What makes a great sales mentor? It's not an easy question to answer. Sales mentors come in many shapes and sizes, with different styles and backgrounds that make them uniquely qualified for the job. However, there are some things you can look out for when looking for a new sales mentor
Sales mentors are an essential part of sales organizations. They provide advice, knowledge and expertise to sales professionals that can help them become more successful.
When someone is looking for a mentor, it's important to find the right one.
In this blog post we will discuss what makes a great sales mentor as well as how you should go about finding one if you need one!
Advice from the Experts In this blog post we will discuss what makes a mentor great and why you should have one.
An important part of being an effective salesperson is having someone to guide them along their career path, which is where mentors come in.
As leaders they help train new hires as well as sales professionals that are close to being ready for a promotion.
They have the ability to see an employee's strengths and weaknesses in real time when they are on sales calls, which helps them guide their mentee more effectively.
As mentioned above, mentors can be helpful with both new hires and current employees looking for advancement within your company.
It is important for sales managers to implement mentorship programs because the returns are great.
Benefits of Mentorship Programs mentors benefit both their employees and your business by providing them with guidance, support and motivation.
They also help with training new hires which is especially important in sales organizations that have a high turnover rate like many technology companies do.
Since they are sales veterans, they can also share their wisdom and advice with sales professionals that are close to being ready for a promotion. This allows the mentor and mentee to get better results faster by leveraging each other's strengths more effectively.
Mentor Your Sales Team Today There is no doubt about it: mentors play an important role in sales organizations. Make sure sales managers are implementing mentorship programs in their organizations because the returns on this investment will be great.
If you're looking for mentors, it's important to find them carefully and then let them help your organization become more successful by training new hires as well as helping current employees advance within your company.
Finding a mentor, I believe, is a bit of a lucky break. It's not a good idea to ask someone to be your mentor.
I've never been able to make it work for me. The best mentors I've ever had were the ones I never expected to find, and I never went out of my way to find them. It has just occurred.
However, I believe that lightning is more likely to strike a lightning rod than a random patch of earth. It's as simple as putting your lightning rod up and announcing that you're seeking for sales training.
Make it known that you're looking for a mentor if you believe you'd benefit from working with one.
Prepare yourself as a mentee to be humble and honest about the issues you're facing. It's up to you to put it out there.
Share if you're having trouble closing sales. Don't be scared to admit that you're afraid of cold calling. A competent mentor will help you comprehend this information and guide you through the difficulties you're facing.
The mentorship connection begins with coaching. Your mentor will next share their knowledge, experiences, and some of their challenges. Mutual vulnerability is required, and it begins with the mentee.
If they’re not asking questions (and asking the right questions) find someone else.When mentors are questioned, they're not offended. It's the mentor who initiates dialogue and questions their mentee in order to stimulate sales growth among them both.
A good mentor will ask you insightful sales-related questions every week or so when working together.
These questions should be designed to help your sales career progress faster than you'd have been able to do on your own.
It's important that mentors are always asking questions which shows they're interested in their mentee and committed to helping them evolve as sales professionals.
One of their characteristics is that they are older than you. Or that they are professionally light years ahead of you. Or that they're in your line of employment. Some prevalent misconceptions about mentors must be dispelled.
To see yourself, you need to step outside of yourself, and the only way to do that is to seek out someone who isn't you.
Don't limit your alternatives by reducing your search. mentors can be located in the most unexpected locations.
Clients occasionally approach me and say they'd want to launch a mentorship programme...
Then I speak with them, and it becomes evident that they want to get elderly people to interact with younger people.
Alternatively, I come across firms who wish to build a systematic coaching programme rather than a mentor programme. There is a distinction to be made.
Finding a mentor-mentee connection that works, as previously noted, is organic and spontaneous. It can't be made to happen, but it can be made easier.
We can assist you if you're looking for mentoring and consulting for your company. Please contact us to learn more about how we can assist you in establishing a strong mentorship culture inside your company.
If your mentoring programme is well-structured, it will be difficult for the mentor and mentee to become mutually vulnerable – and that, to me, is the most crucial aspect.
Those are wonderful moments because you get to witness a person's actual authenticity and vulnerability. They can also share life's pitfalls with you so you can avoid them.
As a result, meeting with mentors and mentees in an office setting is not always beneficial. It offers the mentor behind the desk a home court edge because they will constantly feel in command.
When it comes to mentoring, no one has the upper hand. No one drives the bus in a solid mentor/mentee relationship.
