It’s time to be honest with your performance. A high-performing sales team expects to be busy. However, it is also crucial to find the time to take a step back and reflect on the past year.
As a sales leader, closing out the year and taking stock of success and failure is vital to set your team up for success over the next 12 months. To do so, we need to leave our excuses at the door and not place blame on:
- The economy
- The marketplace
- Our suppliers
- Our team members
Instead, we need to look introspectively at our own performance.
The last 12 months
The last 12 months have depended on your team getting the most out of your leadership skills. So, while measuring KPIs vs. revenue, even though performance is the most obvious place to start, it does not paint the complete picture.
I know you want to build a high-performing team that consistently exceeds sales goals, attracts talented individuals, and crushes the competition.
How do you think you have performed before undertaking a “warts and all assessment” of the past 12 months? Have you taken the time to coach and mentor your team? How have you responded to success and failure? What changes have you needed to make to your sales strategy? Where do you need to improve?
What it takes to build a high-performing sales team
Building a high-performing team encourages accountability, and great teams do not hold back from one another. They are unafraid to admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal. Instead, they thrive on honesty and constructive feedback to become better sales performers.
They will also ask testing questions of their leaders. But, again, being honest and having an open-door policy will encourage them to be honest with you.
I will presume you have access to all the sales reports you need. But that data is irrelevant unless it is acted upon. Therefore, much like how a sports team will meet after a win or loss to analyze their on-field performance to do better next time, sharing your insights with your team opens a broader debate to drive performance.
Furthermore, starting with the areas you need to improve will bring down the barriers we naturally all hold. You can then move the conversation on to discuss exactly how their performance compares against the team’s objectives, highlighting any specific areas for improvement, which will avoid singling out one team member in front of the rest of the group.
Use the past to improve the future
If you conduct a comprehensive sales retrospective, you and your sales team can use the past to improve the future. Identifying, organizing, and understanding the root causes of your team’s successes and failures will help determine what worked and what did not and how to improve. If done well, everyone should walk away from the retrospective feeling confident about the future and more appreciative of each other.
Sales success rises and falls on your leadership.
Our sales leadership program equips leaders with the skills and tools needed to consistently exceed sales goals, attract more A-players, and crush the competition. The past 12 months will have been full of success and failure, but using the past as a learning opportunity can help you become the leader you always wanted to be.
