The empowered sales force

The majority of companies committed mistakes by not empowering their sales force over the years such that teams became fearful due to lack of empowerment.

Fear drives bad decisions and practices that can frustrate your team. Counter fear by instilling trust at all levels. Start by letting the team know that the organization trusts them to make the right commitments and decisions. The team should be trusted to learn, grow, and make choices as a group, instead of taking directives from management. Teams often under commit due to fear of being responsible or blamed for failure

Lack of sales force empowerment

There are three steps to ensuring your team is empowered. First, you must engage the team by inviting members to participate in planning. Next, ask the team for their insights on the proposed set of work. Finally, the value of these insights must be respected. True empowerment means the team makes the decisions that impact commitment. The business does not tell the team what to do, but instead provides data on what is most important.

It’s more important than ever for business leaders of today to empower their employees. Setting them up for success is all about allowing for collaboration and engagement, and abandoning the “command-and-control” management style of old.

How to empower sales force

Your salespeople need to be in the know. That includes keeping them informed about company-wide goals, giving them tools to uncover new opportunities, launching new training methodologies, and managing in a way that helps them improve their sales and service performance. Ultimately, the sales team in the know can make sales grow.

Understand that people are your most valuable resource. Even with the best product on the market, a company needs people capable of and committed to pleasing customers. Customers may stay with or leave a business based on how well employees treat them and handle their questions and complaints. Sharing information not only gives your reps the facts they need to make customers happy, it may also improve team motivation by making salespeople feel more valued and respected.

Trust your team. When you hire well, you should be able to trust your team members to act responsibly with the information you give them. Give your team credit for being willing and able to increase sales with the information you provide. Let your team members know the value of the information you share and what they should do with it.

Arm your salespeople with technology. As sales cycles lengthen and fewer executives deal with sales reps, enterprise sales teams are becoming more serious about consultative selling. Because it is more difficult than ever to get to decision makers, enterprise sales organizations are increasingly turning to Social Media and SFA (Sales Force Automation).

Make your business an open book. A shift to open-book management makes your salespeople privy to information that once might have been for management's eyes only. With that information, your reps better understand how their actions affect the company and how to maximize their contribution to it. Try releasing information in an online newsletter that presents how to use it and how it can help salespeople do their jobs more effectively. Benefits of empowered sales force

Better customer service

Empowered company sales force offers better customer service. When you have employees that know and share your company vision, and are truly engaged and view themselves as integral parts of the organization, they are capable of making decisions and doing whatever it takes to make the customer a happy customer. They treat that customer as their own and recognize for themselves, and the organization, to be successful they need to attract and retain customers.

Increased productivity

Empowering employees at your company increases productivity. If employees know what is expected and have the authority to make decisions then timelines are met, and tasks are completed. Therefore if an employee is empowered and has the authority, they can make the decision and keep the work moving forward.

Less waste and added value

Empowered employees identify sources of waste and opportunities for increased value. When an employee is empowered within an organization they feel accountable and responsible for the success of the organization. The empowered employee is much more to bring to light issues around waste in the production of a product or a service, and their proximity to the production makes them perfect candidates to provide feedback on areas that can provide enhanced value for your customers and company.

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