How To Introduce Change To Your Sales Team?

You may have this groundbreaking idea that will change your sales team’s systems, procedures or processes, but that doesn’t mean your team will share the same level of enthusiasm as you, at least initially. Humans tend to be resistant to change, and if you take introducing changes to your team lightly, it might lead to things going all over the place and tempers heating up like Austin on a summer afternoon. What is the most effective way to start changes in the way your team does things without pissing people off? Well, first of all, it doesn’t help to blindside your team. It has everything to do with effective communication, as Sam Wakefield explains further.

We are talking about an important topic, how to properly and improperly introduce new items, changes, systems, procedures, or anything like that to your sales team. This is a show specifically designed for sales leaders, sales trainers, managers, and owners. How do you introduce new stuff to your salespeople? What is going to be the most effective way? What is the way that’s going to piss them off basically? You don’t want to do that. You want to leave everybody with feeling good about changes, not being angry or upset when changes come along.

I’ve been doing a ton of private coaching. We’re taking people from zero to hero in a short amount of time. If your close rate is less than you would like it to be, if you are not selling the volume of sales that you want to be, let me know. We can talk about it and find out if private coaching is a good fit for you or not. I love it when I get new private coaching clients because everyone sees instant results and we deep dive right away. In this process, it’s different than going to maybe a sales course. You go to a week-long sales training somewhere and you sit in the classroom, you might role-play a little bit, but you’re going to hear somebody lecture and every single day they’re walking through the steps of the cell and all of that and you get this workbook, then what happens? You go home and you’re trying to implement the things you learned. If you’re like most people and me, there’s a fair amount of you that you go to these and then you go back and you’d go back right back into your ways or your numbers might stay up for a little while, but then it falls off because it’s all about implementation.

Success happens at the speed of implementation. Not only that, when you leave to go to a course or a seminar in sales training, you have to leave work. You can’t keep continuing to bring in revenue. When you do my coaching program, it’s stretched out across a period of time. What happens is we work on each step of the sale specifically, in-depth, and then your homework for the next week is to implement it. You get access to me to reach back. We can work through any rough places. By the time we get to the next week’s appointment, your homework is that week is to implement that one thing, and make it become part of your process.

It’s natural that it stays. It’s like we have the lecture. It’s interactive because we do video conferences. You have an entire week to implement until it becomes second nature that that’s the way you do it. Week after week, we’re building on the foundation of that previous step to the next step. All at the same time, we get to have that constant interaction. When you come across objections or you come across obstacles, you’re running up against the same wall in your daily process, we can talk about it throughout the week, but the number one thing you’re implementing and it’s becoming part of your process and it’s changing you in a way that’s going to be lasting results.

Most people that attend conferences or training or something like that, they see increased results for a little while, but then they drop back off. The clients that go through the coaching program, their results go up and stay up. That is the important part. I love to see people go from zero to hero and start crushing it in their market and then don’t come back down. It’s not a flash in the pan because it doesn’t matter how high you jump at these events. It’s how straight you walk when you land. We’ve got to implement what you learn and that’s doing a coaching program different than a course because you instantly are implementing as part of the process and we ingrain it to the level that you’re instantly next-level cells with each of those, so you become a rockstar.

That’s the coaching program. It’s different than anything else. The cool part is it’s priced to where one good sells and you’ve paid for it. Most people who go through the program have at least one good sell a week, an increase in their revenue. They’re making more money. It’s way more than worth it and it’s got a money-back guarantee. If this is something you’re interested in, reach out to me at Sam@closeitnow.net. This is not a shameless plug. I want to help you become better. I want to see you in my Hall of Fame. I’ve got a Wall of Champions that I’ve started with people on there that are one guy. This is August 19, 2020, and one of my clients, his first rookie year, should be crossing the $1 million mark and it’s only in mid-August 2020. That is what’s going on with the coaching program.

We are talking about how to effectively introduce new things to your sales team and pitfalls to avoid. Here’s what I have seen happen with a sales team, you have a new procedure that’s going to completely change the way the sales team operates through it’s going to be different with dispatching. It’s going to be different from their interaction, with the service technicians. At first glance, you don’t know what’s going on when it’s something new. It changes. Anytime we see change, we’re a bit resistant to it.

The scenario is the GM says, “We decided to start the process for a whole day, see what happened, and let’s find out what pain points we’re going to have and then talk about it the next day at the meeting.” I can guarantee you that is the fastest way to have a sales team coming in, angry, aggravated, frustrated, and having no idea what is going to be happening. No idea how to even follow these new procedures, because there was no training on it. There was no conversation about it beforehand. It was a matter of, “We’re starting this. Let’s see if you can figure it out.” The next day at the sales meeting, what happened? There was a big blow-up. Tempers were raised and it was a conversation that eventually calmed down, but it could have all been avoided.

Don’t do that. Raise your hand if you’ve done that in the past, but let me give you permission to change the way that you communicate. Crystal clear communication is wildly important, especially when you’re dealing with your comfort advisors, your project managers, and sales team, selling text and this goes for anything. It could be if you introduce new processes and procedures for your service technicians, for your selling texts, for your installation crews, the office, it doesn’t matter. Communication is crucial.

A much better way to avoid that would have been, “Let’s get together. Let’s talk about this. Here’s what the plan is. Here’s where we’re going to be moving. Here’s how to do it. Here’s how to handle these changes.” Will there be obstacles? Will there be speed bumps? Will there be hiccups? Yes, however, this is the direction the company wants to go. Let’s try it for 1 or 2 days and then meet again. We can discuss any friction points you’re having. If we need to modify or adjust some things, we can do that. I give you permission to come back with complete, open, and honest feedback of what you’re feeling, what your emotions are, what your concerns are, and what your thoughts are and we can work through it.