Even the best mentors can only effectively mentor a few people at a time.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\nSince mentorship is rarely a realistic answer for these reasons, \norganizations instead put together off-site workshops full of slide \ndecks and motivational speeches. Salespeople get energized for a few \nweeks until it all wears off and they slide back to familiar patterns. \nWithout the constant reinforcement and check-ins from a mentor, very \nlittle changes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to Get a Great Sales Mentor \n<\/strong>What\u2019s needed to truly make long-term changes in sales performance \nis a way to simulate the mentorship experience \u2013 merging modern \ntechnology (including cloud-based software and mobile computing) with \nresearch into what makes mentors so effective. That is, in fact, what we\n have been developing for the past several years at Cerebyte, and have \nrecently launched with a new platform we call Sofia. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough there is considerable science behind Sofia, the way it \nworks is easy to understand at a high level. There are three main \nelements: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discovery \u2013 Build a model of top sales performance from top performers themselves<\/li> Launch \u2013 Create intense engagement among developing sales personnel<\/li> Application \u2013 Guided, real-world practice and support that builds sustained improvement<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nUncovering How Great Salespeople Sell \n<\/strong>To discover the secret sauce of how great salespeople sell, Sofia \nwalks top performers through a series of questions designed to quickly \ndiscover how they think, what they do well, and how they do it. For \nexample, we recently worked with one top-performing salesperson to build\n a model of how she successfully integrates and sells four disparate \nproduct lines. Using Sofia, we captured all her selling expertise in \njust two-and-a-half hours \u2013 and she enjoyed the process. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\nWith the right questions, based on neuroscience, salespeople \nenjoy the discovery process. After all, who doesn\u2019t enjoy talking about \nsomething they are really good at? We can typically get what we need in \njust a few hours of your top performer\u2019s time. Once they have completed \nthe process, they are free to go back to closing the next big deal. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building Excitement and Engagement \n<\/strong>In the launch process, Sofia uses the same triggers and cues as a \ngreat mentor, enhanced from the field of neuroscience, to generate \nexcitement and intense engagement. Because these are the actual insights\n and guidance from the best and most accomplished salespeople in the \norganization \u2013 people the other salespeople all admire and respect \u2013 the\n up-and-comers are far more open and engaged than they would be \notherwise. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\nTo bring this forward, Sofia is designed to give developing \nsalespeople the feeling they are mentally interacting in real time with \nthe top performer \u2013 causing the release of endorphins, dopamine, and \nother neural responses. These neural changes, which occur within several\n minutes and are deeply internalized in 1-2 hours, generate intense \nengagement, increase openness to new ideas, and dramatically accelerate \nlearning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great Sales Mentors Yield Sustained Improvement in Sales Performance \n<\/strong>Great sales mentors build long-term performance in others by \ninsisting that their pupils apply to real-world situations, the new \nskills and techniques they\u2019ve been shown. To accomplish this, Sofia uses\n neuroscience to translate the top performers\u2019 expertise into 30 minutes\n per week of guided real-world, conscious application. This can continue\n for as long as needed, but usually 2-3 months is sufficient. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\nSince Sofia is accessible at any time in any place, it provides \nreal-time support for use of the expertise. For example, imagine that, \nright before a new salesperson goes into a challenging meeting with a \ncustomer, she pulls out her iPhone and reviews how the expert handled a \nsimilar situation in the past. Effectively, the mentor is sitting next \nto her in real time, anywhere, providing timely guidance. Since, in this\n skill-building practice, they are selling while they are improving how \nthey sell, they see immediate results, don\u2019t realize they are \ntransforming, and therefore don\u2019t resist the time requirements. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, You Can Scale Sales Mentorship \n<\/strong>The Sofia experience is inherently scalable. Both the launch and \napplication capabilities can be provided to just a few people or \nthousands simultaneously. No single mentor could ever hope to match that\n scale or timeliness. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\nMeasured impacts are substantial. For example, at the end of a \nthree-month program at a high-technology company with hundreds of \nsalespeople around the world, the lesser performers demonstrated 90 \npercent of the attitudes and behaviors of the top performers. All the \nlesser performers were almost as good as the best \u2013 and many were as \ngood as the best. Similarly, at the end of a two-month program, \nsalespeople selling digital advertising doubled their sales without any \nincrease in base costs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mentoring salespeople is effective, but hard to achieve for most \nsales organizations. By capturing what truly drives top performers and \nusing modern technology to instill that expertise into your organization\n \u2013 just as a great mentor would do \u2013 you can achieve remarkable \nperformance improvements. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Note: The following article also appeared in Selling Power magazine here. Mentorship is one of the most effective ways to help salespeople improve performance. However, when we think about putting salespeople into the role of mentoring other salespeople, we run into a few significant challenges: Great sales managers want salespeople to spend time selling. Few…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[379],"yoast_head":"\n
How to Replicate the Success of Top Performers - Cerebyte<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n