Kenny Chapman
Contributing Writer
The Blue Collar Success Group

I spend the bulk of my time training and coaching in two key areas of our businesses. Those are leadership and sales training. Many people seem to think these two capacities are stand alone job requirements; however, nothing is further from the truth.

Great leaders get great results. Period!

In the corporate world certain CEO’s are highly sought after and can be brought into a struggling business and turn around sales, culture, and profits in a mere matter of months on many occasions. There are a few key things that drive why they can accomplish these results. As leaders of our own companies, we need to take notice of what really works.

When it comes to creating a sales based culture in the home services industry it starts at the top. The person in charge must eat, sleep, and breathe sales. In many ways, we’ve been conditioned in most of our industries that sales is a bad word and our front line team isn’t cut out to be effective when it comes to sales.

I absolutely disagree with this and I’ve personally trained over a thousand front line team members in various industries on how to improve their sales abilities. I can put on the very best sales class in the world, but the deciding factor on their success will always be the culture and leader that they return to when they get back to their company.

There are a few things we need to keep in laser focus when it comes to driving higher sales and customer service results in our companies.

1. Trust – One of the biggest core competencies to effective sales is trust. Yes, we all know this. However, trust as a sales leader is critical when it comes to getting your team to buy-in to what you’re asking them to do. One of the reasons I’m so effective in the schools and onsite training I perform is I have a recipe for building trust with technicians. It’s quite simple: Be real! You must get them to trust you, or all of your training is a waste of time and money.

2. Be Prepared and Organized – The leaders that drive the highest results are prepared and organized when it comes to training or reinforcement coaching. Too many company trainers show up without a clear and concise plan for a meeting and a specific take away that they want their team to receive. Keep it simple, focused, and to the point. If your training isn’t changing behavior, then it’s not training…it’s just a meeting.

3. Work Harder – Don’t take this out of context. I know most of you can’t work any more hours, and I’m not asking you to. In fact, with better clarity, focus, and organization, chances are you could get more done and be more effective in less hours than you currently put in. What I mean here is, you must work harder to be the example. You need to play by the same rules you’re asking your team to play by. Put your skin in the game and skill practice (role play) with them, ride on calls with them, KNOW the material yourself first and foremost and show them how important it is by DOING it. This is one of the fastest ways to accomplish the first point of earning trust.

Every market has successful companies and struggling companies. Every market has winners and losers. Every market has sales teams that thrive and those that underperform. The only difference is how leadership handles the core elements of effective training. Get better at these three things and enjoy your own sales growth.

Kenny

P.S. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Let me train your team by video anytime you want at less than a cup of Starbucks coffee per day! You can’t afford NOT to be one of our Done For You training members. Click to find out more and take a free test drive. Check it out for yourself.