Stop Selling the Brand: Start Selling You

Sales Manager Reality

Remember that feeling; walking into a sales meeting you got your notebook out and pen. The room gets quiet the anxiety builds up as the sales managers walk into the room. Then through the whole meeting, you sit and listen to them writing down your goals and then you feel so motivated by the time it’s done. Hitting the market, running those calls it seemed nothing can stop you from selling your brand.

The day always ends with your boss coming up and saying thank you for the effort. Maybe from time to time you apologize and tell him tomorrow will be better. Walking away you think “wow, I can’t wait to be him someday”. You wonder what it will take. Picturing yourself at the front of the meeting room what a dream.

It’s been long misunderstood that being a sales manager is being a top performer. Might be true, let’s not draw a fine conclusion on something that ranges so many arenas. Look at the common denominator. No matter what Department, Industry, or Arena you find yourself in. One thing that always becomes an obstacle is the trust and credibility that our teams reward us. Day to day we focus on how to motivate, develop and push our sales teams to become better. We do this how? Do we go and walk the walk? Yeah! That only goes so far. Do we show facts and data? Yes but that only shows so much. Stop and take a look at your past. There was always a sales manager you looked up to. Every time he spoke or took the floor you felt like you could tackle the world. How did he do that? He did that by selling himself to you as his team member.

Sales managers all have one thing in common we never stop selling. What we sell changes all the time. I know we can all agree that when our teams believe in us they provide the best effort. When we walk into the room the attention they reward us is the same attention our customers gave us when we had those shoes on ourselves. Now we focus on selling OUR objective, OUR priority, and OUR expectations. We go out there we ask questions answer and build up this group of individuals to go and tackle a common goal. Growing and selling the brand. Do we sell our brand anymore? Yes. Who do we sell it to now? Our team. How do we do it? By selling ourselves and motivating the team. As leaders we no longer sell the brand, we are the brand. Just like us our teams can only sell something they believe in and value.

Being a young leader in my role proved to be hard but I was able to convince my team the same way I convinced my boss in the interview. I sold myself, you want a top performing team then sell yourself. They need to believe in you just as much as they believe in the brand. Even a position with leaders under you. I wake up every Monday morning and sit in front of sales leaders, I never stop selling I only change my audience and the desk I sit behind. Stop selling the brand start selling yourself.