Sustaining an enterprise requires a team of people who promote, position, or sell the product or service. Some organizations employ sales teams, while others rely on a marketing, public relations, or a customer relationship unit to promote and persuade.
The names and titles may vary, but the focus of their work is the same. They are in the business of sales.
Examine the sales team at your organization and you will likely find a group of highly skilled and talented communicators who enjoy people and believe deeply in the enterprise. The organization depends on this team to grow the enterprise by adding new clients, patrons, students, or customers through the power of persuasion. They are constantly selling the benefits of doing more with what the organization does.
Views on how to create sales are hotly debated. Is the focus on the sale or the relationship? Should we lead with passion or address obstacles? How fast should we try to close the sale?
What isn’t of controversy is the focus on the product, service, or offering of the organization. People in sales and the leaders who manage them often believe the primary pathway to sales is to promote what the organization offers.
From this view, the product or service takes center stage. As a matter of common sense, they measure themselves by the standards of revenue, market share, growth, and new customers and clients. Improving sales becomes all about expanding the pie and showcasing what the organization has to offer.
Those who have mastered the sales process have a somewhat different view and priority. They believe it is sales conversation, whatever form it takes, that belongs in lights. They know that without the initial conversation and the dialogues that will follow, nothing else happens. So, they spend more time developing conversational skills, ways of creating new conversations, and strategies for expanding initial conversations into more meaningful and substantive exchanges.
Most importantly, the metrics they prize above all others are the quality and quantity of these conversations across the sales team and the organization. When leaders and sales teams make the number of quality conversations, meetings, demonstrations, and presentations the primary goal, sales soon soar.
By measuring quality conversations, everyone quickly learns what is truly the most important driver of revenue and growth. Getting the foundations right allows everyone the opportunity to succeed. Conversations always form the pyramid of sales success.
What does your organization or team measure?
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
