“Don’t hide your light under a bushel”
the holy Bible; Mathew 5:15
Communication as a sales leader internally/ externally
This is one of the most underestimated points in sales leadership.
Communication here means both external and internal communication in the sales department.
From the thicket of many tips and advice, here are my very personal experiences from my previous work as a Sales Leader.
External communication:
As the holy bible says, ” Don’t hide your light under a bushel.” Anyone who does not master this rule, especially as a young sales leader, will not be successful in the company. Often “the hut is on fire” and the new sales leader initially focuses exclusively on revenue generation or acts in “fire extinguisher mode”.
However, despite all the crisis management, the various activities should also be communicated internally on an ongoing basis. The sales crisis may not be resolved immediately, but internal perception can still be positively influenced through transparency. Good tips on self-marketing can be found here, for example:
https://www.michaelpage.ae/advice/career-advice/job-search-advice/six-great-ways-market-yourself
Internal communication:
Here, the new Head of Sales is challenged to set clear, common goals, to distribute tasks to the appropriate team members and to establish a communication structure.
Here, too, are 12 tips from my many years of experience:
- Seek dialogue with employees instead of “hiding”.
- Stay out of the tea kitchen gossip; do not participate in the rumor mill.
- Act and communicate in a solution-oriented way, rather than a problem-oriented way.
- Schedule regular meetings (e.g., workshops), structured communication and alignment about what is happening.
- Create ritualized opportunities for sharing such as morning stand up meetings or regular jour fixe instead of just communicating in one direction from the top.
- Don’t lead only through email and Slack – it’s better and less misunderstanding to talk to each other.
- Email communication not too casual and erroneous, otherwise it will be communicated that way to customers as well.
- When communicating by e-mail, pay close attention to who is on the direct mailing list and who is in CC; also put the boss in CC for certain topics.
- And if things get heated or controversial, always bring them down from the emotional to the factual level.
- Giving feedback properly. This is what I learned in the seminars on leadership.
Factual and sound, without hurting or even condescending. - Not practicing or allowing domination. It is about the good of the company and knowledge is to be shared internally for the good of the company. By creating transparency and trust (downward), you also create transparency and trust “upward.”
- Engage with the most popular communication models. This also helps with customer communication. A good overview can be found here: https://pumble.com/learn/communication/communication-models/