How to increase Sales: Create a Culture of Accountability
“Accountability means having the emotional maturity and internal backbone to take responsibility for your own actions and choices, and not shift blame to external factors.” ~ Danita Bye
Is a lack of accountability the root cause for your lagging sales results?
1966 saw the emergence of the fictional movie trio, starring Clint Eastwood as ‘the Good’, Lee Van Cleef as ‘the Bad’ and Eli Wallach as ‘the Ugly.’ I regularly encounter this destructive trio in the world of Sluggish Sales Results…
Low Accountability and his co-stars, Blame Game and Victim Mode can wreak havoc with your best sales strategies.
Is your emerging sales leader acting out one of these roles?
CEO’s, business owners and sales leaders, often tell me about their frustrations to motivate their Millennials to increase sales and margins. In our Millennial Survey, 45% of business owners’ responses dealt with character concerns like a lack of resilience and accountability.
Sometimes leaders are so stuck on all the negative Millennial stereotypes that they don’t take action to fix the problem. To increase your sales results, you must identify the hidden weaknesses that are limiting your sales growth. More importantly, you have to take action to address and eliminate them. The Sales Audit is one process to help you identify root causes.
This extract from Millennials Matter, provides interesting statistics about this trend:
- 60 percent of all sales professionals have a self-sabotaging tendency to point to other people or circumstances when they don’t hit their sales targets, rather than taking personal responsibility for their results.
- However, 100 percent of top-tier new-business developers and rainmakers take personal accountability for their actions and behaviors.
Do you want to eliminate these negative role-players and get your up-and-coming sales leader to take personal accountability for their sales results?
3 Tips to Create a Culture of Accountability and Increase your Sales
- Invite your emerging sales leader to embrace an excuse-free character core. This mind-set minimizes excuses and maximizes the search for creative solutions.
Example: Resolve to find solutions and never to blame the competition, colleagues, the product, the economy or any other external factors for dismal sales results.
- Encourage future leaders to stretch their comfort zones every day.
This happens when they are able to act in the face of fear.
Example: Resolve to uncover and overcome hidden weaknesses like a need for approval or recovering from rejection so that they can control their selling process more effectively and increase sales.
- Help your Millennial sales leader apply an ownership mind-set.
This happens when they acknowledge their own input, behavior, activities, and contribution to a situation.
Example: Resolve not to get stuck on outcomes (what the client decides), but learn to control your reaction (what you decide to do – push further, ask deeper level questions, or leave the sale and move on to a better prospect.)
When you find the root cause for your lagging sales results, you have given the first big step to put your business back on the growth track. By creating a culture of accountability you give your emerging sales leader the best chance to become the sales superstar you need to increase your sales.
Leadership Lesson: Create a culture of accountability in your business to increase your sales.
Leadership Question: What resources, coaches, or mentors challenged you to apply an action mind-set and take ownership of the results of your choices?
© Copyright 2017 Danita Bye
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