Common Issues in Sales Teams
Sales teams often work well together, but sometimes they can have problems. People who work in sales usually feel sure of themselves, like to talk to others, and have strong opinions. There are a few things that salespeople care a lot about, even if they might not seem exciting to others.
Topics that affect how they find new customers, show their products, make sales, and get paid can cause big arguments. Leaders of sales teams need to watch out for these tricky topics and be ready to help solve fights or avoid them before they start.
What Sales Teams Argue About
Sales teams can get into heated debates about how they guess future sales and set goals for themselves or their team.
How salespeople are paid, including their regular pay, extra money for making sales, and special bonuses, is a topic that can start big arguments.
Whether they’re making phone calls to people they don’t know, sending emails, using social media, or something else, salespeople have their favorite ways to find new customers. They can argue a lot about which way is the best.
The words and pictures salespeople use to sell things are chosen with care. They can be very protective of their successful sales speeches and slideshows.
Sales teams depend on their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools, and they can have strong feelings about which ones are better, like Salesforce or HubSpot.
Software that helps with things like keeping track of emails, phone calls, and more information about potential customers can make people really like or really dislike it.
You might be surprised to hear how much salespeople care about the look and usefulness of free things with the company’s logo that they give to potential customers.
The Benefits of Solving Team Disagreements
Trying to fix fights in a sales team can be good, even if they’re about simple things. Great sales managers know that if they deal with problems right away, they can stop small issues from turning into bigger problems that make people confused, unhappy, and not work as well.
Putting in the work to settle arguments can lead to a team that works better together, agrees more, and is more productive. This makes the company’s culture stronger in the long run.
When you solve problems, the team can move ahead with a clear understanding and agreement about how they do things, what tools they use, and what’s most important. This means they won’t waste time and can focus on activities that make money.
If you don’t solve arguments, it can make people feel upset, negative, and not interested in their work. Solving arguments in a fair and open way shows your team that you listen to them and make choices carefully.
If team members think you considered their ideas, they’re more likely to accept and use new methods, speeches, or sales goals instead of fighting against them or trying to mess them up.
Different ideas can cause trouble, but if you solve problems in a helpful way, it can actually bring the team together with one way of doing things.
Having a good debate can bring out new ideas, techniques, and creative thoughts. Sharing this knowledge is good for everyone in the company.
Fixing fights shouldn’t just happen once. It should be a way to keep making things better over time.
How to Manage Conflicts in Sales
The trick to handling fights in sales is to listen to what the salespeople say and make choices that are based on facts and data that are good for everyone in the team and the company. This needs to happen before small problems become big ones.
Sales leaders can use these ways to help settle arguments about topics that people feel very strongly about.
Use one-on-one and team coaching to fix problems and come up with good solutions that lead to good results.
Make decisions based on solid facts and numbers, not just what people think or stories they tell. See if the problem is affecting more than one person on the team. Look at the results from different ways of doing things to find out which is really the best.
For things like online learning, CRM tools, speeches, or apps that help with work, try them out with some of the team first. Choose the best one based on how well it works before everyone starts using it.
Bring in experts from outside the company to give their honest opinion on topics that cause fights, without being influenced by what’s happening inside the company.
Make a place where salespeople can share their thoughts and talk about the good and bad sides of things, but make sure everyone is nice to each other.
Ask your team members what they think about tools, how they do things, and pay, without telling who said what. Talk about any big worries they have.
Be very clear about how you make decisions, what information you use, and why you make big changes to tools, speeches, sales goals, or other things that people care about.
Understanding how each person on your team acts, talks, and what makes them who they are is really important for leading a sales team. It’s even more important when there are disagreements.
There are tests that can help you understand how a salesperson behaves, what drives them, and what they’re good at.
The DISC personality test is a popular way to figure out how people act. It puts people into four main groups:
- D: Dominance (straightforward and focused on results)
- I: Influence (good at convincing others and friendly)
- S: Steadiness (patient and calm)
- C: Compliance (likes to think about things and pays attention to details)
Knowing the DISC types of your team can help you solve problems and get everyone to agree with decisions. Here’s what you can do:
Change how you talk and make decisions to fit the different DISC types. This way, you can make sure every type of salesperson feels heard and is more likely to agree with the team. Use this knowledge and the ways we talked about to keep your sales team motivated, working together, and to stop fights before they start.
Learn how The Brooks Group’s training for sales leaders and Brooks Talent Index™ tests can help you handle fights in sales better.
Being an amazing sales manager is very important for a company to do well, but it’s not easy to be a sales manager.
This guide gives you the five most important skills you need to get past hard times, lead a team well, and do great in any sales situation.
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