3 Keys to Transforming Your SALES CULTURE By Mike Brooks

t some point in a company’s development, it becomes a priority to focus on and possibly change the existing sales culture. This need to change can be driven by many factors, including slumping or declining sales numbers. Alternatively, a change in focus may occur, from a customer-service-orient- ed sales team taking inbound leads to a more direct-selling model in which outbound calling becomes a prior- ity. Or perhaps there is a change in direction, such as a focus on growing new accounts. Sometimes a total transformation is in order, whereby an entirely new sales methodology is required and selling systems, processes, and other key sales drivers are developed and implemented. Regardless of the change, and in spite of the work necessary, one common challenge remains consistent: getting buy-in from your existing sales team to adopt and implement the skills, processes, and procedures needed to make the change successful.

THE PROBLEM IS WITH PEOPLE, NOT PROCESSES Changing processes and proce- dures is relatively straightforward; changing the attitudes and actions of experienced sales reps isn’t. Those of you who have been involved in managing or directing a sales team know firsthand the resistance reps exert against changing the way they sell. Even when their current sales skills are ineffective, sales reps are reluctant to try something different. Many sales reps resist a scripted or process-oriented approach, prefer- ring to ad lib their way through their sales presentation and arguing that they would sound canned if they did otherwise. In addition, many experienced sales reps have been through enough “sales-culture changes” to know that if they wait long enough for the new changes to blow over, the current senior management team will eventu-