3 Ways to Develop More Strategic Thinking Sellers


Effective leaders think and act strategically…and they do it every day, not just during a so-called strategy session.

In a study by Management Research Group that included 60,000 executives and managers in over 140 countries and in 26 industries, a strategic approach was deemed 10 times more important as a leadership practice than any other behavior including communication. That said, what could be more critical to the future success of your sales organization than developing strategic thinkers in your sales management team?

Here are three ways to begin to incorporate strategic thinking into your executive sales training:

  1. Set aside time.
    Actually schedule time for managers to come together and learn how to think beyond the day-to-day and consider longer-term challenges and solutions that their target clients face.
  1. Provide information.
    See that your sales managers are well informed about what is happening in the company and in the industry. This will help them spot trends and broaden their thinking to consider where opportunities lie and to get ahead of the market.
  1. Ask two questions: why and when.
    As solutions are put forward, train sales managers to ask “why” so they learn to focus on the overall goal of any action and “when” so they develop a future perspective.
To help make the behaviors sick, incorporate these 3 approaches into your sales performance coaching methodology and hold sales managers accountable for making it happen.

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