You hold yourself accountable if you're a true professional. But you'll need a pal around 2 a.m. Choose someone who will be a primary witness to your accomplishments and disappointments.
As humans, we enjoy having eyewitnesses to our life. We give it our all for someone we want to cheer us on and be a positive witness for. Find someone who will support you. We don't require critical parents in our lives; instead, we require champions.
That champion may be a mentor. Someone who can assist you in recovering from your setbacks and celebrating your triumphs. It's an important relationship to have as you navigate the sales industry.
Some mentors and sales mentees develop a rather unhealthy need to push agendas onto each other.
Don't use your mentor relationship as an opportunity to get answers that will help you sell more of what you're selling or attempt to convince them that they should be doing something different in their sales approach than the one they've been using for years.
You'll get smoked out, and you won't develop the organic mentor relationship that will be most beneficial to your business. You'll end up with sales that are not as effective.
Recognize it and accept it. You're going to make it!
It might be difficult to get to know a mentor and to become comfortable with being uncomfortable when it comes to discussing your vulnerabilities and shortcomings, but it's something that's intrinsically important if you want to have a truly successful mentor/mentee relationship.
Don't be put off by the fact that mentorship can be difficult at first. That simply implies you're doing everything correctly.
Organize a face-to-face meeting between the mentor, the mentee, and the team's manager. To start the two employees chatting about the programme, the manager should ask some questions.
"In two years, where do you see yourself? How about ten years?"
"Do you have a strategy for getting there?"
"How do you prefer to learn?" (Examples include trial and error, visual, reading, and just-in-time learning.)
"Would you like to meet on what day and time each week?"
"What's your favourite walk-and-talk coffee shop or local restaurant?"
These questions allow the mentor and mentee to set goals to work toward and create a conversation style that is mutually productive.
Both mentors and sales mentees need to know their roles and responsibilities ahead of time. The mentor needs to be held accountable for his or her success, as well as that of the sales mentee's sales performance.
The sales manager should answer each question with a specific action plan before this meeting closes so both parties walk away knowing what to expect.
Don't assume mentors understand what they're getting into, or that sales mentees know exactly how to leverage their mentor's experience and expertise. You can prevent confusion by being clear about expectations upfront.
For example, the sales manager might say: "By meeting weekly for 30 minutes on Monday at 11 a.m., you will have a chance to discuss sales tactics and challenges.
Your mentor is responsible for sharing best practices from his or her experience, as well as providing feedback on how you can improve."
The mentor should give the sales mentee a playbook that contains some of his or her most useful sales materials, including:
- training material
- sales templates
- a client list (for networking purposes)
performance metrics.
This way, when they meet for their walk-and-talk sales meeting, the mentor can suggest something to help his or her mentee with whatever sales goal he or she is trying to achieve that week.
The sales manager should then provide some coaching on how best to use these tools and explain where they came from.
This way, the sales mentor feels like an integral part of your company's sales team, and the sales mentee feels like he or she has a shortcut to learning how best to sell.
Sponsor a monthly lunch for all of the mentors to demonstrate your gratitude for their assistance and to encourage dialogue about what is and is not working. Make sure that each meeting has a clear topic.
Inquire with mentors about where their mentees are currently falling short in the sales process, as well as the types of queries they're receiving.
Focus on two to three common topics that the team has identified for the month. You don't want your mentees to feel overburdened.
These sessions also assist identify areas where the sales enablement team can provide useful information, so future reps won't have to rely on their mentors for answers.
If new representatives don't "graduate" at some point, they'll continue to rely on older reps.
These weekly sessions should last a minimum of six to nine months, depending on your sales cycle and the quantity of coaching required.
Because the time it takes to become entirely self-sufficient varies per organisation, use a presentation or a quarterly business review.
Ask the new rep to present their business plan and learnings in front of their peers at a QBR, for example. Allow the team to ask questions following the presentation, making it reasonably straightforward to determine whether a newer rep is ready to take the lead and rely less on their mentor. This is also an excellent opportunity for everyone to learn, not just the mentee.
The program's long-term success hinges on its ability to consistently promote its accomplishments. At an all-hands meeting, for example, ask an executive to relate the narrative of a remarkable team accomplishment.
You want your seasoned salespeople to feel appreciated by management. The new reps on your team should be eager to work with folks who can swiftly get them up to speed.
Use an internal wiki to acknowledge people if you have one. This serves as a repository for the programme, which people can associate with their names. At Drafted, we use Tettra to keep the team informed about important wins and defeats.
