Managing a sales team can be quite a challenge. Harnessing individual behavioral preferences, getting everyone focused on the same goals, moving at the same pace, and working in collaboration to develop business opportunities is a major — and some would say, impossible — undertaking.
Let’s assume each member brings something different and valuable to the team — something that enhances the team’s ability to understand an opportunity. But, at the same time, each is pulling in a somewhat different direction. It’s easy for any one of the members to feel misunderstood or ignored.
How do you manage to get your team to work together?
As a manager and leader, you need to understand how your individual team members think and behave. To that end, there are plenty of behavioral models that can be used to categorize your salespeople. One of the most popular is the DISC model.
To use DISC, or any other model effectively, you need to study the styles and understand how they interact with one another.
DISC represents the following:
D – Dominate Style: Loves problems, is decisive, is driven, makes decisions from the gut.
I – Influencer Style: Loves people, is outgoing, is fun-loving, is social, makes decisions from the gut.
S – Steady Relater Style: Loves stability, is loyal, is close to family, does not like change, makes decisions from the head.
C – Cautious Thinker Style: Love rules, needs data and facts, is methodical, makes decisions from the head.
Can you relate to these styles?
If you’ve managed salespeople for any length of time, some of the attitudes — preferences for thinking and acting — and the problems they create will sound familiar. Unless channeled appropriately, these different preferences can be a roadblock to productive activity.
What can you do?
To turn potential roadblocks into building blocks, you must understand — and help your sales team understand — that each person’s preference (including your own) is neither right nor wrong; neither good nor bad. It is simply part of one’s personality makeup and, most importantly, each has value.
Your interaction with your team must reinforce the notion that each preference can make a valuable contribution to the understanding of a situation and help determine the most appropriate course of action — but only if each person is open to the ideas and views of his or her team mates and willing to give them unbiased consideration.
Dave Harman is an associate with Sandler Training. He has over 30 years’ experience in sales and sales management with Fortune 500 companies as well as small, family-owned organizations. He has held positions from sales to senior management with companies such as Conoco/Vista, Amresco and Ohio Awning, and owns his own business. He earned his MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. You can reach him at [email protected] or (888) 448-2030.
