Motivating Your Sales Team - Josh Allen - Coach2Scale - Episode # 014
Today’s guest was recently named one of Pavilion's "40 CROs to Watch”. He is a long-time sales leader and CRO who has led teams at companies such as LogMeIn, CarGurus, and Drift. Josh Allen is a Founding Member of The Revenue Collective and a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital. Josh joins Host Matt Benelli on a dive into how to really motivate each member of your sales team, why you should hire based on characteristics rather than skills, and the danger of focusing too heavily on KPIs.
Takeaways:
- New sales managers need to recognize that what worked well for them as individual contributors won’t necessarily work well for the rest of their team.
- Find what personally motivates the members of your team and help them tie their goals to the goals of the team. Once someone’s personal and professional goals are aligned they will be more motivated than ever to accomplish the sales team’s goals.
- It’s important to coach even the top performers in a team. This is because top performers are often left to their own devices while managers instead focus on underperforming members. Leaders must invest time in top performers to keep them motivated, grow their skills, and prevent any potential detriments to the team morale.
- It’s better to have a team with no skill and lots of work ethic than a team with lots of skill and no work ethic. If you hire based on certain characteristics, such as curiosity and work ethic, then you can teach the skills without having to worry about effort.
- Leaders have a crucial responsibility to know what's going on in their employees' lives, not just their work performance. Extraordinary circumstances or even personal setbacks can significantly impact an employee’s productivity and performance. Being supportive and understanding during such periods is key.
- Over-emphasizing metrics and KPIs can be daunting and counter-productive for sales managers. It’s better to use a balanced approach, focusing more on continuous skill enhancement and employee motivation, which would eventually lead to meeting the set KPIs.
Quote of the Show:
- “Take the time to be different.” - Josh Allen
Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-a/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshmallen
- Top Quartile Club Website: https://www.topquartileclub.com/
Shoutouts:
- Mike Connolly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrconnolly/
- James Abraham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/i10always/
Ways to Tune In:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434
- Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU
- Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77
- Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale
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