Your team will perform its best when they know they can trust you, rely on you, have your guidance, and know that you will be completely open and forthcoming with them. What I mean by this is the practice of openly communicating company news, changes, or changes that may impact the sales team. Territory changes, new hires, quota going up, product issues, leadership changes, etc. As a manager, I always openly communicated and was very forthcoming with this information. As soon as I had it, I would communicate it with the team so that no one was left in the dark.
Good news or bad news, I let the team know about it as soon as possible. This way everyone was in the loop with the latest and didn’t have to hear it from someone else or from the rumor mill, and then have to ask me. By being forthcoming you can prevent all that. Isn’t it amazing how fast salespeople can smell a change in the air and find out some important information that may have an impact on them? Yes, they are experts at it! You don’t want to feel kind of squirmy when they ask if you knew about the news and how long did you know about it.” Tough questions to answer and a really fast way to lose the team’s trust and hurt your credibility.
Make it a practice to communicate with your team frequently and be forthcoming with them. You don’t have to wait until the next team meeting. If it is important enough, call and let them know as soon as you can. The longer something lingers, the more rumors and the more distorted facts that start to circulate. This is a sales detractor. It causes salespeople to take their foot off the gas and to not focus on what is most important, and that is selling!
-Happy Leading!