“You can’t teach what you don’t know.  You can’t know what you don’t understand. You can’t understand what you don’t learn.” ~ Dave Cooke

One of the more common conversations I have is with business owners and senior executives regarding their frustrations with their sales teams and the people they hire to “do sales.”  In response to these complaints and frustrations, I  have developed a two-part response:

1. Quit blaming your sales department for this issue.  Sales is not a departmental issue, revenue growth is an organizational program. What are you doing to develop, lead, and implement an organizational program for increasing revenues?
2. Has your leadership team participated in a revenue related educational program lately? In order for the sales development and educational process to work, leadership and ownership must participate in the program to understand how it works and how to manage to it.

Having been tasked with the strategy of hiring and developing the sales talent in many firms, the one consistent trait that simply amazes and frustrates me is the unwillingness or inability of executive leadership to participate in the education for revenue growth program.  Their participation is crucial on many fronts.  This group often opts out from the educational piece and then manage from the cheap seats about results and performance.  It doesn’t work that way.

If you subscribe to the premise that everyone in your organization is “responsible for sales”, then no one is exempt from learning, practicing, and becoming capable in the art of revenue generation.  In the military, no one is promoted without having been brought up through the ranks.   There is a reason for that.  The art of managing through leadership, credibility, respect, and experience comes from a fundamental aspect of having an understanding of how things are done.  Skipping any educational program deemed mandatory for the troops is even more critical for the brass.

Next time you want to bring an expert to educate and inspire your team, sit in the front row and get engaged.  And make sure the rest of the leadership team joins in, as well.  You want to build a strong, cohesive, committed and educated team? Make sure your leaders are at the head of the class!

Dave Cooke has recently launched his program the Sustainable Revenue Formula™ (SuRF), which provides businesses a comprehensive formula for effective and sustainable revenue growth.  If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the white paper, “Revolutionizing the Future for Today’s Business”, please contact me: dave@salescooke.com.