There’s a new breed of sales managers who are succeeding by serving their sales people. They are putting their sales people first and, in turn, their sales people are taking care of their customers resulting in long term, successful sales. It’s called servant leadership. Even though it sounds like some touch-feely, sales management fad, it’s helping sales managers across the nation transform sales teams from mediocre to exceptional.
Essentially, it’s a process in which the sales manager leads by serving, identifying sales reps’ needs and meeting those needs. Servant sales managers seek sales reps’ input in decision making, and empower them to be independent yet accountable for their results.
The sales servant leader is more of a partner in success than a traditional sales boss. Having interviewed super-successful sales servant leaders in a variety of industries, I found that a key part of their effectiveness is team building.
As I’ve discovered, real team building is a discipline that gets sales people working with each other and with management to solve problems and improve sales results. The challenging part of sales teamwork is getting sales reps to cooperate with each other rather than only compete against each other. It’s helping each other succeed rather than trying to outdo each other at all costs. This is the toughest part of the sales team-building process.
Jealousy and resentment tend to come more naturally than mutual support for peers, especially among competitive sales people. It’s up to the servant leader to develop a culture of recognition and appreciation for each other. It invariably starts at the top and filters down. As one sales leader put it, “We’re all competitors. That’s part of being in sales. But when I win, I want to beat you at your best. We get to be the best by helping each other.”
Specifically, here six benefits of servant-led teamwork:
- Process improvement – When sales people work with each other and with sales management as partners, they improve sales by sharing and implementing innovative ideas in all phases of the sales process including: product improvements, sales techniques, sales campaign implementation, competitive strategies, pricing and a multitude of other procedures and policies.
- Improved morale– Sales reps are more effective when they work together to support and develop each other in their daily sales activities. In this context, teamwork is an incubator providing sales people with peer encouragement and development to better do their job.
- Creates a multiplier effect– Two heads are better than one, the multiplier effect pertains as all your sales people work together to improve each other’s success. The result is better sales for the whole team. And, of course, better bottom-line results for you, the sales manager.
- Enhances individual performance –Sales people in a team environment learn from each other better ways to sell. In addition, a sales team adds an element of peer pressure and accountability that further amplifies sales potential.
- Speeds innovation –Sales people working together in tandem with management, can quickly identify problems and solve them by sharing information and creating solutions.
- Finally, teamwork makes it easier on the manager –It provides sales managers with more time to manage and takes away the pressure of making all the decisions and designing all the sales programs.
Collaboration among your sales team doesn’t mean competition shouldn’t exist. On the contrary, competition is good, as long as it’s constructive. It energizes, and it elevates sales efforts. The key is for the servant leader to regulate and shape the level of in-house competitiveness. Without the social lubricant of teamwork, too much competitiveness among your sales people can be counterproductive.
Sales reps are naturally competitive and love to finish first in sales results. However, when the sales manager pits sales people against each other, the result is infighting, backstabbing, hostility, envy, jealousy and erratic sales performance. A study by researchers Kou Murayama and Andrew Elliott, as described in Primal Teams, “indicates that when workers strive to outdo one another to attain personal performance goals, their performance actually suffers. Working memory performs less well, and creative problem-solving falls by the wayside.”
The collaborative power of sales people was further supported in a study of 489 insurance sales agents by researchers from The University of Minnesota, University of Kentucky and St. Cloud State University. Their findings: “Sales people’s job satisfaction tends to be enhanced to the extent that they develop relationships with their sales peers, are concerned about how sales peers evaluate their performance, and use their sales peers as important referents.
As important referents, sales peers can serve as role models, offer advice and support… So, sales managers should encourage salespeople to seek out their sales peers for direction and guidance.” The servant leader encourages productive competition by getting the sales team to help each other succeed, to share ideas and sales tips with the thought that a rising tide raises all ships.
Sales teams are wired to work together
We all love and revere competitive sales people. In fact, a sales person (or sales manager) who isn’t competitive probably won’t stay on the payroll too long. We are a naturally competitive breed – or are we? Maybe not. Even though competitiveness is a vital part of the sales mentality, there’s a counter-balancing characteristic that may be as important, and is definitely more a part of our DNA – it’s cooperation.
Studies of the human brain are showing that cooperation is something we do naturally and instinctively. It makes sense. In mankind’s earliest days, cave dwellers had to work together to survive against predators, hunt large prey and gather food for all while facing extremely harsh elements. Those who survived were ones who learned the value of teamwork, and they passed along their genetics to future generations.
A groundbreaking study which mapped the neural activity, as measured by real time MRI, of participants in a game showed the brain’s penchant for cooperation. Two participants were rewarded monetarily for either working together or betraying each other, with the betrayal behavior having a higher reward. According to a New York Times article about the study, “Hard as it may be to believe in these days of infectious greed and sabers unsheathed, scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy.”
Another study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin found that guitarists playing a musical sequence together showed brain waves that were synchronized. Scientists attached electrodes to tract the brain waves of guitarists playing duets. The resulting synchronization showed that there is a neural path to working together, that our brains seem to coordinate with others subconsciously. Even if we don’t know it, our brains seek to work with each other in collaborative tasks.
Once you have your sales team collaborating and competing constructively to help each other succeed, you’ve laid the foundation for team success. As successful servant leaders will tell you, you’ve created a place where sales reps develop a passion for excellence.
For more on servant leadership in sales, see the book 4 STEPS TO SUPERCHARGED SALES TEAMS at: 4 Steps to Supercharged Sales Teams: Cates, Max: 9781959621553: Amazon.com: Books
4 Steps to Supercharged Sales Teams is a revised and updated version of Serve, Lead, Succeed! It’s a how-to book for successful sales management, showing how servant leaders across the nation have transformed sales teams from mediocre to exemplary. It includes real-life sales stories as well as research illustrating the effectiveness of servant leadership in sales team success.
The book is all about supercharging sales performance, bringing the joy of selling to your team, and becoming a leader that people respect and remember. It shows how supportive leaders use empathy, humility, and teamwork to empower sales teams that are accountable and passionate to succeed.
Max Cates
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