Let’s look at a common issue for sales teams. You’re the leader and you notice your team either isn’t using CRM or is using it inaccurately. You’ve held meetings and maybe even worked one on one, communicating clearly about your expectations. In fact, you’re about to communicate again and wondering how to communicate more effectively with the team about this issue in the hope of getting them to change. You feel stuck.

For years, sales has been about activity. Activity is now a zero-sum game. Buyers go to a seller last. There are numerous sales methodologies — one-two punches, right arm closes, and many more techniques designed to build, motivate and drive better sellers. 

All these techniques focus on building a better mouse wheel, but none of them build a better team. 

• Sales organizations failing to achieve targets postpone performance improvement initiatives, because they can’t afford to have people out of the field taking the actions that aren’t producing results.
• Organizations busy themselves with acting internally on things they feel are important, only to learn later what they put in place doesn’t align with what their customers want and need.
• Organizations fall into a pattern of firehosing customer service issues rather than addressing core causes. As a result, customer experience perceptions decline, because not only do things not improve, but customers feel they face the same problems over and over.

What if there was another way — one that leveraged these and many more skills but went way beyond the action trap many sales teams fall into? Sales leaders can clearly articulate their results and associated action objectives they need to meet, but rarely do they consider the experiences and beliefs that work against them, or those they need to create to achieve them. 

Along the way, we bust a lot of myths: that selling is a numbers game; that sales training impacts results; that the product is the hero; and that “sell in” has to be separated from “sell through”. Culture Now provides a way to lead and sell that goes beyond action.