new sales leader guide to success · goals. then we interview some key players on the executive and...

NEW SALES

LEADERGUIDE TO SUCCESS

H O W T O H I T T H E G R O U N D R U N N I N G I N Y O U R N E W R O L E

| NEW SALES LEADER GUIDE TO SUCCESS2

Welcome to Your Guide to Success

If you’re reading this guide, you’re probably a new head of sales for your

organization. Perhaps you’re an experienced sales leader joining from a different

company, or you’ve been promoted within your company to a new leadership

position. If this sounds like you, then congratulations on your new role! You will find

this guide highly relevant and useful.

Harvard Professor Boris Groysberg’s research¹ shows that the biggest difference with

a new sales leader succeeding or failing in their role are people-skills-related. Those

who can build relationships and trust up, down and across their new organization will

be more successful. This guide brings into focus the less obvious people factors that

are easy to overlook.

Research indicates that the average tenure of a new sales leader is now 19 months2.

This statistic means that you have about four quarters to get traction. Given this

compressed time frame, you need to be realistic about the factors you control, and to

act on them promptly while continually influencing the factors you don’t control.

We hope to help you hit the ground running as a new sales leader and build a solid

foundation for long-term success in your new role.

Let’s get started.


Control Points: The Obvious and Less Obvious Factors

Caution, you’ve been hired as a sales leader, not the CEO. You might not like the

corporate strategy, but you don’t own it and have only limited control over shaping it.

The same goes for product strategy. Product strategy has a huge impact on your

success, but you can’t use product issues as an excuse. The same goes for marketing

and pricing strategy. You can influence it, but you probably don’t own it, so don’t be

overly dependent on those changes to make your number.

Factors You Control

The most obvious factors you control are operational, such as the compensation plan,

the sales process and tools, and your coverage model. As a sales leader, you can

change any or all these factors quickly, provided you have sufficient budget, because

you own them. Our experience shows that most new sales leaders will tweak these

factors to put their mark on the organization and, with luck, to get a quick win.

The less obvious factors you control are people factors. As a leader, your style and

actions set the tone for the team culture you will foster. The same goes for your sales

managers, who set the tone for their teams. According to the ground-breaking

emotional intelligence research by Dan Goleman3, a leader’s success in an

organization depends about 25% on IQ (intelligence quotient) and 75% on EQ

(emotional quotient).

For sales leaders, the keys to developing strong EQ are alignment and engagement.

Get your team aligned behind a common vision and strategy, and get your sales

managers bought in to helping you build a highly engaging workplace, and your odds

of success increase dramatically.


Developing EQ: Creating Strategic Alignment

Strategic alignment means that all elements of a business are arranged to best

support fulfillment of its long-term purpose. While a company’s purpose generally

doesn’t change, leadership – especially sales leadership – does. This is where

misalignment begins.

As a new sales leader, it is essential that you help your people – from direct reports to

the front lines – truly understand your strategy. However, research by Kotter4 suggests

that 70% of employees are misaligned with your strategic direction because they do

not understand it. Alignment is a powerful force multiplier, and when employees at all

levels understand your vision and strategic goals they can execute faster, more

proactively, and with better results.

So how is strategic alignment best achieved?

1. Clarify your strategy

The onus is on you to help your people understand your vision and strategy, and what

they need to do to execute to it. Start with your direct reports and set the expectation

that they will cascade the vision and strategy down to their teams. If necessary, invest

in an offsite retreat with minimal distractions and complete focus to ensure everyone

“gets it”.

2. Build buy-in

You probably formulated a strategy during the recruitment process for your new role

and sold that strategy to your new boss and peers. However there’s no guarantee

your strategy is flawless, especially if you’re new to the industry or the company. As

you clarify your strategy with your team, be open-minded and willing to adjust based

on their experience and on new information you uncover. Listening shows your team

that you value their input and may help you avoid stepping on a landmine.

3. Start a wave

Create a movement by building anticipation and excitement and sharing your vision in

the clearest and most immediate way. Then ask for help in figuring out how to reach

the vision’s goals. If each person at all levels did just one thing to contribute to

reaching the company’s goals, it would instantly make a significant impact. Publicize

any efforts people make that help achieve the strategy. This sets an example, shows

the connection between effort and outcome, and inspires others to make greater

contributions.

| NEW SALES LEADER GUIDE TO SUCCESS

Strategic Sales BluePRINTs

New sales leaders need to clarify their strategy, align their teams, and create buy-in.

However, this is easier said than done, especially if you’re new to a company and an

industry. There’s so much information to absorb that it can be overwhelming. For this

reason, we work with new Heads of Sales to create “Strategic Sales BluePRINTs”.

