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Creating A Sales Team
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Creating A Sales Team

By: Charles Kettner

Someone asked me to do a condensed version of how I build a sales team. So,

here it is!

First and foremost you must have a lot of patience and be very persistent.

Isn't it amazing these are the same qualities you need to be a successful

sales professional? The reason you need these qualities is that there are

three ways to find good people. You can steal them from another company,

which means they can be stolen from you! Secondly, you can buy them, which

ultimately means someone can buy them from you, or you can develop them

yourself! When you use this method you receive intense loyalty which cannot

be bought! I prefer to hire and develop my own.

Now that we have decided the method we have to pull it off. Here's where the

patience and persistence pays off.

I initially hire a group of people, more than necessary for the task at hand,

then I...that's right...I show them how to sell the product! Remember what I

have said before, never ask someone to do something you can't do, won't do,

or haven't done! Once I have shown them how to do the job I then work with

all of them and give them assignments to take home and work on themselves.

This separates the ones that have commitment from the ones that just want a

paycheck. As a few days go on I begin watching the cream rise to the top and

and I begin weeding the garden. I always end up with at least one person out

of the group that has a burning desire to succeed. That is where the first

building block of a sales team is cautiously put into place. With a

tremendous amount of positive reinforcement and enthusiasm you can actually

see the contagiousness of the excitement spread through to others.

Now before you get all excited and think you have built a sales team there

are many hurdles to overcome and many minefields to avoid that will wipe out

all of your efforts before you ever get off the ground. The nice thing about

building a sales crew is it is like priming a pump. At the beginning you keep

pumping and pumping until the water starts coming out of the well. Everyone

knows that if you stop pumping too soon the water stops and you must start

all over again. On the other hand, once you have the water flowing all you

have to do is once in a while go over and prime the pump. In other words just

monitor and tweak your sales team. That is the ultimate goal and by part

three you to will know how to do this.

So, you have one or two persons that have just started selling and you are in

the weeding out process. Don't get excited yet because you haven't built

anything yet!

Part two is critical because you now potentially have a nucleus to build

around. What you do next is going to determine whether you have to start all

over again. One of the most important things you have to be aware of is that

this is not the time to let up! Quite the contrary, this is the time to put

forth more effort in training your people that are selling and quickly trying

to get them to be self efficient as soon as possible. It is also imperative

that you begin showing them the big picture. Once a person has accomplished,

I don't mean "become accomplished", in making a couple of sales you must show

them the bigger picture of where their success is going to take them.

Remember, in my earlier articles I talked about reading your people and

finding out what motivates them. Well, this is one of the times that your

read really counts. For example, I might focus with one person on the

opportunity for management while another person is strictly motivated by

money. While all this is going on I am continuing to sell and show the older

and newer people how it is done. All the while I am constantly selling the

job and the company and their opportunity. The secret of success to all of

this is that you must deliver!

You not only have to teach, you have to have enough knowledge to have

something to teach! It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but you can

really eliminate a lot of duplication by doing it right the first time. I

also involve the people who can sell in teaching their newer counterparts.

Not only does it save me some time but it also gives me insight into which

person has leadership skills or unique teaching skills. These characteristics

will play a very important role as we continue to create A sales team.

Now the hardest part is to successfully layer your organization and polish

everyone. The tendencies of most managers is that as soon as someone can sell

they think their work is done and they can take time off or focus on other

tasks. Wrong! This is a critical time to show your producers how much you

care and how much farther they have to go.

Of course, while doing this you have to be doing the same beginning process

with the newer people until they are producing. The objective is to have the

early producers become your pace setters and then from their enthusiasm the

newer people begin to shine. The real surprise is that you never know with

any certainty who is really going to become your top performers out of the

group. There are a lot of disappointments along the way. One of the original

producers may falter or lose interest for a variety of reasons and all of a

sudden one of the newer producers takes the lead and refuses to give it up.

Sometimes I have gone through 3 or 4 groups of people before I find the first

consistent producer. That is why I mentioned at the beginning that it takes

extreme patience and persistence. It is very easy to get discouraged when one

or two groups don't work out.

Remember the "Stone Cutter" story. The people that passed by when a single

blow broke the stone missed the 100 strokes before it. Pretty prophetic. Once

you think you have a viable crew you can finally take a deep breath and

slowly, and I mean slowly, fade into the woodwork. What I mean by this is

maybe you can appoint a tentative crew leader and let them know that you have

an errand to do and you will be back shortly. This is the beginning of your

true evaluation of your work. If you come back and everything is working

smoothly, you can step out for a little longer period of time. "Special Tip" -

never tell the staff when you are expected to return. Sometimes I never

really leave. I watch the operation from a distance and do my evaluation.

Someone once said, "It is not what you do when I am around that counts, but

what you do when I am not around that is most important!"

Once you have your successful crew built and it can function in your absence,

it is imperative that you are still around at various times so they

understand that you are still very much involved in the operation. It is also

important that you make those times when you are around count! Do not miss

the opportunity to show advanced techniques to your peak performers in both

sales and management, while still selling everyone on the big picture of

advancement and opportunity. In other words continue priming the pump.

"The Specialist"

Article Source: http://articlenexus.com

greatsales-thespecialist.com www.strangeratthedoor.com

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