Releasing the untapped potential in your sales team

When developing performance cultures within organisations, I often ask what Sales Leaders, across various industry sectors, what they see as the untapped potential of their sales teams. The  answers range from 30%  to an amazing 70%. What is inspiring is when we ask the sales team members what they see as their latent potential, they also recognise considerable opportunity for performance improvement. Typically, their expecta-tion is higher than that of business leadership. The crucial stepping-stone to greater success is to bring these two aligned views onto the same page. This is true in every industry and regardless of market sector because therein lies greater success and it is all about belief.

The Power of Belief

Research in the education sector has established that the biggest impact on pupils’ performance is the belief held by the teacher on the potential abilities of the pupil, rather than any dramatic difference in the inherent abilities. The same is true in sales; the culture of the sales team is set by the behaviours of sales leadership; ‘sales leaders get what they create,’ is the key mantra in our coaching activities.

Outside of business, the importance of belief, confidence and purpose is something we see in sport continuously; the world’s elite sports people recognise the critical marginal gains that arise from combining; process discipline and conditioning and belief in their purpose. 

It starts with the sales leader as a coach.