Goals are essential to your sales team’s development and success. Are they hitting their goals? If not here is how to set your team’s MITs (Most Important Things) up for success.
The one-on-one meeting allows you to tailor your attention for each salesperson, since each member of your team has specific strengths and weaknesses, and each is likely motivated by different things. One of the most vital sections of the one-on-one meeting is your salespersons MITs or Most Important Things.
This is where your salesperson reports on the focus activities set from the previous one-on-one meeting and whether or not they were successful.
Your role as the sales leader is make sure you’re not telling your salespeople what to do or what their plan should be. You want them to think through what their plan should be and come up with their own goals to hit and focus on.
If your salesperson is struggling with action items show them the data. Look together at their Big Three. You will want to focus on opportunities, close rate, and their average deal size.
According to Research by HubSpot the biggest challenges today's salespeople are facing:
You can look at their numbers together and help to identify areas where they have opportunity. For example, they may not have many opportunities. Or maybe their close rate is not as high as it should be. Maybe they have enough opportunities, and they close them at a decent rate, but they are struggling to hit their target because all of their deals are too small.
As you review their numbers together start pointing out broad observations such as:
Show them the information, ask them what they see and bring specific areas they need to work on to their attention. Make sure they understand not only what those areas are, but why they are important to address.
Sales leaders are not meant to solve for everyone’s problems — your salespeople have the ability and responsibility to find their own solutions. So instead, what you can do is ask them questions.
Questions move others from their comfort zones to a discovery zone. “A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that shifts the way we perceive or think about something,” according to Warren Berger. The author of A Beautiful Question, coined that term to refer to a catalyst that can uncover change and possibilities.
During your reviews follow up with a question. Some expressions you can use are:
When you ask questions, the action or goal then becomes the salesperson’s idea.
One of the keys to MITs is that they are specific. You want the goal to be clear and specific so anyone reading it can understand what will be done, when, and who will do it.
For example, if one of their MITs is to do more prospecting, drill into that a little to see if they can “get 3 calls next week” or “get a meeting with ABC company by the end of the month.” This way you have a specific goal pulled from data with a timeline.
Meeting with your salesperson weekly and making MITs part of your one-on-one can keep your salesperson on track and hitting their goals which drives more revenue.
Your role as the sales leader is to provide them with feedback, reinforce the positive things and correct where needed so they can make adjustments weekly vs. waiting until it’s too late. They will appreciate knowing what they are doing is directly tied to their sales goals and your expectations.
MITs or Most Important Things help trigger new behaviors, guide your team’s focus and drive revenue. In the end, you cannot manage what you don't measure, and you cannot improve upon something if you are unaware that it needs improvement. When used consistently, MITs are a strong leadership tool.
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