It is time for the sales organizations to engage a conscious approach to growing revenues. After all, research by The Miller Heiman Group in 2017, indicates that 53% of salespeople fail to meet their quota. Further, the study showed that those who don’t meet their quota, engage behaviors that hurt the sale!  

 

Also, Forbes recently reported that salespeople are burning out at record rates. They indicate that the average turnover of sales professions is 20% a year. Additionally, 44% of millennial sales reps plan to leave their job within two years! On average, it takes six to nine months to properly onboard a sales professional. That corresponds directly to lower sales results and creates massive costs for your organization.

 

Again, such statistics are calling for a more conscious approach to selling. A conscious approach to selling goes beyond merely meeting the numbers. Such an approach involves helping your salespeople in four primary ways – by:

 

1. Engaging a sales mindset that balances being evangelists of your brand with maintaining a deep concern for serving your buyers’ needs. When your sales reps strike this balance, the numbers take care of themselves. Further, the growing population of millennial salespeople desires to be purposeful at work. And if they feel they are making a difference and getting coaching to support their development, they are less likely to leave their job.
2. Approaching sales conversations in a way that is adaptive and promotes the most favorable buying environment. You do this by leveraging the incredible lessons we are taking from recent breakthroughs in emotional intelligence as well as cognitive, behavioral, and social science research. When you do not help your salespeople understand the science of buying, you encourage behaviors that inevitably hurt your brand and kills sales opportunities. 
3. Customizing and following a “sales playbook” that helps your salespeople master the entire sales process while also ensuring they employ behaviors that align with the science of buying. Building a playbook, that you customize to your differentiators, provides a guide your salespeople can use when preparing for and debriefing their effectiveness in sales activities. 
4. Basing your sales culture on coaching to master the right mindset and behaviors rather than leaning too heavily on managing them to meet activities and numbers. When you have a solid sales playbook, it is a constant reminder to your salespeople what you expect and supports your sales leader in the coaching process. Coaching, rather than managing salespeople, is showing great promise. EcSell’s research indicates that sales coaching increases success rates in meeting sales quotas by 16%. The key to engaging effective coaching requires the sales leader has coaching skills and that he is deploying those skills in the right way to support his directs.

 

Unfortunately, we still live in a time when most sales leaders are under constant pressure to meet the numbers, and this pressure trickles down the sales force. When this is the case, your salespeople will continually miss genuine sales opportunities, even while they are engaging in the activities that your sales process suggests will lead to sales. And as your salespeople feel the pressure, you will also likely lose your most productive sales professionals.

 

Indeed, engaging a sales process and deploying metrics are essential. That said, a more conscious approach to selling is not only an act of service to your buyers; it is the most effective means to grow revenues today. An aware, emotionally intelligent salesperson genuinely cares about building a long-term relationship. They understand that by approaching conversations in service to the buyer, they will naturally increase their closing rates. Companies that assist their salespeople in becoming more conscious in their approach will be the ones that lead the pack in their market.