Why do successful salespeople fail as leaders?

The skills that make a great salesperson are not the same skills needed to develop a sales team and help them succeed. Dr. Stefanie Boyer, professor of marketing at Bryant University and a distinguished DSEF fellow, will discuss using strategic social selling to build trust during DSA Social Media Day on May 8.

Boyer, cofounder of RNMKRS, shared insights from her new book, 9 Ways to Develop Highly Successful Salespeople during DSA Vision 23 in Provo, Utah. 

 “Selling is helping customers and focusing on your goals. When leading a team of salespeople, the goal is to make every person on your team successful,” she says.

1. Find the right people.

What does the leader know about the people on her team and their individual goals? Not everyone wants to be in the top one percent, but all want to experience growth. Uplines need the ability to translate company goals and align them with individuals’ goals.

2. Make sure they understand the process.

Are you training the team to follow a repeatable sales process and monitoring that process? If someone is not making sales, it’s critical to identify what went wrong. Are they following up? Asking the right questions?

3. Encourage practice.

Practice facilitates a growth mindset which can help improve levels of grit. It moves team members from memorizing a “pitch” to engagement and conversations. Think about quality control for  the brand in all messages.

4. Teach them how to think on their feet.

Improvise! Simple, easy improv games provide practical, active learning and nudge people in the right direction.

5. Create a safe culture of cooperation.

How safe does your team feel to go out and sell? If they fail to make the sale, do they come back to learn or never return? What is the upline leader doing to make her team feel supported? Share stories of overcoming.

6. Teach them to learn so they can continue to grow.

Providing people with control over their learning means more motivation, performance, and loyalty. New distributors need simple choices and steps, rather than trying to absorb everything at once.

7. Provide mentoring

Ensure everyone on the team has a mentor.

8. Be a good leader.

How much professional development and training are leaders receiving each month?

9. Make sure your plan is working.

Is your training working? How often does the team evaluate their training and goals?

Take a deep dive into all nine of these strategies in 9 Ways to Develop Highly Successful Salespeople by Stefanie Boyer, PhD & Andrew Artis, Sr., PhD.