Mentoring is where sales leaders spend five to ten percent of their time. It's a key aspect of leadership, but most people don't do it often enough or lack clarity on how to benefit from mentoring relationships. Intentionally creating a success profile and assigning a mentoring process that helps people grow into that role quickly accelerates sales team development.
Mentoring is ineffective when leaders wing it. When leaders wing it, they tend to hastily look at who is successful in organizations and say something like, "Mary, go talk to Jim. Jim's great at what he does. Sit down and talk through what he does so you can get some pointers." This is a setup for heartache. The lack of structure in both objectives and the relationship mean that neither mentor nor mentee have much motivation to truly improve.
Instead of winging it, follow a structured process. If you're not personally mentoring as a sales leader, which is sometimes impractical or inefficient, then make sure those who are mentoring know the guidelines. Knowing the guidelines means a clear understanding that mentors know they are taking on a mentoring role. They should know that they have consciously been selected to guide colleagues and have a clear understanding of what aspects of their job or role they are instructing mentees on.
Mentoring is key when it comes to relationships. The most important thing during a mentoring relationship is trust and conviction. Clearly setting and maintaining a safe environment built on respect means that the mentee can ask impactful questions and get honest feedback. You just can't arbitrarily put two people in a mentoring relationship and expect real improvement. It won't work because lacking a connection places barriers to a constructive conversation as both parties filter or sterilize their statements.
Once the relationship is established it’s important that both mentor and mentee have an objective for the relationship. Many times mentors mistakenly take on the role of trainer or coach rather than mentor. On the flip side mentees often have a general idea that they want to “get better”. Mentees should have a clear understanding of the mentor’s expertise and the improvements they can glean from those specific strengths.
What separates a mentor from other leadership roles is explaining the attitude or evaluation that drives their behaviors. Of course, there will always be tactics and techniques that a mentor can pass on to a mentee, but mentors should have some clear direction on how they view situations or specific problems. Once they have conceptually defined their vision, they can then explain why they react the way they react in a specific situation.
Mentoring is part of a journey when it’s done well. This process allows mentees to think differently because they have the benefit of looking at the world through somebody who's been doing a job significantly longer. This experienced perspective can expedite the learning curve by passing on years’ worth of lessons learned. This gives mentees a multi-year jumpstart. Set a defined mentoring process for your team up front and it will pay off on the back end with a purposefully
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Put these nine easy steps in place as a consistent and predictable meeting agenda for every sales meeting, and revel in the most efficiently run meetings you’ve ever experienced. |
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