High-Performance Sales Teams: Discipline

Last time, I listed three ingredients for success:

Discipline: Orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.

Accountability: Obligation to give a reckoning or explanation for one's actions.

Control: A standard of comparison for checking the results of an experiment or process.

This time, let's review Discipline. This relates to self-discipline for the manager as well as organizational discipline. To use an old phase, "It's great when the trains run on time" is the prescriptive analogy for what I am suggesting. A well-run sales organization knows that meetings start on time, are well organized, information that is expected is delivered on time -- no excuses, training is completed and all sales processes work!

When we interview top performers who leave organizations, their reasons for leaving are seldom earnings; it's the organizations sloppiness; frustrations that "nothing" works easily and lack of professionalism. Building discipline is an every day focus.

Our recommendation of the quarter was that in tough times, sales execution/training needs increased levels of focus. Twice a year, your entire team should read a new sales book. Our recommendation: Selling to Big Companies, by Jill Konrath (2005, Kaplan Business). Also check out http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/, a great site to find information and order your copy.

Posted by Ken Thoreson on March 03, 2009 at 11:59 AM