Why do some sales teams consistently hit their targets while others struggle? How do you hold employees accountable without damaging team morale and trust?
Sales expert Keenan’s book Gap Selling reveals insights into creating a culture of accountability within sales teams. The focus lies on rewarding honest communication and utilizing data-driven approaches to achieve predictable sales outcomes.
Discover actionable strategies that will transform your sales team’s performance and create a more transparent, trust-based environment.
Keep Your Sales Reps Accountable
Keenan explains that successfully managing a gap selling team requires ensuring that sales reps take responsibility for setting and hitting their sales targets. This will improve the predictability and accountability of your sales operations. How do you hold employees accountable? Keenan gives two pieces of advice for creating this shared culture of accountability: Reward honesty and base your predictions on data.
1) Reward Honesty
Keenan argues that successful sales managers reward their representatives for being honest when they’ll likely fall short of a target. He also cautions against pressuring representatives to change their commitments or find new leads when falling short. The goal is to establish a climate of trust where salespeople can share accurate pipeline information without fear of repercussions. This transparency will give you more accurate information about expected revenue, allowing you to address problems proactively and adjust sales strategies as needed.
(Shortform note: According to management experts, creating an environment of trust and accountability among workers will require you to model these behaviors yourself. They argue that workers naturally emulate their leaders and look to them for cues about how to behave. Thus, they recommend that you practice being transparent and honest with your workers about decisions, as well as admitting when you’ve made a mistake or fallen short of a target. Your workers will then be more likely to embody these values as well.)
2) Base Predictions on Data
Lastly, Keenan advises that you can improve the accountability of your sales team by calling on them to rely on data over gut feelings when making their sales projections. Your team can’t effectively anticipate future sales unless they’re drawing on clear and reliable information. Even if your sales representative has a “good feeling” about a deal, that doesn’t mean it will go through. Ask your team to incorporate prior closeout rates and other metrics when making their predictions.
(Shortform note: Psychological research supports Keenan’s argument that gut feelings are unreliable when it comes to predicting success. This is because of a cognitive bias called “the illusion of control,” which leads people to think they have more control over a situation than they actually do. Psychologists attribute this to three related factors: 1) People’s natural optimism leads them to believe things will turn out in their favor more often than they actually do. 2) Discomfort and anxiety with situations out of their control leads them to overestimate their own control over outcomes. 3) Humans also overestimate their control over events because they’re constantly looking for patterns and are therefore likely to infer cause and effect, even where it doesn’t exist. Using data, as Keenan suggests, shows you clearly where your feelings are in conflict with facts, helping you overcome the illusion of control.)
