Becoming consciously competent
Some of the best reps inevitably get promoted into sales management, but they have never had to teach others how they became successful. This group of folks is unconsciously competent in sales. They know what to do innately, but have never been forced to explain, or teach it to others.
Sales representatives’ most valuable asset is time. Ever increasing quotas, ever decreasing territory size and tougher competition makes every available prime selling hour a precious commodity. The most successful reps jealously guard their schedules and focus on the task at hand.
As new managers transition from a direct contributor role into a mentoring role they need to become consciously competent. By figuring out why they did the things they needed to do to win, they can start to teach others. Many managers never make this transition.
Imagine a coach telling their team to go out and win before the big game. Not real helpful advice. They need to be told how to win, or better yet how to help the competitor lose.
This brings us back to an important group of folks, the successful reps that have not jumped into management roles. These are the very folks who know how to win, but do not have the time or the monetary incentives to teach others.
It would become a tremendous burden on your top reps if every new hire constantly interrupted them to tap their knowledge. In fact they may be more incented to guard their time and not help. This is not a judgment of their personal qualities; they are being driven by their compensation plans.
No senior rep knows it all. They can benefit from the knowledge of their counterparts, but often do not have the time to comprehensively survey.
Imagine the gains in knowledge, if your best reps were interrupted just once. Their knowledge catalogued, their best practices gleaned, and their hard lessons shared.
In every company there are a handful of reps who have figured out how to beat a targeted competitor. Typically they are not incented to spread this knowledge, so it cannot be leveraged across all reps.
By sacrificing a small amount of time one time, everyone can elevate their game. Many companies do not have the internal expertise or the resources to complete this vital task. Others get the research right then fail on the rollout.
If you do not have the time, resource availability or expertise to capture this data internally then consider an experienced third party to help quickly harness and spread this critical knowledge throughout your organization. The quicker this is accomplished the quicker you can start giving better guidance than “go out and win”.
Tags: sales competency, sales effectiveness, win
