ACCORDING TO ALBERT EINSTEIN, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” However, it’s still common for sales managers to feel like they’re beating their heads against the wall trying to get their sales professionals to follow established processes to manage orders and track progress. While this is frustrating for managers, it can be equally frustrating for their sales professionals, too. Most of the time, the root cause of the conflict is that the very traits you sought in hiring your sales team — relationship building, intuition and innovation — may be at odds with the skills required to efficiently manage administrative tasks, like organization, follow-through and technical skills. Many rightbrained sales reps are working in a world full of left-brained processes that haven’t been created with their inherent strengths in mind. Before you make any assumptions about your sales team and its inherent strengths, consider administering a test to assess each member of your team’s thinking preferences. There are many options available for assessing left-brain and right-brain tendencies, with one of the more common being the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument or HBDI. Whether your sales professionals are left-brained or right-brained, they still have the ability to leverage both sides of their brains — but their natural tendencies will always be to play toward their strengths. It takes a concerted effort for a shift from one side of the brain to the other. Instead of pushing the boulder uphill, consider redesigning your sales processes to ease the burden on your sales team and allow team members to focus on what they do best — selling. If you have a predominantly right-brained sales team, conduct a quick assessment of your top sales processes and adapt them accordingly. If you have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool in place, consider customizing it by removing all fields that are less than vital. Where possible, try to limit the data required for entry for a new prospect to 10 fields or less, removing all of the clutter. If you have sales professionals out in the field, you’ll want the order entry process to be as streamlined and efficient as possible, both to reduce the amount of time it takes to place an order and to reduce errors. While this may mean investing in technology and software, consider the savings realized when you no longer need someone on your team to follow-up with customers, reviewing and finalizing each order. Leveraging the strengths of your sales professionals and providing them the tools they need to efficiently stay organized will create a win/win outcome for your entire team.
