What Every Sales Manager Ought To Know About Sales Leadership

In this episode we are going to teach you about enthusiasm as a sales manager. And what every sales manager ought to know, but nobody will tell you about sales management.

On our continuing series on motivational profiles in your sales people, what we talk about today what we talk about will particularly helpful in the people motivated by the people-social interaction affiliation motivational profile as well as the praise and encouragement profile that you can get only inside the Sales Management Mastery Academy in the file cabinet for our paid members. You get 5 motivational profiles, and how to uncover those motivational profiles using what we call our motivational questionnaire. For these particular motivational profiles, the tips today will be helpful especially for those motivated by praise and encouragement.

In general, enthusiasm in a sales manager is something that is probably not even talked about a whole lot. It’s not something that is typically taught. How do you teach enthusiasm?

We will give you some tips and techniques today on how to become more enthusiastic. If you are not enthusiastic, then you should become more enthusiastic. But do it in your own way. You don’t have to do it in my way, or the way that your colleagues do it. But if you are not generally excited about what you are doing, then maybe you should seek another line of work.

Maybe you are just more of a low key type personality, and that is okay, because enthusiasm can come out in a low key way.

You can be enthusiastic speaking like Tony Robbins and you can also be enthusiastic talking like Winston Churchill, who never even really raised his voice a whole lot, but was a very charismatic and enthusiastic leader.

Tony Robbins was the same type of leader, Jack Welch from GE was very enthusiastic and over the top at times, Herb Kelleher over at Southwest was enthusiastic. There is enthusiasm on a scale. The point is that all great leaders have a level of enthusiasm.

We are going to talk about that today and particularly how you can apply this to those people oriented and praise oriented sales motivational profiles.

Regarding enthusiasm in general, a high level of enthusiasm for the work being done is contagious to your sales people. If you are enthusiastic and excited about what they are doing, than that will reverberate with them, and rub off on them.

If you are excited about the prospects of taking over a new potential market or a new product, then your sales people will feel it. Maybe even a product with some flaws but there our certain aspects of it that you are enthusiastic about.

We have written about this on “How to Be the Best Sales Manager in the World” one of our most popular posts on www.salesmanagementmastery.com . How you do it, is you get a product that has flaws, but pick out specific things about it that are better than the competition.

You may not be enthusiastic for the product on the whole, but for that small niche you can generate a whole lot of enthusiasm. And that is how you do it in a deeply competitive market.

Another thing about enthusiasm is that the sales manager really sets the example for the team to follow. The leader is the “enthusiasm stick”, so to speak.

Your sales people can have levels of enthusiasm that are higher than yours, but your level of enthusiasm, especially when you are speaking in front of them. Even when things are not going well, you can frame things in a positive way and continuously be enthusiastic. But not come across as being disingenuous or making it up. Don’t put on a false bravado, your sales people will figure this out very quickly. Enthusiasm is something that has to be real, it has to come from you and you have to firmly believe in it. Find something to be enthusiastic about.

Maybe 90% of your situation your competition is better than you, but if there is that one thing, that 10%, that you are better at, then highlight that. Become enthusiastic about that 10% when you are leading and coaching your sales people and you will end up motivating this profile extremely well.

A high level of enthusiasm not only affects but also “infects” your sales people with a sense of purpose and optimism. There are going to be a lot of times that you are dealing with problems and issues that are negative. You need to be the one to rise above it. You need to see it from the 60,000 foot view. Become enthusiastic and frame the problems in their proper context and move forward. Because if you sink down to the low level that the sales people are, and sales people in genera, having managed a few of them in my day, tend to gripe, and when they are together they tend to bitch and moan about certain situations.

If your product isn’t the best one on the market, then they are gripping a whole lot more when you are not there than they are in front of you. So you need to rise above it. Your enthusiasm will do that but make sure it doesn’t come across as false bravado.

That high level of enthusiasm will infect your sales people and give them optimism even when times are tough and you are facing tremendous challenges.

How do you become enthusiastic if you are not normally enthusiastic?
How do you actually do it?

A lot of it is related to your body language and your voice.
There is a great saying from Tony Robbins, “Motion creates emotion”.

If you start moving in the right direction, and breathing in the right way, talking in the right way, you will become enthusiastic.

Your brain takes a trigger from your voice and how your behave.

