If
you are a sales manager convinced that your sales team needs to change its
behaviors in order to be successful, you should prepare to deal with the fear
of change. You may not think of your sales team as fearful. Generally,
salespeople are a self-confident lot. But most of us naturally resist change
because it is new, untried and unfamiliar.
Any
new behaviors require a change in your team’s current process. Expect that your
team will resist learning something new unless you can persuade them that the
new approach will increase their chances of success.
Here
are four high-level steps to effectively begin a change initiative:
- Get the sales team’s buy-in and commitment by making a compelling case for change.
- Provide effective business sales training with plenty of interaction and role playing.
- Re-define performance expectations to encourage the adoption of new selling behaviors.
- Assign skilled sales coaches to encourage and refine the new selling activities.
