Traditionally, the trope of the solo sales superstar or rainmaker has ruled the hearts and minds of many. Lauded for ‘single-handedly’ winning major accounts, bringing in the most amount of deals, or some other super human sales feat, what might surprise those not as familiar with sales and how selling works, is that none of these sales superstars could have achieved their results without the help of others, because no one lives or works in isolation.
Despite the popular myths, it has been known for nearly 20 years that the most successful salespeople are collaborators and team players, not individual sales super heroes. The real sales superstars work in cooperation both internally (colleagues, departments) and externally (customers, competitors). These people are the ones who tend to prosper the most and bring in the most sales. They collaborate with colleagues and don’t allow competitiveness to get in the way of good business, and often assist their colleagues in achieving their best by sharing ideas, information, etc. They are excellent at orchestrating internal resources so as to benefit the company, its people, and the customers and their people. They build collaborative, customer focused relationships inside their organisation and create alignment between the customers’ and suppliers’ strategic objectives. They are committed to looking to further the interests of their customers’ firms as well as their own. They see selling as a team sport.
Enlightened collaborative salespeople and teams are the connectors of viable and valuable relationships across many levels. They are open-minded, humble and astute, and they recognise that without kindness and cooperation we cannot exist. They identify competency and harness talent to achieve effective solutions. They know that they are working towards something larger than themselves.
Unfortunately, many sales teams are still held hostage by old school sales management practices and outdated mindsets that encourage internal competition, league tables and the like. Too many sales leaders are still stuck in the 1980s with ‘greed is good’ and ‘carrot and stick’ philosophies which do not work in the long term and only serve to hold people back. Sales rewards that are self-serving, and endorse selfishness are completely at odds with the world of collaboration and our natural state of being.
So we need senior management to catch up and get with the program and rethink their approach to sales motivation, sales mindset, sales skills, sales rewards and teamwork if we are to remain viable in this world. Collaboration calls for a team effort. Sales teams where everyone is pitted against each other to achieve ‘top dog’ status will be replaced by a ‘lead team’ approach.
This is good selling. And it aligns with our natural state as humans to cooperate and collaborate for the common good. Research conducted by Barrett in partnership with Sharetree this year on the virtues of high performing salespeople across different industries has uncovered in its preliminary observations that these sales super stars score very high on Respect and Co-operation which is consistent with previous research.
While the collaboration trend has been emerging for years now, the pandemic is fast tracking it. And if we are going to create the ideas and solutions needed for our success in the 21st century, collaboration needs to take place within and across teams in organisations -marketing, sales, service, supply, production, finance, etc.-
Companies that want to bring in new business and grow and develop existing customers will rely on the united hands of many – rather than just one. Successful salespeople leverage the power of collaboration over competition because they understand that the sum is greater than its individual parts. Synergy and collaboration will prevail.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au
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