Share the Vision

As an executive you know how important it is to communicate the company’s mission to your employees, and we all know that that’s easier said than done. Talking about “the vision” at company meetings and having a Mission Statement on the website are not the same thing as having people understand it and believe it. The number one reason sales people don’t “Share the Vision” is that what they hear in speeches and read in letters from management often doesn’t align with what they see in action every day. Reps may not see, or may not think about, how their day-to-day activities fit with the company’s strategy, how their territories and their quotas align with the overall corporate goals. The major function of sharing the vision is to get the sales team to think about something other than their individual quotas. Reps can be very myopic when it comes to their little place in the corporate universe and occasionally need to be reminded of the “greater good” and how they can (and are expected to) serve it.
I cannot stress enough the value of senior management spending time with sales reps and giving them the insight to apply the company’s overall vision to their little slice of the world. Clarify and explain how sales objectives and territories are built and how what you have reps doing is an integral part of fulfilling specific milestones and meeting specific corporate targets, rather than just hitting sales goals.
Sales reps will be much more productive and happy if they understand your shared goals and can connect their activities with the activities of all the firm’s other employees. In the field they will be much more effective if they can trust that the corporate mission is more than words on paper; that it really is something you are all committed to.