Sales Team Fatherhood

Raising my team from newbies to vets

By: Michael McMillan

It is so funny when any of my new sales team members first hear me refer to then as “the kids” especially when they may be twice my age!

It wasn’t until after the birth of my first daughter that I start referring to my sales team as my kids.  Prior to that, they were just my team. But after my daughter was born, I quickly realized just how similar raising a child was to managing and mentoring my sales force.

Okay now listen yes many of us salespeople can be needy at times, but that is not the similarity I am speaking to.

Where I really started to see things connecting was around how you need to go about mentoring and training your staff.  Each day with my daughter I focus carefully on showing her how much I care for her, what she finds interesting, and what she is interested in learning or talking about.  I then remember this information and leverage it throughout the day and night to inject important life lessons she will need to know as an adult.

In my sales environment I have found that by using this same approach my ability to connect and train my staff has improved dramatically.  This realization led me to create my mentoring and training process I simply named, “carefirst training.” So creative right.

The process, from a high level, works to ensure my staff first and foremost knows that my dedication is to them and their ability to meet and exceed their personal and professional goals.  Once I am confident that they really believe and feel that, I then begin the more structured training and mentoring process.

The reason for the slow stepped approach is because many times with a sales process you regularly need to ask for one of the biggest asks you can from another person, their complete trust.  You need this person to have the ability to trust that the process you are training them on will ultimately lead them to closing deals to meet their goals and objectives both personally and professionally.  You are also asking them to trust that you, as their leader, will be there to help support them to get their deals done, and answer questions when they have them.

You may know the old saying, “trust is not given, it is earned.”  I believe in this statement 1000%. I also like another which goes, “trust takes a lifetime to earn, and a moment to lose.”

So remember next time you hire a new person into your organization, really take note of the amount of trust you are asking a person to put in you as their leader.  Once you take heart of this fact then lead them by first getting to know the real person you hired.  Show them that you honestly care about their goals both personally and professionally, and will be there to ensure they can obtain those goals here or some where else.  Once you have done all of that, and only once you are sure that is done, move into your business training.

From there enjoy your amazing team because now you will have a team that will trust in you enough to do almost anything you ask them for as they know you have their best interest at heart.

To Your Success & Prosperity!