Have you have ever had a morning when you missed your alarm? You’re stressed out, snap out of bed, jump into the shower, and you are constantly in motion as soon as you wake up. Once you finally get to your destination, hopefully on time, and you don’t miss your first meeting, you notice that your body is in motion and that your brain is fully engaged. Motion creates that emotion. You can use this to become enthusiastic as well as charismatic.

Today we are going to talk about enthusiasm and how to be charismatic. We will also talk about how to be charismatic in future shows.

This is really how you use your body and language to create that enthusiasm.

• An animated and confident demeanor.
How do you do this?
You become animated and confident by pretending that you are confident. This doesn’t mean that you want to come across as someone who is smug. Create confidence in your mind. Be confident in advance of what it is that is going to happen. For example, if you are in a situation where you are in a presentation and suddenly there is a question that is thrown to you and you don’t really know the answer, you can answer it in a confident manner even though you don’t really even know the answer. You can admit that you don’t know the answer in a confident way. You do this by using your body language and using your voice. Animated and confident demeanor is key in order to maintain a high level of enthusiasm and motivation. Animation meaning using your eyes and hands to create this type of emotion that sends to your brain these signals of optimism and enthusiasm.

• Having a fast paced or upbeat vocal delivery.
At times when I have been doing talks, or even the show, maybe I am not really feeling up to it. There are times when I haven’t felt up to the challenge. Maybe there are times when I am not feeling 100%, but the more I talk and the faster the delivery, you force yourself into an animated state then I then become more enthusiastic. A sales manager who can snap out of the doldrums is a very effective sales leader. Do it with a face paced, upbeat vocal delivery.

• Having a charismatic and energetic body movement.
Let’s say you are having a talk in front of a group, you throw your shoulders back, lift your head into the air. Look at Barrack Obama for example. Whether you like his politics or not, he has a stentorian, charismatic look. If you notice his body language, his shoulders are back, his head is held up high, his nose is in the air, and some people think that that makes him looks snobby at times. If he is over compensating, he probably looks like. But he looks confident and has an air about him. He is another example of someone that is not over the top enthusiastic, but you can see his passion through his words. Setting political beliefs aside, he is a charismatic and enthusiastic leader and he does this through his body motions.

• Enthusiastic leaders have easy acceptance of new ideas.
Always be open to new ideas. Be accepting of new ideas and realize that there is more than one way of doing things. If you are enthusiastic about other people’s ideas that makes you an even more effective leader.

• Enthusiastic leaders have great vigor and energy.
They have a lot of energy in their voice that permeates a room.
Another thing that Tony Robbins said, “When you feel down, pretend that you have a cape on”. Throw a cape over your shoulders and you feel vigor and energy. You don’t necessarily go over the top with it. It is essential as a sales leader to be enthusiastic, even when you are not.

• Use expressive and rich vocabulary
This isn’t memorizing the dictionary, but use expressive vocabulary. Watch out for weak words like “good” and “nice”. Use dynamic words. I once used olfactory with one of my sales managers. I said it, and it is something that we would joke about. Use vocabulary that is enthusiastic and expressive and your sales people will pick up on your enthusiasm.

A couple of don’t do’s:

* Don’t become a corporate cheerleader. Your sales reps will sense this false sincerity right away. Corporate initiatives that don’t make any sense, its okay to poke a little bit of fun at the company, but make sure that you explain the why from a corporate perspective. Strike a balance. Don’t go over the top saying, “Everything has to be to the letter of the law”. Give them a more realistic view point on things. Put your spin on it. What’s the corporate way? What’s your spin? How do we go forward with this particular initiative?

* Don’t try too hard to adopt these characteristics. Be wary of looking insincere. If you start to pretend that you have a cape on and it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. It all depends on what is most effective for you. You are going to have your ups and down, put yourself into that mindset, but make sure that you do it in your own way. Energy and enthusiasm can be low key. You can strike the appropriate balance with your type of personality.

* Enthusiasm is an absolute must for a great sales leader. This is what every sales manager should know about good leadership. Enthusiasm is an absolute must. If your enthusiasm or energy level is low, you have to adopt some of the aforementioned things that we talked about here so that you can maximize your groups potential.

To review:

* High level enthusiasm for work being done is contagious to sales people.
* Sales manager sets the example for the team to follow, you are the enthusiasm stick
* High levels of enthusiasm affects and infects your sales people with a sense of purpose.
* Always figure out a way to be enthusiastic about something, some part of your corporate initiative
* Tips to adopt the body language of an enthusiastic leader
* Watch outs about not trying to hard to be a corporate cheerleader when adopting these characteristics and techniques