The Misconception of Supporting Teams with Tools

Many companies I speak with think and feel that they are supporting their team the best they can by buying them tools and technology.

• “The team is struggling with managing their pipeline, so let’s add some automated follow ups.”
• “The reps are having trouble starting conversations with new prospects, so let’s buy this marketing automation platform I heard about.”
• “The group is struggling to close deals, so let’s get them better leads.” (You know…the Glengarry leads that close themselves!)

Similar analogy…this is like buying your kid stuff to make them happy instead of actually spending time with them.

I am not saying your team is hoping you will hang out with them, but I bet they would benefit from more than just more tech toys. Sitting them down in front of an iPad doesn’t equal quality time.

No, what your team needs – from all the work I have done with organizations of various sizes, structures, and across so many industries – is investments in themselves.

The Importance of Training, Coaching, and Mentorship

What will help them most is training, coaching, and mentorship.

Tools are great, but not enough to just close deals for them (Read more of my thoughts here -LINK Sales Enablement Article). And it’s not that they need to know how to use the tools, it’s just that the tools will set them up for conversations but then what?

• Do they actually know what to say and do with that prospect?
• Do they know how to identify the prospect’s true wants and needs, and WHY they want/need your product?
• Do they understand that the biggest fear of every prospect is the unknown danger of change?
• Instead of memorizing objection rebuttals, do they understand why objections happen? (and the difference between an objection, question, and concern?)
• Do they know what the objections the prospect raises at different parts of the sales conversation indicate?
• Do they know that their role is to diagnose, prescribe, and then assume – as a professional – that if they did it in the right order they can just move forward to the enrollment?
• Do they know what their internal objections are to what they are selling? (Did you even know that each of your people have issues/limiting beliefs with what they are trying to sell?)

Most owners, founders, and sales leaders who were successful salespeople are operating under the fallacy that if they hire salespeople who have sold stuff before and say the right things in the interview about sales, persistence, being money-driven, examples of that big, difficult deal they closed, how they overcome objections, and know how to sell a pen, then they should be able to close deals without a lot of help. But that is simply not how people work.

The Sports Team Analogy

A professional sports team would never do that. In fact, your local peewee league would never do that. Just recruit the best 6-year-olds who dribble good and talk about winning in the recruiting interview, then put them on the team, buy them the latest high-tech shoes and basketballs, and put them in the game.

No – there is practice, meetings, discussions, drills, work outs, etc.

No one but sales teams think about hiring people and throwing them into the big game without any development.

And I know what you will say – we train our salespeople all the time! Yeah – on your product. Not on selling. Not on H2H. Not on dealing with humans. Not on understanding themselves. Not on how to deal with the terrible mental health toll that selling takes on the primal parts of our mind. Just lots and lots of product training, role plays, demo run-throughs, and objection rebuttal memorization.

Conclusion

Yes – of course our team provides training, workshops, coaching, and mentoring for salespeople and leaders. But I am not writing this so that you hire us. I don’t care if you hire someone else you think is a better fit (well…I do care a little ;) but way less than I care about you actually doing the right thing for your team).

Please invest in your people. They don’t know everything – no one does. Even your top performers want and need more help…there are always ways for top reps to learn new things to help them perform even better.

And remember this if you think it’s a waste to invest in your people (not just in your tools): Sales Leader Says: “What if we invest in our people and they leave?” The CEO then replies: “What if we don't invest in our people and they stay?”