As the economy starts to reopen, companies face a delicate question: how can they sell – which is essential to their survival - but do it in a way that isn’t perceived as desperate or off-putting? One Chief Revenue Officer summarized the challenge: “I want to tell my sales team sell, sell, sell. But I don’t want to come across as opportunistic. I want our salespeople to be seen as helpful, not scavengers.”
When leaders need to drive revenue, it’s tempting to double down on sales targets and dangle financial incentives. Yet a growing body of evidence tells us this traditional financial approach to sales motivation is backwards. According to new research from Michigan State University, a sales team with no compelling purpose other than ‘hit the number’ is more likely to be off-putting to customers, and less likely to win business.
It turns out there is a better way to create urgency and drive sales – while simultaneously laying the groundwork for better long-term relationships with customers. Dr. Valerie Good, professor and researcher at Michigan State, confirms that salespeople are more likely to work harder and be more adaptable if they’re motivated by “the belief that one is making a contribution to a cause greater, and more enduring, than oneself,” as compared to a desire for money.
In other words, salespeople driven foremost by a desire to help the customer actually work harder – which leads to outperforming traditional quota-driven sellers.
We’re at an inflection point in business. We stand in a moment where every sale counts and organizational reputations are won or lost based on perceived intent. Every company needs to close business now – but the impulse to lean on sales teams to simply “hit the number” is misplaced. In our 20 years of consulting for more than 120 companies, we’ve seen clear evidence that companies who help their sales teams develop a sense of ‘noble purpose’ around serving customers are the ones that fare best.
Here are three things leaders can do right now to cultivate a sense of higher purpose and jumpstart urgency with their sales teams.
Be specific and emotive about customer impact.
Sharing examples of how your organization makes a difference to customers shifts the narrative from on inward focus on your own sales targets to an outward focus on the people who drive revenue: your customers. While this can feel be uncomfortable and feel like a seemingly “soft” departure from a traditional quota focus, it’s worth remembering that the internal conversation becomes the external conversation.
As Adam Grant’s now famous call center study proved, even a short story about emotional impact improves sales performance. When call center employees (whose job was to solicit donations) had a five minute interaction with scholarship students to see the impact of donation, they spent more than two times as many minutes on the phone, and brought in vastly more money, a whopping 171% increase.
Being clear about customer impact requires going beyond the general benefits found in a typical value proposition. It’s more specific and emotive. For example, ask yourself:
· How does our solution impact a client’s job and life for the better?
· When we do our job well, how does that help them in other areas?
· What’s the ripple effect on their families and their organizations?
Pull back the lens to reveal how you might be (for instance):
· Saving customers time, so they can focus on their families.
· Helping customers better leverage data, enabling them to make more informed strategic decisions to drive their business goals.
· Increasing customers’ profitability, enabling them to keep their business running, and invest for growth.
Customer impact stories tell your sales team: the work we do here matters.
Align the sales ecosystem around your purpose.
The systems, processes, and messages surrounding your sellers shape their beliefs and their behaviors. In transactional organizations, the ecosystem points inward: When will the deal close? How much is it going to be? On the other hand, an ecosystem animated by purpose is organized to answer: How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us? In a time of uncertainty, with the temptation to obsessively look inwards, every element of an organization must point sellers outwards, towards customers.
Look at your own sales ecosystem: what your Customer Relationship Management system tracks, what you reward, how meetings are run, the type of customer intelligence you capture. Is your ecosystem focused on customer impact, or internal metrics?
For example: In addition to tracking pipeline activity and sales targets in your CRM, ask your sales team to capture the customer’s most important strategic initiatives and codify the pain of their current challenges. Then, when managers talk about deals in play, they can go beyond simply asking how and when you’re going to collect the revenue from the customer. They can ask the salesperson, how will the customer be better if we close this opportunity? A salesperson who can answer that question will have more urgency for getting in front of customers and will have a better story to share.
To be clear, sales targets are crucial and reporting on sales activity is a requirement. But particularly in leading your sales team through uncertain times, leaders must resist the temptation to overemphasize internal metrics that shift the focus away from customers. Layering purpose and customer impact on top of traditional metrics doesn’t replace them; it animates them. It ensures your team is showing up with the right mindset when they speak to customers.
Infusing purpose into the sales ecosystem puts customers at the heart of daily sales activities. It helps shift sellers to think bigger and more strategically than the traditional transactional approach.
Train sales leaders to communicate purpose and build belief.
Sales managers are the daily voice in the ear of your sales team. When front line managers make a point to build belief in your larger purpose and emphasize the impact you have on customers, they transform the sales narrative. Sellers who understand their work has lasting impact ask more strategic questions, design more creative solutions, and connect with customers in a more authentic way.
Research from KPMG shows that when an employee’s direct manager communicates purpose, 80% of employees report feeling their work makes an impact, and is not “just a job.” When the direct manager does not communicate purpose, only 39% of employees believe their work matters.
In a time of both personal and economic uncertainty, a purpose beyond money gives a sales team something tangible they can tether themselves to. Leaders can step into the role of “belief builder” by sharing stories, asking about customer impact during pipeline meetings, and framing new offerings in the service of improving life and business customers.
It’s essential for leaders to understand and be committed to improving the customer’s condition in meaningful, authentic, and tangible ways. Customer success should be as real and prevalent as sales targets. This moment in time affords us the opportunity to move beyond tagline-style “purpose washing,” which many firms stand accused of. Instead, leaders can make purpose part of how they do business.
After the rapid economic contraction we’ve experienced, it’s more essential than ever for companies to prioritize sales. There’s a clear choice to make: organizations can choose a transactional, singular focus on landing deals, or cultivate a long-term view about bettering the customer’s condition. Though counterintuitive in the traditional world of sales, it turns out the latter, more purposeful approach yields greater results for everyone – and by following the steps above, your organization can embrace it.