be consistent
As a sales leader, be exactly that – a leader by example. If goodtime keeping is part of your culture you must know that everyone will be subconsciously watching you. They can be late once, you don’t have that luxury.

Have fun

If I need to explain the importance of having fun as a team then you might have a bigger problem than you think.

Thanks for reading.