An excerpt from the upcoming Sales Culture book “Never Sell Alone”

I see examples of effective virtual teams and sales cultures everywhere I go. I see so many examples, but still not enough to think that the sales culture practices are commonplace and clearly understood by sales organizations. When the sales professionals thoroughly understand what they have to do and know how to engage people, the organizational managers say, “Yes, go to work and be on the team.” No distractions on competing priorities are presented by different levels of functional bosses.

The virtual team members’ biggest challenge might be time management. The balancing of functional responsibilities and virtual team responsibilities to the customer can be tricky. One way to bring clarity to this challenge is to think of the customer and his needs first. What will help to satisfy the customer? How urgent is the customer’s need for my service? What works best for the customer? How can I help to move the sales campaign to a successful close?

Functional managers and sales professionals who are leading the virtual teams can help team members prioritize their work in ways that contribute to customer satisfaction and company success. Whatever affects a customer comes first.

Organizational managers can look at activities in two categories: customer issues and internal issues. If the environment or culture of the company is one that prioritizes the customer before all else, then everyone knows how to manage their time according to these guidelines. The internal issues need to be managed to best respond to the customer issues.

A sales professional should see every situation as a unique opportunity to reinforce a sales culture. The sales professional needs to recognize the different needs in each sales opportunity to build his sales culture and success. Money in the emotional bank account comes first. This account is built by developing relationships with customers and virtual team members, who can help with the customer relationships.