What Does a Resilient Sales Team Look Like?
The most frequent question asked of me as I am about to deliver a motivational speech on building resilient sales teams is: “What is the one thing all resilient sales teams have in common?” It is an honest question, but as 2022 has come around, I realize there is no simple answer. In fact, looking for “just one thing” is the opposite of being open and resilient. Given the challenges all sales teams have these days, I can identify at least ten factors’ sales teams could all share:
- Courage to change
- Empathy for customers; really talking to customers
- Understanding customized solutions
- Upgrading skills
- Being open to all solutions; learning from everyone
- Building powerful teams together; everyone gets involved
- Accept these are the good times; move-on from the past
- Find a happy place; understand what “Flow” truly means
- Break down projects into small steps to go forward
- Resilience is nothing new; successful teams have always changed
The resilient team calls on all the factors above, from being on top of their game skills-wise to avoiding stock phrases such as “we’ve always done it this way,” to being open, deriving solutions and learning from everyone – even those far outside your industry.
We will get through this together
Reflecting on the points above, it is vital that in building a resilient sales team, there can be no room for super stars or anyone who feels they are bigger than the group.
To build our great team, we must rise and succeed together. It is where a sense of shared optimism is so important. There has never been a successful sales team that has ever pitied itself by longing for the “good old days.”
Yes, many of us now work virtually and many of us no longer go into an office, and we live with uncertainty and fear, but if you think about it, hasn’t that always been the case? Resilient sales teams have overcome spiraling inflation and crashing, economic depression; numerous supply-chain problems; mergers, acquisitions and rapid changes in technology. Great teams have endured bad times, social upheavals, wars and even pandemics. How?
Because resilient teams have built themselves, willed themselves, to be stronger than their competitors. There is no magic formula but a combined determination to rise above whatever challenges confront them. And, it makes little difference whether the team is selling real estate, software or pet food, teams that are determined to succeed, generally will succeed.
What it takes is a mindset, where the entire sales team, works toward a common goal, much like a bodybuilder or any athlete, builds upon each day, a little better and stronger each day. The vision that successful, resilient teams have, that unsuccessful teams lack is to put in the work; to never give up.
There are no easy answers in 2022, and no one can predict the future, but it is a certainty that if you build a sales team to be resilient, come what may, it will be resilient and it will win.
To book Scott Burrows, Building Resilient Sales Teams Keynote Speaker, please reach out to him through this website or contact his office at: (520) – 548 – 1169
