Imagine this!  It’s Monday morning, and you jump out of bed, ready to get your week started!  Unfortunately, this isn’t the typical way many Americans start their week.

Statistics show that the majority of employees are not engaged at work. The number can be as high as 72%, which is sad. We’re compensated to be there – 40+ hours each week – and to be productive.

Shouldn’t we also enjoy it?

In their book, All In: How the Best Managers Create a Culture of Belief and Drive Big Results, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton write that great teams are “all in.” They love their work and are excited to tackle the challenges of the day. Sales teams especially need to be motivated since without sales there is no revenue, and therefore no employees.

Ask any sales professional, and they will tell you that sales is the life line of the company. True. And yet it can be difficult for sellers to stay motivated.

“The data clearly shows that to fire up your people to participate in the success of business, leaders must set the tone.”

Gostick and Elton say that it’s leadership that drive the culture of the team. Leaders help unlock potential. Good cultures always attracts top performers. They understand where they fit in the company and know that they have the potential to grow within the organization. Great companies enjoy longevity with their employees, which produces consistent results. You can’t go wrong with that.

All In explains that high performance cultures exhibit the Three E’s:

Engaged

High performance teams are first and foremost Engaged.

They are ready to tackle the week when Monday morning comes around. They know how to have a successful and productive week. They know how to handle issues and roadblocks and their strong leadership team helps to alleviate them. They are focused and determined and they are optimistic about their success. They know the company has their back because there is a culture in the company that is built on trust. That gives them a huge advantage.

Enabled

Secondly a high performance sales team is Enabled.

Since they are trusted to do the right thing, the work environment supports them with tools that lead to high productivity resulting in high performance. Customer response is stellar, issues are handled quickly, bottlenecks and hurdles are removed. When sale professionals are enabled the sales results are inevitable. Goals and budgets are achieved.

Energized

The third key to the high performance sales team is that all members of the team are Energized.

Team members have physical, social and emotional well-being at work. This leads to the most important asset a successful sales person can have – optimism. Their attitude has success in the picture every time.

Engaged, Enabled and Energized are the characteristics to be instilled for high performance.

Unfortunately in many companies, they talk it but don’t walk it!  Here is what they authors say: The sad truth is that many workplaces do not display the characteristics we’ve outlined above. There are dysfunctional cultures-those permeated by negativity and defeatism, lack of accountability, blame and backstabbing, lack of vision or focus, dictatorial management, secrecy, rigidity… we could go on and on, and so can you. The question is, where does your culture stand?

For additional best-selling books by the authors, check out: The Carrot Principle and The Orange Revolution.

Wishing you the best in all your selling endeavors!

Stu