Without accountability,the best-designed sales infrastructure, the best-designed sales strategy, sales plan and sales intentions die quick deaths. You need accountability, your team need accountability, and your customers expect accountability.
Accountability is Good For Everyone
According to Wikipedia, in leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions.
So, you should build simple systems that ensure your sales team and your sales leadership are accountable for their actions.
Simple, but definitely not easy, because what is needed to ensure accountability? A lot of discipline. And it is hard to retain discipline in an increasingly frenetic business and sales environment. But, it is essential to your success as a sales team.
Some suggestions,
1) let me start with my mantra. You MUST hold a weekly sales review, with your team, here is HOW. The emphasis on the weekly sales review is action and accountability. It is less about the numbers (yes they are crucial, and you should always start with the numbers), than the weekly habit of sharing
– what we have achieved.
– what we said we would achieve
– what we will commit to achieving in the coming week
That one discipline every week for just 30 minutes can have a tangible impact on accountability and sales results.
2) create a simple system that tracks your agreed actions as a team. Leverage tools like ToDoist (which has become an invaluable task management system for me) or Trello, Word, Google Docs, or One Note.
The main point is that your document should be a shared document or APP. You want shared visibility on all actions, and it alone will improve accountability.
3) agree on the rules at the outset. If there are no consequences to missing deadlines or failing to execute on your commitments, there will be no accountability. Be clear on the benefits of total transparency and honesty. And highlight the consequences for sub-standard performance.
Here is what I see every day. Teams with a high accountability culture beat those without hands down. There is no contest. And they have more fun. Yes, more fun. All true, because with accountability comes action. With action comes forward momentum. With forward-momentum comes more sales pipeline, more opportunities, more on target performances, more job satisfaction.
Key Takeaways
One non-negotiable you should introduce into your sales organisation is the Weekly Sales Review. Just 30-minutes every week can transform team’s accountability and dramatically improve communication.
PS here is my blog How To Align Your Sales Team Better
You can download a tool I call Sales Clarity On A Page, which will further assist you as you build team accountability.
Regards Ronan
Ronan is the “Sales Infrastructure Guy”.
Helping high growth tech companies build world-class sales systems and processes that scale.
Call me on +353(86) 7732201
Ronan Kilroy | Insthinktive Sales Leadership Ltd. | Blanchardstown, | Dublin 15, | Office 01 8220523
More Sales, More Consistently, In Less Time
