Yes, everybody's in sales. Every business is in sales too.
With that said, without a sales culture, businesses – and their employees – will fail to maximize their potential. Does your firm have a sales culture?
What is a sales culture?
That’s a question most firms and leaders fail to ask. We all assume we know what a sales culture is – we have people responsible for sales, we have sales material, and our sales people use our sales material
to sell your products or services to new clients. So, sure, we have a sales culture…Next question!
Not so fast! Having sales people who use your sales material to sell new clients is NOT a sales culture. Let’s go back to the original statement, “Everyone is in sales.” It is 100% true. No matter what role an employee plays in a firm, they are in sales. Some, or all, of their job responsibilities directly impact the experience that new and existing clients have with your business. From the receptionist who answers the phone and greets guests, to the Operations team who ensures that your processes run smoothly and error-free, to your IT employees who keep your website and email secure and functional, everyone in your firm is impacting clients every day.
Having a sales culture means that everyone in your firm clearly understands, appreciates, and is excited about the role they play in positively impacting clients’ experience and its contribution to sales. With everyone in a firm feeling they are all an integral part of the sales and growth of the business, there is an increased feeling of camaraderie across the firm. Everyone understands how their role fits into the overall effort and the impact that it has on creating highly satisfied clients. Happy clients are repeat/long-term clients, they are also much more likely to give you a larger percentage of their overall business and make strong referrals.
So, how do you create a sales culture within a firm?
Well, that’s the first step – resolving to having a firm-wide sales culture. The rest isn’t overly complicated, it just takes an unwavering commitment to creating and nurturing this sales culture into the future.
Step 1: Resolve to have a sales culture - √
Step 2: Clearly and succinctly let everyone in your firm know
Generally, in an all-hands meeting. Email and smaller group meetings are useful to reiterate the message and its specific impact on different roles, but the initial message should be heard by everyone at the same time. Everyone is in sales…Everyone needs to be a part of the sales culture conversation.
Related: Keeping Up With the Distribution Evolution
The final two steps you are probably already doing, so it’s just minor tweaks:
Step 3: Sales Training
Don’t just focus on your sales people anymore. Find a way to include everyone in sales training. Yes, some training is only appropriate for the sales people, but there are ways to tailor portions of training to non-sales people.
Step 4: Measuring Results
Add in acknowledgements of non-sales people and team efforts to sales “wins.” You don’t need to change your reporting or metrics, simply find ways to applaud non-sales people when celebrating new sales – everyone wants to know that their contributions are appreciated and important.
Creating and maintaining a sales culture is not a one-time project. It requires ongoing diligence, maintenance, and enhancement to keep everyone in your firm fully engaged in contributing to the ongoing growth of the business.