How to Start Crafting a Culture Shift for Your Sales Team

I received an email today from an executive stating her desire to build a truly world-class sales team. She proceeded to ask a number of “getting started” questions regarding recruiting, staffing, training, systems, etc.

I very much appreciate her desire to do something truly extraordinary – the world needs more people who are willing to dream big, hairy audacious dreams!

At the same time, I advised her to step back for some big picture assessment.

More than a few sales leaders desire to craft a truly world-class sales organization, but most do not start with the right questions.

The very idea of building such an institution is not a tactical consideration at all. It’s cultural.

True (and rare) best-in-class sales teams define their success not by their practices but, rather, by their principles.

They define the culture first and the systems second.

Everyone wants to know the what; few have really defined the why.

I’m really excited about the new curriculum we’ve developed to address this situation. I’ll be rolling it out at Level Up 2015, our sales leadership summit in Chicago this September.

But here is a sneak preview of what you can expect to see and learn:

1. It Starts At the Top

Designing a world-class culture starts with a vision, and vision embraced and nurtured at the very top of the organization. An internal campaign might be necessary to convince the senior leadership that there is no halfway when it comes to building a truly remarkable sales team.

This is true because it’s not about having a great sales team. It is about building a great sales company. The entire organization must become a sales-first enterprise. Everything else is just systems and processes.

2. It Requires a Gap Analysis

Having a clear vision gives you a dot on a map – your destination. I call that the Next Level Culture (C2). It’s about having a clear idea about what the “end state” looks like.

All you need is a starting place, defined as your Current Culture (C1). This requires some tough and pointed questions for everyone in the organization. It requires a great deal of honesty and some old-fashioned soul-searching.

But if the leaders can accurately assess their starting point it makes it much easier to develop a clear roadmap for what happens next.

3. See the Obstacles as the Path

If you have a well-clarified destination (C2) and a well-defined starting place (C1) you can lay out the specific steps to get you off the ground.

But here is where leaders make their biggest mistake. They think too sequentially. “First we’ll do this, and then we’ll do that.”

The problem with this way of thinking is that it does not account for the inevitable issues, problems, obstacles and diversions that will surely arise.

At Level Up 2015 we will show you how to implement the drive to C2 by beginning with the obstacles.

After all, if you can remove all the obstacles, you find yourself with a clear path to your goal!

To be clear, this process is not easy.

But hey – we’re talking about a radical redefinition of your culture. It shouldn’t seem easy.

If it feels easy, it’s probably half-baked.

No, it’s hard. Really hard.

But to quote Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, “It’s the hard that makes it great”!

We’re going to spend more time focusing on the topic of building a high-performance sales culture at my annual Sales Leadership Summit: Level Up 2015.

I hope that you will join us in Chicago on September 10-11 as we take a journey into the future – your future – to define what excellence and success look like when you take your sales culture to the next level.

Change your paradigm …and change your world!