Mastering Sales Leadership: 10 Essential Tactics to Crush Distractions and Elevate Your Team's Result

Sales Leaders' Focus: Enhancing Sales Force Performance and Achieving Sales Goals

Sales leaders need to focus on their sales force, their results, and their sales goals. But like other leadership roles, you are going to face distractions that will find you spending more time and energy on things that contribute nothing to your results. Many of these distractions result from too little focus on your team, their activity, and their results.

Navigating Technology Distractions in Sales Leadership

We have spent the better part of two decades pursuing the promise of technology. It started with CRM, and a few years later, the proliferation of technologies has caused sales leaders and sales managers to spend money and time on new technologies. What's worse is a sales force that sits in front of a screen instead of a prospective client. You can avoid this distraction with a minimal viable sales tech stack: CRM and data.

The Company's Role in Sales Leaders' Distractions

There are companies that distract sales leaders by asking them to participate in non-sales tasks. These same companies also burden the sales leader and sales managers with administrative tasks, such as communicating with their team on things better handled by human resources or some other group. You may not be able to avoid these distractions, but you should argue to send the information to your team through email.

Managing Email Overload for Efficient Sales Leadership

Most of us are drowning in email. The idea that anyone, known or unknown, should be allowed to send an email to a person who has no relation causes important messages to be pushed so far down that the important communications are lost under the fold. You can spend way too much time on the distraction that is your email. At one time, you may have believed in inbox zero, but that dream is now a nightmare of hundreds of emails to delete.

The Impact of Frequent Forecasts on Sales Strategy

One company I know had sales leaders who were required to update their forecast every day. Never mind the fact that they had a long sales cycle. This is the belief that looking at the scoreboard will help you win deals. The only way to win is to play the game. If there is no significant change in a period, this is nothing more than a distraction.

Optimizing Meetings to Focus on Sales Team Performance

There are good reasons to get together with others to talk through some problem or some new initiative. While these meetings are important, they can steal the time of the sales leader, preventing them from focusing on their team. If you are a contributor to the meeting, show up, get your part done, and when you are no longer needed, ask to be excused to help one of your sales reps with a big, important deal. As we end this distraction, don’t add more meetings with your team and steal their time.

Balancing Coaching and Sales Leadership Responsibilities

Salespeople want more time with the sales manager, more specifically coaching. While coaching can increase your win rates, you can’t do so much coaching that it starts to encroach on your time and your initiatives. A cadence more frequent than bi-weekly may be a distraction for you and your salespeople. You can avoid coaching being a distraction by recognizing each salesperson will need time to work on the behavioral change on which you coached them. You may be able to avoid some of this by providing B2B sales training.

Streamlining Reporting to Enhance Sales Leadership Focus

As a sales leader or sales manager, you are going to be asked to provide senior leaders and other stakeholders with updates. When your company and leadership request an update on a report that hasn’t changed, reporting can become a distraction. You may have to negotiate to a cadence that will make the report meaningful when you provide it. You are always going to communicate with the company but do your best to provide it without it becoming a distraction.

Effective Time Management and Social Media Strategies for Sales Leaders

You know how your team spends too much time on social media and other distractions? Well, from time to time, you may fall into the distraction of failing to manage yourself when it comes to time management and social media. If you want your team to manage their time and avoid social media, give them an example to follow. This is important, as you and your team are working against the clock.

Prioritizing Core Sales Tasks to Drive Revenue Growth

You may have to deal with tasks that have nothing to do with sales, your team, or anything that isn’t going to move the needle. When it is possible, avoid or refuse to spend your time on these distractions. If you are a people pleaser, stiffen up your backbone and say no to anything that isn’t going to contribute to net new revenue. This is more difficult than it should be, but you need your time and attention to be used to improve your sales results.

Evaluating New Initiatives to Maintain Sales Team Focus

I once watched a sales leader introduce a new initiative, then add another before they found success in the first. You need not require something new before you succeed in producing the results of the first initiative. Doing so is a distraction to you and your team, confusing them by presenting too many new things to focus on. If the initiative is not going to improve your results, the initiative is not worth your time.

Strategies to Avoid Distractions and Maximize Sales Force Engagement

Leaving this article, assess your performance and identify the distractions that prevent you from spending more time with your sales force. Develop avoidance strategies to help you tune out distractions and stay focused. Occasionally, you are going to be distracted, which makes it more important to avoid as many distractions as possible.

The more you stay focused on the few things that will lead to success and goal and quota attainment, the better. Be as professional as possible when others distract you but know that no one can distract you like you can. Your discipline is what is necessary to avoid these distractions.