How do you make an idea come to life?

One of the things I hear from sales managers is that the salespeople on their team just don’t care!

The interesting thing is what I believe they really mean is “don’t care about the things I think are important”

Hence my question – How do you make an idea come to life?

Here are three tips:
1. Tie what is important to you – directly to what is important to them. Sounds a bit like sales doesn’t it? Well it is. Time to put your salesperson hat back on my dear Mr. or Ms. Sales Manager – you have to use the same skills that helped you sell products or services successfully to work selling ideas!

psssst – this does mean you have to understand what is important to them…

2. Tell a story. Yes I said tell a story! Make the idea come to life; you need an opening, an obstacle, characters, a plot/how the obstacle was overcome, a conclusion – and then how the application of what is important to you will get the salesperson what they want too!

3. Communication is your responsibility. If an important sales task isn’t getting done – what could you change about your presentation? Here are three mistakes I’ve seen recently:

a. the managers tone suggests NOT doing the task is an option.

b. the salesperson is confused about how the task will help them be successful.

c.  the impression of the sales team is that the manager doesn’t think it is important.

None of those three make me want to do a task, how about you? Instead you need to convey the importance of an idea to THEIR sales success with passion and belief.

Now it is time to go make those ideas come to life!