Regroup, Recharge, Refocus Your Sales Team!
By Michael J Griffin
Having survived 2 years of Covid, sales teams are coming out of “ZoomHibernation” to the face the challenges of selling in the post Covid marketplace. Proactive sales managers are engaging their teams to “Regroup, Recharge, Refocus” to this new market environment. Let’s review some activities you, the sales manager, can do for each of the “R’s” to drive and motivate sales team success.
Regroup. Face to face meetings are now possible. Proactive sales managers are scheduling sales force retreats or summits to bring the team back together. Salespeople need to be around and interact with people and what a better way than to have a one or two day get together to “refresh and re-energize” the team. Don’t do this in the office, do it off site in a harmonious environment that allows time for team members to relax and reconnect. Make it special to show you care for your team. Consider this “Regroup” summit an investment in sales performance not as an expense!
Recharge. The two years of Covid has been stressful for many employees. Virtual selling has not been easy. I have found that progressive companies are taking greater care of employee health – physical, mental and emotional. We suggest before any sales team summit, the sales director with HR conduct a “Employee Engagement Survey” of the motivation and “health” of their salespeople. Doing this before the sales team get together helps the sales managers plan for a meeting that meets organizational and personal needs to perform post Covid. Secondly, conduct training for the salespeople that will refresh their selling and relationship skills. The training should be skill based and gamified to engage the individual and teams. Salespeople enjoy competition and recognition.
Refocus. This component has two parts. The first part is a presentation by the senior sales director or CXO. Lasting no more than 45 minutes, the presenter refocuses the sales team on the post Covid future: the market changes, strategy, goals and rewards for the sales team to achieve new levels of success in 2022 and beyond. This talk should be visionary, motivating and emphasize the values of the company. The second part of this “refocus” is more personal. The sales manager schedules one on one meetings with each salesperson. The agenda for these one on one meetings should start with reflections and learnings from Covid, move to a joint agreement on past year’s successes and areas for improvement, a review of the salesperson’s goals/scorecard for the next year, and finally constructing a development plan to grow the salesperson over the next year. Wrap up for this one on one meeting concludes with the when and how the sales manager meet on a monthly basis for separate performance reviews and development progress.
Regroup – Recharge – Refocus.
Sales managers who proactively employ this simple three “R’s” process will reap dividends of increased sales team motivation, reduced employee turnover, and higher sales. As Nike says….Just Do it! Regroup your team together to “Recharge and Refocus!”
Michael J Griffin
CEO & Founder ELAvate
Global Sales Productivity Coach
Maxwell Leadership Founding Member