Are Your Sales Team Values Your Company Values?
One question that I often get from readers and clients of our sales consulting business is: “Should our sales team have the exact same Values as our other departments or can they have a different set of Values, as long as they don’t contradict the overall company’s Values?”As a long time and hardcore SGer, I am always surprised by the question. The answer is obvious to me but seems like common sense: not all that common.
In many companies, it is not unusual to find a sales team that is almost detached and insulated from all other departments.
Sales people are hired differently, treated differently, compensated differently, recognized and given feedback differently. Some of them even have a ‘travel and entertainment’ budget! Who else in a company has a budget for wining and dining?
Many times these sales teams start acting like they were, in reality, a different company. Or a fiefdom: part of something bigger, but clearly (and proudly) with a different
personality and its own set of rules.
Specifically to a Small Giant, there are many negative consequences of this, with two of them
being the most damaging:
- Poor communications/teamwork between internal departments. Scott Adam’s has a very humorous way of portraying this: Watering down the differentiation.
SGs are, by definition, differentiators. I have yet to find a Small Giant positioned as a low-cost provider. Based on the recognizable superior quality of products and/or services, SGs usually deservedly command a premium price.
Small Giants believe in something and they want to spread it. Small Giants are about positive impact, positive influence, about how to do something in a new way, a better way, a more vibrant, creative and inspired way.
Here is where it gets tricky. A sales person that does not live by the same Values will tend to sell based on price and discounts, not on being different. I’ve seen it happen
again and again. It’s not lack of training, supervision or KPIs.
It’s not a lack of knowledge, skills or a poor attitude.
It’s simply that the sales person has a different core set of values.
These values drive behavior and, speaking specifically about sales and marketing, they lead to a different way of conducting the sales process.
Every step of the sales process is affected:
- Prospecting for new clients or customers
- Servicing customers
- Need assessment
- Presentation
- Dealing with objections
- Negotiating
- After sales
Every job position in a company has its own specific demands. A sales person has to be hired, trained and maybe (maybe) compensated differently.
But the Values have to be the same. Not similar – the same.
A salesperson has to be inspired by, truly believe and live daily the Values of the company if s/he is really to sell differentiation and not price.
Again, not other or similar Values. The exact same Values.
In this regard, one exercise I’ve been successfully recommending to our clients is the adaptation (what I call ‘translation’) of the Values for the sales team.
Say for example that “Ethics – always do the right thing” is one of your Values. What does that mean exactly in a sales environment?
Take another example: Teamwork and Collaboration. What does that mean exactly for your sales team?
You need to help them translate the Values from something written on a piece of paper or a poster hanging from the wall into something useful and inspiring but, more importantly, very practical. After all, sales people have sales quotas to achieve!
My Values Translation exercise goes like this:
- Definition of the Value
- Why is this Value important?
- What happens when this Value is disrespected?
- Case studies
- Key take aways
- Self-evaluation: “From zero to ten, how would I grade myself today in living this Value?”
- Recap: check-list/reminders
If a SG is to truly communicate and sell its differentiation to the market, then the sales people are really missionaries. And missionaries have to believe in the same
Values to be really effective, productive and happy/satisfied in the process.
So my questions to you are:
- Are your sales team Values the same as the company Values?
- What have you done in terms of hiring, training, communicating and compensating your salesforce so they become your proud missionaries, not mercenaries?
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