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The sales culture within your organization is one of the most vital but overlooked aspects of your company’s success or failure. My guest on this episode of #SellingWithSocial shares the stats to prove it.
After a 12-year leadership journey in the sports business industry, Paul Epstein joined the Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute because he was inspired by the partnership that BWLI and the San Francisco 49ers shared during his time as an executive leader with the NFL franchise. In his new role with BWLI, Paul is charged with forming new partnerships worldwide with a mission to transform the cultural landscape of business.
See what I mean? Developing a winning culture in organizations is one of Paul’s main areas of expertise. In this conversation, Paul shares many of his insights about what it takes to build a sales culture that starts with a clear purpose, leads to an environment of accountability and trust, and results in a resilient and powerful team of professionals who are able to close sales and further the goals of their company and their clients.
As Paul shares his simple steps to developing a sales culture that wins, don’t make the mistake of thinking that simple means quick and easy. It will take diligent effort to apply what he shares on this episode, but the results will be phenomenal for those who do the work. Don’t miss our conversation.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Simple steps to a #sales culture that wins. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on this ep. of #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud” quote=”Simple steps to a #sales culture that wins. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on this ep. of #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud”]
This podcast is being brought to you by SAP Sales Cloud, formerly CallidusCloud. With SAP Sales Cloud’s modern CRM, you can focus on coaching and developing sales reps, instead of forecasting. Learn more by visiting: www.calliduscloud.com/Vengreso
Intentional Business Outcomes Can’t Be Achieved Apart From Culture
For many executives, “culture” seems too intangible to address. They simply want to produce business outcomes that impact the bottom line. But Paul says that if they want their sales culture to produce intentional business outcomes, they can’t allow their discomfort with softs skills having to with culture to dissuade them from addressing the issue, because success rises and falls on it.
Trust is the first step. The team must trust their leaders – to move the team forward competently but also to care for them and their professional development as team members. That kind of trust is built in a variety of ways, such as including the team in strategy and planning, soliciting feedback from the team and making incremental changes based on it. Paul speaks to these topics in-depth during our conversation and highlights many other components of building trust that lead to the intentional business outcomes leaders are looking for. Don’t miss it!
Bad Culture + Bad Leadership = Bad Performance
If you are confused about the idea of culture, let Paul simplify it for you: Culture is the sum total of all the behaviors within your organization. Out of that culture, your company strategy immerges. Therefore, it is a vitally important foundation that you can’t ignore or leave to chance.
What is the number one driver of culture? Leaders. But here’s the problem: 58% of leaders have never had any kind of formal leadership training. That means many companies have people in positions of leadership who are figuring it out as they go – and often, culture is the casualty of their on-the-job training.
If you see that this culture problem exists in your sales organization and want to address it effectively, Paul is the guy to listen to. His experience as an executive leader as well as his role as a values-driven-culture-builder with BWLI have taught him what goes into making leadership serve culture, with the goal of improving company-wide performance. Don’t miss his insights.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Bad #culture + Bad #leadership = Bad performance. How do you fix Bad Performance? Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud” quote=”Bad #culture + Bad #leadership = Bad performance. How do you fix Bad Performance? Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud”]
Simple Steps To Creating A Winning Sales Culture
During our conversation, Paul shared a number of things leaders can do to develop a healthy culture company-wide and among their sales team. Here are some of the highlights…
#1 – The goal and the purpose of your organization have to be clearly defined.
If you’re trying to win the sales game, you need everyone on the team to understand and get behind the purpose of the company. But the harsh reality is that only 38% of employees report that they are aligned with their company’s purpose. Worse yet, 50% of them can’t even state what their company’s purpose is. A winning sales culture begins with clarity around why you are doing what you are doing as a team.
#2 – Engage your team in creating your strategy.
The people in the trenches – your sales and marketing teams – are the one who know what is working and what isn’t. They have an incredible amount of insight into what the company could improve, what it should stop doing, and how to better reach and serve customers. Who better to include in the development of your sales playbook? But how do you do it?
#3 – Create a system of open feedback.
Great leaders solicit honest feedback for the sake of improvement, without negative repercussions for doing so. It utilizes the gifts, talents, and insights of team members to a higher degree and as small changes are made as a result. What do you think that does for overall company and sales culture?
When you start with purpose, build a culture of cooperation and accountability, and iterate based on the feedback you receive, you build a culture of high trust – a culture of resiliency that retains team members and grows in its ability to impact the outcomes you deliver to customers. That’s when you have the potential to go through transformational culture change.
Listen to learn directly from Paul as he shares his hard-learned advice about building a company and sales culture that produces the business outcomes every leader wants.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”What is the # 1 driver of #culture? #Leaders. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, #CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud” quote=”What is the # 1 driver of #culture? #Leaders. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, #CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud”]
This podcast is being brought to you by SAP Sales Cloud, formerly CallidusCloud. With SAP Sales Cloud’s modern CRM, you can focus on coaching and developing sales reps, instead of forecasting. Learn more by visiting: www.calliduscloud.com/Vengreso
Outline of This Episode
- [1:56] The reason Paul is on Selling With Social – it’s an amazing story!
- [5:51] What does it mean to shoot for “Intentional Business Outcomes?”
- [9:48] There is a direct correlation between culture and performance
- [14:29] How Paul was inspired to become a leadership and culture training coach
- [18:12] Simple steps to creating a winning culture
- [28:43] Personal engagement in creating the playbook is vital
- [33:07] If you truly want feedback, be sure you can accept it and make changes
- [39:55] What are we doing to develop talent while they are in our companies?
- [42:25] The #2 reason people leave organizations: lack of professional development
- [47:12] A summary of addressing culture in positive ways
Resources Mentioned
One of the things I love to do is to read amazing sales books and listen to sales podcasts. That is why we’ve created the best sales books list and the best sales podcasts list for sales leaders, sales managers, and sales reps. I encourage you to click through these and give them a listen! Also, take a look at the resources below mentioned during this podcast:
- Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-epstein-6a42738/
- http://bwli.com
- Paul’s email: Paul.Epstein (at) BWLI.com
- BWLI on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwleadinstitute
- BOOK: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
- Paul’s all-time favorite movie: The Hangover
- Social Business Engine Podcast – Bernie Borges
- Corporate Gifting
Connect with Mario!
- www.vengreso.com
- On Facebook
- On Twitter
- On YouTube
- On LinkedIn
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Click to Tweets:
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Intentional #business outcomes can’t be achieved apart from #culture. Why? Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud” quote=”Intentional #business outcomes can’t be achieved apart from #culture. Why? Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #sales #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud”]
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Company #culture fuels #sales success. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, #CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud” quote=”Company #culture fuels #sales success. Join Paul Epstein of @BWLeadInstitute and @M_3Jr, #CEO of Vengreso, on #SellingWithSocial. Listen now! #SocialSelling #sellingwithsapcx @SAPSalesCloud”]