Our Strategic Sales BluePRINT has four components:

1. Shared Purpose: Creating a shared purpose as a sales organization

2. Strategic Intents: Identifying the paths necessary to achieve the

shared purpose

3. Bulls-eyes: Targets for each Strategic Intent, one to three

years out

4. Leading Indicators/Key Tactics: Actions we

plan to take this year to achieve our strategic

intents

5

All content and models © DoubleDigit Sales. All rights reserved. 1

Strategic Sales BluePRINTShared Purpose Statement

Key Tactics Key Tactics Key Tactics Key Tactics

Leadin

g Indic

ato

rs/T

actics

Bulls-E

yes

Str

ate

gic

Inte

nts

Share

d

Purp

ose

Ow

ners

Pillar 1

We must …

so that …

Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Pillar 5

Owner Name Owner NameOwner Name Owner Name Owner Name

Key Tactics


Strategic Sales BluePRINTs

When we create Strategic Sales BluePRINTs with clients, we usually start by working

one-on-one with the Head of Sales to understand how they plan to achieve their

goals. Then we interview some key players on the executive and sales teams to get

their perspective. We’ll then bring the sales leadership team – usually 6 to 10 people

– together for a two-day working session.

We use our most seasoned facilitators, who get the team to look back and reflect on

the current state of the business. We then facilitate a visioning exercise to look

forward and brainstorm opportunities and possibilities. From there, we’ll work through

developing the team’s Strategic Purpose, Strategic Intent and Bulls-eyes.

The team then breaks for four to six weeks. During this time, they validate their

assumptions and clarify their targets. We reconvene for a final day to review any

changes and ensure everyone is onboard with the targets. We set the leading

indicators and tactics to hit the bulls-eye over the next three years, and finally assign

ownership and accountability for execution.

When we’re done, we’ve created a one-to-three-year Strategic BluePRINT on a

single page that everyone understands and has bought into. Clients use the Strategic

BluePRINT to stay on course and refresh the leading indicators annually so it reflects

progress and to make required adjustments.

Developing EQ: The “What” of Building a Highly Engaged Sales

Culture

Alignment is critical to your success, but alignment alone is not sufficient for success.

If you can also build a highly engaging sales culture, then your odds of success

increase dramatically.

Corporate culture is often defined as “how things get done” in an organization.

Management guru Peter Drucker coined the phrase:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Drucker believed that a company's culture normally thwarts any attempt to create or

enforce a strategy that is incompatible with that culture. Culture change is possible,

but it takes hard work and skill.


Elements of a Highly Engaged Sales Culture

7

A great sales culture has at its heart

clear focus, strong activity that builds a

healthy pipeline leading to exceptional

results. And it has enough quality

activity to produce the pipeline

necessary to achieve results. If you

are inheriting a team that has under-

performed, and many of you will, it’s

important to know where the sales

culture is breaking down.

For example, do you have sufficient pipeline to achieve the results you need? If not,

is there an issue with quantity or quality of activity? Or both? Are your reps making

enough calls and are those calls turning into proposals? If not, do your reps and

managers know where to focus their time and activity, and on what accounts?

Tools such as our Sales Culture Survey can help you quickly capture

important aspects of the current culture, compare this culture to the

culture of “best in class” organizations, identify and prioritize key

cultural gaps to address, and track your progress toward an

engaging sales culture.

Developing EQ: The “What” of Building a Highly Engaged

Sales Culture

Once you’ve determined what you need to do to create a highly engaged sales

culture, then you must go and do it.

There are four dimensions to consider:

1. Rewards and Recognition

2. People Development

3. Systems, Tools and CRM

4. Management Disciplines

We will drill into each of these over the next few pages.


Rewards and Recognition

Creating a highly engaged sales culture requires rewards and recognition to motivate

the behaviors necessary to achieve your goals while simultaneously reinforcing your

values.

As a new Head of Sales, you need to know how your people feel about the rewards

and recognition they receive. It’s a good opportunity to survey your team as well as

asking sales managers and top performers as you get to know them. Money matters

to sales people, to a degree, but so do other factors such as recognition,

development opportunities and doing meaningful work.

Values

Values shape the perspective of the organization, guide its actions, and help define

its culture and beliefs. When employees subscribe to a common set of values, the

organization appears united as it interacts with customers, suppliers and employees.

Values must also be lived, and come to life through the role-specific attitudes and

actions necessary for job success. Have the team help identify these values, and be

sure that you, as a sales leader, demonstrate them consistently and recognize those

who do the same.

Goals

The goals you set for your people should reflect the quantity and quality of activity

necessary to build the pipeline needed to achieve the results you need.

Tracking progress toward these goals gives your sales managers and reps better

insight into where they should be spending their time and activity and helps focus

coaching efforts.

