Listening to Lyle Lovett reminds me of one of the keys to making sales process work.
He croons “you can have my girl, but don’t touch my hat”. I admire a guy who respects his core values.
Applying core values to sales process? Absolutely. Let me explain why, what and how that should be done.
Why are core values important for sales process? Why answers a lot of questions for all of the stakeholders that are affected. The salesperson wants to know ‘why’ do I have to get training? The managers want to know ‘why’ is this sales process the key to my region hitting its numbers? The CFO wants to know ‘why’ are we spending ‘x’ to train the salesforce and what’s the return? The CEO wants to know ‘why’ is this investment needed and now?
When ‘why’ is clearly established – after it’s thought through and justified – the front line sales managers can consistently refer to it at every step of the implementation. Why can help smooth out the speed bumps in resistance. Why helps people get on board.
What do core values look like when implementing a sales process? For example, one core value could be ‘we will freely communicate what we’re doing regarding sales activities’. I can tell you right now I have clients where that’s not a core value. For some the problem is an over active sales manager being busy but not so effective for her sales team. For another client it’s a salesperson who thinks she’s above that core value, it doesn’t apply to her because ‘she produces’.
Another example could be ‘we will demonstrate attitudes of continuous improvement’ regarding selling. In other words, if anyone rejects the idea that there’s nothing left to learn, you’re probably not a good fit here.
How do you use core values in your sales process? I think it’s a bad idea to think you could lock your door and establish core values for the team. It’s not that the outcome would be vastly different, rather, it’s that your team misses the journey it needs to experience in that exercise. It might be easiest to establish core values for sales process when you’re establishing a new one. Most of you don’t have that luxury. Fortunately you don’t need it. Why not assemble your team in an offsite and define core values at your summer meeting or next quarter? They’ll have more buy in when they build it. It will refocus their attention on fundamentals that they identify.
The exercise could be just the boost your team needs.
Good selling,
Mark Sellers
Author, The Funnel Principle
Founder Breakthrough Sales Performance
Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching 