In the first part of our collaborative sales series, we talked about how to get started with building a culture of sharing and collaboration with our VP of Sales, Armando Mann. This week we discuss how to encourage collaboration on the team.

I'd like my team to start sharing more on what they're working on. How do I get started on shifting private behaviors to shared behaviors, both offline and online?

To encourage your team on being more open to sharing and collaboration, set the example yourself. If you're working on a deal, take a bit of risk and share it with the rest of your team; that will yield tremendous credibility. Also reward or recognize the people who are sharing more. Essentially they're doing so for the benefit of the greater team, so recognize that and make specific call-outs on it. For instance, message the team with a specific example to show the upside of sharing and how that teammate is being a leader on how to do things. This will encourage others to follow suit naturally.

Also understand that some of your customers simply expect or demand it of your business. In order to win the customer's business, the burden of coordination is on the company to provide a seamless and easy experience for the customer's path to purchase. Different departments will be involved to close the deal, so in order to facilitate those collaborations more easily, put in place the necessary business tools or processes that ensures that sharing of information is the default action and not the exception.

In some cases, deal activity needs to be private because there's sensitivity to numbers or nature of the deal. How do I manage those exceptions while promote the culture of sharing and visibility?

It's very important to set rules of engagement at the very beginning and be very specific as to what are the requirements that need to be met if a deal needs to be managed privately. That way the team is clear about what the rules are and this eliminates any confusion and awkwardness.

What are 3 things that I and my team can start doing today to share and collaborate more regularly?

1. Get into the habit of talking about deals openly. Establish a weekly standup with the entire team to share what deals they're working on, areas they need help on, etc. Sharing offline will make it easier to share online because everyone will be aware of what you're working on.
2. Rotate every week to talk about deals lost to promote learnings. Holding a retrospective review is a great way to understand why we lost a deal and how we can overcome objections in the next deal opportunity. Recognizing losses is as important as celebrating the wins.
3. Set expectations and cadence on email coaching. This is not about micromanaging email communications but about honing skills and techniques for effective email communication. Sharing and opening up your email communications for critique will help your team to become better communicators, sales professionals and partners to your customers.