Love Your Team: A Survival Guide for Sales Managers in a Hybrid World
Sales management can be challenging, especially in a hybrid work environment. In a recent podcast episode, John Golden interviews Helen Ucci, an experienced sales manager who developed the Love Your Team system of sales management. They discuss the importance of retaining top talent in sales, especially in a remote work environment, and the potential risks of losing top sales talent.
Helen emphasizes the need for clear communication, outcome-based expectations, and building trust relationships with salespeople. She also discusses the challenges of managing a remote team and the importance of empowering team members to do the whole job.
One of the most important takeaways from the episode is the need for sales managers to shift their mindset and be more flexible in accommodating a hybrid workforce. This means building trust and transparency with salespeople and understanding what matters to them on their terms. By modeling the behavior they expect to see in their sales team and treating their team as their number one customer, sales managers can build strong relationships with their team members.
Helen also emphasizes the importance of coaching and feedback, highlighting the difference between coaching and telling people what to do. She recommends asking good questions to help salespeople arrive at their own answers and build problem-solving skills.
Finally, John and Helen discuss the need for more creativity in career paths for salespeople, beyond the traditional path of moving up to a management position. Helen suggests that there are opportunities for salespeople to move across domains or work on different accounts.
Overall, Love Your Team: A Survival Guide for Sales Managers in a Hybrid World provides valuable guidance for sales leaders on managing remote teams and situations they may encounter. With the rapidly changing world of sales, it’s important to adapt and be proactive in understanding the needs and goals of sales team members.
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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.
