Building a sales culture of accountability starts at the top. Sales teams that know what they’re responsible for—and how to achieve it—are more productive and cohesive.
- Accountability creates transparency around what’s working and what isn’t.
- When salespeople know they’re accountable for specific metrics and outcomes, they tend to be more focused and more interested in improving their skills.
- A culture of accountability prevents the “weak link” problem where underperformers drag down team morale.
- Accountability ensures sales teams maintain focus on long-term customer relationships rather than just short-term deal closing.
You can hope that every member of your sales team feels a sense of accountability. But as Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers football coach, said, “Hope is not a strategy.” Here are four ways to build accountability into your culture.
4 Ways to Build Sales Team Culture
Great sales leaders create a culture in which individual choices align with the corporate mission and values. The key is implementing accountability in a way that feels supportive rather than punitive. This means focusing on clear expectations, having regular check-ins, and providing the tools and sales training your team needs to succeed.
Follow these four steps to build a stronger sales culture.
1. Define and Communicate Your Organization’s Purpose
Validation for a business comes when someone raises a hand, says they find value in what you provide, and chooses to buy from you. Why does your organization exist? What do you do that leads your customers to choose your product or service rather than your competitors?
When you have a purpose that’s in service of your customer, you can better communicate how each individual’s actions contribute to the larger picture. A mission statement gives clear direction to everyone in your organization about who they work for, and it helps drive sales culture.
At The Brooks Group, for example, it is our mission to unlock sales potential by giving sales professionals the skills and confidence to achieve sales targets.
TIP: A great tool for creating a statement of purpose is to complete the following sentence: We (the product or service you offer) for (the market you serve) so that (the difference you make).
Here’s an example for a manufacturer of safety equipment for the construction industry:
“We build and distribute equipment that protects lives for contractors so the people who build our world are always safe.”
2. Understand Your Purpose as a Leader
Knowing what your driving factors are, and whether they’re in line with the company’s purpose, is a prerequisite for leading others toward a sense of personal accountability.
There’s a difference between making decisions because it’s your job and making them because doing so fulfills you.
As a leader, ask yourself if your personal motivators drive you to fulfill your organization’s purpose. As is true with your individual team members, if you’re not doing what you’re driven to do, it will eventually lead to burnout.
TIP: A great way to home in on your purpose is to consider what activities make you lose track of time. What do you look forward to? What’s on your schedule that you wouldn’t consider moving or missing?
This is a good start to determining your professional motivators. Another way is to use a sales assessment to identify your behavior style, driving forces, and communication preferences.
3. Understand How Individual Motivators Align with Your Company’s Purpose
There are traditional methods to increase accountability, such as setting expectations, deadlines, and incentives. But these blanket approaches must be tailored to individual team member needs.
Part of being a great leader is the ability to learn what motivates the individuals on your team and adapt to those preferences. It’s important to understand what every individual wants to accomplish and, if possible, work to align their personal goals and aspirations with the company purpose.
When people are performing in roles they are naturally motivated for, a culture of accountability will flourish. If there isn’t alignment between the two, you must coach or decide if someone is not the right fit.
TIP: Host a meeting with your team and ask, “Beyond earning a commission, why do you work here?” Learn from the answers to adjust sales coaching and build a stronger culture.
4. Make Sure Decisions Match Core Values
You need to have a clearly defined set of core values to determine if everyone is working toward the company’s purpose. These can act as guideposts that simply indicate what’s the standard in your organization and on your team.
These core values should be nonnegotiable rules by which successful people at your company operate—and there should be consequences when values aren’t followed. It’s the sales leader’s responsibility to make sure their team understands company values, where boundaries lie, and how they will be held accountable.
Everyone on your team should be able to look at value statements and say they “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” do that. For example:
- Communication: “Maintains appropriate information flow up and down organization.”
- Curiosity: “Acknowledges, ‘I don’t have all of the answers.’”
- Excellence: “Offers their best on all projects.”
TIP: Consider rating members of your team using these value statements, asking them to rate themselves, and using that as a basis of a one-to-one discussion about their personal effectiveness and accountability.
Creating a Sales Culture of Accountability
The phrase “hope is not a strategy” resonates because it captures the importance of taking deliberate, strategic action rather than simply hoping things will work out. When it comes to accountability in sales cultures, hoping for results without clear processes and expectations rarely succeeds.
Contact The Brooks Group to learn more about how to instill a culture of accountability in your sales team.
