On this episode, SRG's CEO and Managing Director Norman Behar shares advice on how to get sales leadership to change the status quo.
Fred asks:
How do you get leaders to change the status quo within your own sales organization? Ever notice something is not working in your specific group, or the market is changing and there is danger ahead if something is not changed? From the macro perspective, all is well, C-Level and VP level still making their numbers regionally or across segments; though individual groups may be feeling the impact of a threat - like cancer spreading. How do you influence senior sales executives that they need to risk change or face bigger problems later?
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Video Transcript
Well that's an interesting question. It gets to an emphasis on results by senior sales leaders. There's nothing wrong with looking at results, provided you're looking at the behaviors or the performance indicators that drive those results.
What happens with senior leaders is that they don't understand the implications of market changes until after the fact. Now keep in mind these senior leaders are busy. They're making their numbers. From their perspective, all is well. If there's a problem in some area in the organization or in a particular department, they may not see it and it's not going to register to make them aware of that.
What you have to think about is some internal selling. In other words, how are you going to create awareness with those internal C-level or VP-level contacts? And it starts with a dialog and finding out more about their priorities. Even though you're focused on your own priorities, you want to start by learning what's important to them. Then making them aware of some of the changes that you're seeing in the market that may impact their priorities.
You're going to see a more openness because they're going to understand how what you're sharing influences future results. That level of understanding and using sales techniques that you would use with a customer to create openness—ask great questions, and address priorities—is the key to creating effective sales leadership and getting them to focus not only on near-term results which may look well and good, but a better look at the driver and the market implications associated with future results.
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