This year’s pandemic impacted businesses significantly. Many of them had to accelerate their transition to 100 percent virtually within a matter of days to stay competitive. In this Expert Insight Interview, Lance Tyson discusses sales leadership during times of uncertainty. Lance Tyson is a President and CEO of the Tyson Group, providing coaching, training, and consulting to sales leaders and their teams to achieve higher performance.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- How to keep the sales team on the right track
- Sales leaders finding themselves in the middle
- The importance of sales processes in uncertainty
Focus on Success
This change to virtual came with its consequences because some people still struggle to accept it. Sales leaders now face the challenge of refocusing their teams on success. The most important thing for the sales leaders is to keep the communication going. Considering that the culture of being in the office all together is lost and that team meetings became more complicated, sales leaders cannot afford to lose the connection with the employees. Constant communication with employees also helps to see how they are dealing with this overall situation. The biggest mistake a sales leader can make is to follow the approach “one size fits all.” Every member of the team gets motivated differently. Hence, a good leader should try to understand each person’s needs separately to be able to get the most of them in return.
Finding Balance
On the other hand, this is a hard time for sales leaders as well. They feel the pressure from the senior management to achieve results during uncertainty while they cannot and should not pass that pressure to their subordinates because that will be counterproductive for the team performance. Therefore, the sales leaders have a hard time finding a balance between being empathetic towards the employees yet still putting the company’s survival as a priority. In some situations, sales leaders even have to ask themselves the unpleasant question of what is more important, the ship or the crew?
Sales Process
When the uncertain time arrives, the sales process is the key to the sales team. The sales process must be present even if adjusted. Sometimes, the sales team would have to negotiate even against themselves to get the sales process moving. It is a dynamic process that heavily matches the current condition of the market requiring close and constant attention. Moreover, in recent years, sales teams got a little spoiled by technology innovation and marketing automation, generating quality leads and allowing them to enjoy their comfort zone. However, now more than ever, an old-fashioned way of picking up the phone and doing extra levels of prospecting is necessary.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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