Goals


People Development

According to research by Bersin and Associates5, learning opportunities are among

the best drivers of employee engagement and a strong workplace culture. They are

key to the entire employee value proposition, not merely a way to build skills.

Providing learning and development opportunities to individuals shows that you’re

willing to invest in them as people. Learning is an engagement tool in its own right.

And if the experience is good, it’ll boost performance. Do this through formal and

informal learning and development opportunities, as well as by coaching.

Sales Skills Development

In sales, there are times when you need

to upskill everyone to position a new

product or execute a common sales

language and approach. However, each

sales person will have his or her own

developmental needs and priorities.

Training is much more likely to drive high

engagement and success when it is

aligned to needs, and when the sales

person has a say in where they will focus

their precious development time and

resources.

As a leader, you should require individual

development plans for each sales person

and their managers, a budget for training

and developmental activities, and the

expectation that these resources will be

used. You must also require your sales

managers to invest time to coach their

people, if you hope to create sustainable

change.

Our Sales Culture Survey can provide

you with insight into the best frequency of

learning, development and coaching

activities to generate the highest-quality

results.

Coaching Skills

Coaching and feedback, when done

correctly and frequently, will elicit high

engagement. If your salespeople are

constantly improving, how can they not be

engaged?

One professional services firm used to

publicize to new hires that they were not

the highest paying firm but they were the

best at coaching. Those who joined them

would learn faster and climb the ranks

quicker, ultimately leading them to make

more money than they would if they worked

for a higher-paying competitor.

As a new Head of Sales in your

organization, do not assume that your sales

managers have the skills or the will to

coach. Instead, observe how they interact

with their people during formal and informal

coaching sessions. Additionally, hold up a

mirror to your own skills, and make sure

you have what it takes to be excellent at

coaching and giving feedback to your direct

reports. How well are you using your skills

to create a great sales culture that delivers

strong business results with an engaged

sales team?


Systems, Tools and CRM

Providing salespeople and managers with the right systems and tools to do their jobs

efficiently and effectively helps build engagement.

As a new Head of Sales, it’s important for you to take the pulse of your team to

understand where they experience frustration and what they believe will help. Little

things that help reps gain back even a few hours of non-selling time each week add up

greatly over time and can be the difference between achieving quota and not. It also

shows that you listen to your people and will take decisive steps to right a wrong when

there’s a compelling case. While you’re at it, also look for tools that have low usage.

You might be able to fund new investments simply by replacing old investments that

aren’t paying off.

Be careful about trying to find that silver-bullet technology that will be the cure for all

illnesses. As the chart below illustrates, there’s been an explosion of apps and tools

claiming to be that magic elixir, but they seldom are.

The tools exist to enable your sales reps and managers to execute your sales

process. If execution is poor, then it’s important to look at not only the suitability of the

tool, but also your sales process validity, sales rep selling skills, and sales manager

coaching skills. It is false hope to expect that even a good tool can fix a bad process,

poor skills or incompetent managers.


Management Disciplines

Once you establish the right attitude and commitment to skill development, take a

closer look at the sales management disciplines necessary for building a highly

engaged sales culture. Sales management disciplines are defined and scheduled

activities that let you achieve your goals with more certainty.

A formalized structure for each sales management discipline sets you free because, if

you have a process, the discipline is in consistently exercising it. In the absence of

structure, each time you go to coach or manage you will spend time thinking about

the “how” instead of the “what.” With the structure in place, the “how” is set and ready

for you to provide the “what.” Sales management disciplines are about quality and

quantity. By quality we mean they add value to your salespeople and create

productivity in your organization. By quantity we mean not overwhelming your

salespeople with too many changes at once.

You probably have your own ideas about how you want these sales management

disciplines done, but take time first to inspect how they’re being done now with your

new team, and then determine what you want to change. If change is necessary,

have your sales managers participate in the process to create a new and improved

approach. If they come to their own realization that change is necessary, and if they

have a hand in creating the future approach, then they will be more likely to buy in to

the new discipline and carry it out.

• Recruiting

• Onboarding

• One-on-Ones

• Sales meetings

• Pipeline management

• Field coaching

• Performance reviews

Sales management disciplines include:

One-on-Ones

Pipeline Reviews

Sales Team Meetings

Field Coaching


Management Disciplines

Internal meetings are the lifeblood of sales teams. When they work well, sales

businesses hum.

Establishing a predictable meeting cadence creates accountability. Consider the

weekly sales meeting: effective meetings lay out the core objectives for the coming

week; give salespeople a chance to highlight progress on important opportunities and

identify blockers; and allow the manager to discuss tactics, make resourcing changes

and assign key accountabilities.

According to our Sales Culture Survey6, participants rate meetings as effective only

about 60% of the time. When meetings are run poorly, participants are unprepared,

there’s confusion over who owns what and discussion tends to veer off into less

important or non-sales-related topics – the proverbial waste of time.

Company meetings take planning and tend to be of a more formal nature than team

meetings. Here are some ideas and guidelines for frequency:

• Sales Team Meetings: Weekly

• Division/Company Updates: Monthly

• Training Sessions: Continuously, but a minimum of 5 days per year

• Off-sites: Semi-annually

Engage Me, written by Kevin

Higgins, is an excellent resource

that has a chapter devoted to each

key management discipline. It is

available on Amazon.


Executing Strategy Through People: Lessons Learned

Starting as a sales leader at a new company, or being promoted to sales leader at

your current company, means you have taken on a significant challenge with lots of

responsibility. Although you need to move quickly and decisively, you must use some

time to get to know your organization and your team. This time is precious, so use it

wisely. It will help you identify and prioritize the changes you need to make to be

successful. As you go about building a high-performing sales culture, we encourage

you to keep these four points in mind:

1. Sales teams need technical and non-technical capabilities, including

knowledge, skills, tools, and processes, to meet their individual goals and your

objectives. Investing in the team ensures greater engagement and higher

performance, and also retains talent. Leaders need to think about systemic learning

solutions versus one-off learning events.

2. Changing your sales culture and your sales management disciplines will

work significantly better if it is a team effort. Your leaders and sales managers are

the linchpins of change and success. Give them the opportunity to help shape the

future organization. This helps create buy-in and shows you who wants to be part of

the future and who doesn’t.

3. Aim for progress, not perfection. Take time to do your due diligence to identify

and prioritize the activities that will make the most positive impact on results. Don’t

attempt to make wholesale change and create more chaos. Focus on doing the most

important things really well before moving on to the next round of improvement

activities.

4. Focus on simplicity and practicality. Create strategic clarity that enables the

right skills and right support to build a highly engaged sales culture.

Sources:

1. Boris Groysberg, Ashish Nanda and Nitin Nohria “The Risky Business of Hiring Stars” Harvard Business Review,

May 2004, https://hbr.org/2004/05/the-risky-business-of-hiring-stars

2. Chris Orlob, “VP Sales Job Tenure Has Shrunk 7 Months – This Trend Explains Why” LinkedIn Pulse, January 2018,

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vp-sales-job-tenure-has-shrunk-7-months-trend-explains-chris-

orlob/?trackingId=ZViidVwjBByQ%2F8LnPySTAg%3D%3D

3. Daniel Goleman, “Emotional Intelligence Reader’s Guide”, Penguin Random House Publishing, September 2006,

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69105/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-

goleman/9780553804911/readers-guide/

4. John Kotter, “When CEOs Talk Strategy, 70% of the Company Doesn’t Get It”, July 2013,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/07/09/heres-why-ceo-strategies-fall-on-deaf-ears/#5a92c6383663

5. Josh Bersin, “Becoming irresistible: A new model for employee engagement,” Deloitte Review, Deloitte University

Press, January 2015, http://dupress.com/articles/employee-engagement-strategies/.

6. DoubleDigit Sales, “Sales Culture Effectiveness Report”, October 2016, https://doubledigit-sales.com/sales-culture-

effectiveness-report/


We offer some great resources to help you create strategic clarity and build a highly

engaged sales force. These include:

Sales Culture Survey

Identify and prioritize opportunities to

build a high-performing sales culture by

benchmarking your current organization

against the best in class.

However, as a first step, we suggest simply contacting us to schedule a brief

discussion about how we can best help you.

Strategic Alignment Facilitation

We help you conduct an off-site working

session with your top team to create

clarity and commitment for your strategy.

The output will be a one-page strategic

plan that becomes a simple but powerful

roadmap to keep everyone on course.

“Engage Me” Book

Based on over 20 years of experience

helping clients build high-performing

sales cultures, Double Digit Sales CEO

Kevin Higgins offers deeper insight and

guidance into many of the topics covered

in this guide.

Next Steps


About DoubleDigit Sales

DoubleDigit Sales is a top 20 sales training firm with a client roster ranging from

Fortune 500 companies to local credit unions.

We specialize in helping salespeople, sales managers and executives perform

significantly better to achieve double digit growth. Drawing on our extensive library of

proven content and tools, we leverage our streamlined design process to deliver

customized and exceptional learning experiences that change behaviors and drive

improved sales results.

Over time, we have refined our core teachings, always with the aim of making them

as simple, practical and useable as possible. Doing our job right means our clients

must be able to apply their learning the very next day.

272 Richmond Street East, Suite 200

Toronto, ON M5A 1P4

Need support in your new role?

Contact Us

1.855.656.2999

15

www.doubledigit-sales.com

new sales leader guide to success · goals. then we interview some key players on the executive and...

Documents