Culture embraces the way people do things. So, for example, Asian people may use chopsticks, while people in Europe are likely to prefer knives and forks. Note, though, that neither of these methods is ‘superior’. Culture is a relative, not an absolute concept.

Likewise, culture also operates at an individual level. Some of us may be the life and soul of parties. Others may value quiet, introspective lives. It can be helpful to remember this when choosing life partners. It can definitely be worthwhile when selecting a sales team.

More About Embedded Culture in the Workplace

A new sales team member encounters a culture with relatively set ways of doing things. Leader and follower roles are in place, and there are established norms for meetings. There will also be shared attitudes and beliefs. Management of people is influencing those values to advance the company's fortunes.

But culture is not always a positive force in the life of a business. Too much time spent on workplace socialising may come at the cost of sales. Work culture is manageable. Management needs to encourage its evolution in the optimum direction. That’s delivering balanced benefits for people and the company.

Is Sales Team Culture a Top-Down, or Bottom-Up Thing?

In an ideal world or a collective organisation, bottom-up could work. However, in business, management should provide the lead. The academic approach favours doing so through company vision and mission statements. However, these do not always work in practice.

People being people, a sales team could get their backs up over the ‘latest bright idea from the top’. This article can only work if it becomes part of the management culture and evolves almost organically.

Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.

Frances Hesselbein - Former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA

Shaping Sales Team Culture in a ‘Can Do’ direction.

This article is about encouraging a culture that supports vision and mission in practical terms. We need to be mindful we are working with people with embedded agendas. Therefore, we should choose salespeople with values similar to our strategy to contribute to a positive workplace culture from the beginning.

The Outward Signs of Healthy Workplace Culture

• Sales team members cooperate with, and care for each other. They exchange their knowledge and experience in pursuit of the overall team goal.
• The team is excited about their task. They have freedom to express their ideas within and beyond their group, and feel ownership over it.
• They genuinely believe in the integrity of the product they sell, and are convinced of the benefits to the customer and their company.

This shared set of values gradually overwhelms any bad baggage new employees may bring to the business when they join. Good culture becomes a self-fulfilling, upward spiralling structure.

The Toxic Work Culture No Company Wants

Sales team culture, as I previously said, depends on nurturing management. However, those good feelings can flow the other way if management has a negative attitude towards their workers and customers.

An edifice based on broad benefits to customers and the company can just as quickly crumble. Salespeople still go about their daily duties, but their inspiration is gone. Turnover tumbles, customers go elsewhere, but who is to blame for the disaster?

7 Steps Along the Road to a Healthy Sales Team Culture

Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person - not just an employee - are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.

Anne M. Mulcahy - Former chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation

#1 Nurture Friendly Competition in the Team

Effective salespeople are competitive by nature because they want to influence their environment. They thrive on exceeding targets. Use a competitor as their benchmark for team success. Beat this by challenging your sales team to exceed their best months.

Give new sales team members a break by teaming with your best-experienced people. There is no better way to embed culture I know than experiencing recognition and success. However, discourage open, aggressive competition between team members.

#2 Establish Trust and Open Feedback

You must trust sales representatives when out in the field. Learn to listen with both ears when they speak. Empower them to share both good and not-so-good news alike. When they fail, point the finger to yourself. What could you have done better?

Innovation always travels with an element of risk. But innovation is necessary to onboard customers from the competition. Allow, in fact, to welcome individual differences.

#3 Keep the Team Moving Forward

Your sales team is at the forefront of your drive towards new opportunities. They must be supple and agile to respond to new markets you open quickly. Encourage a ‘do today’ approach with five-minute reviews of yesterday and today.

But also encourage them to take risks with new clients and experiment with fresh approaches. If you don’t invest in tomorrow, what do you expect? Encourage daring.

#4 Hold the Sales Team Intact

No competitive person likes to be stuck in a groove. We don’t want to lose our best talent to the competition because they are usually most likely to leave by the law of averages. This could leave team dynamics in shreds if they were also leaders.

Do whatever you can to retain them, besides overpaying, which would demotivate the rest of the team. Help them grow in the company. But also have a Plan B for when they eventually move on.

#5 Encourage Shared Ideas and Collaborating

Teams become more than the sum of individual potential when they pool knowledge and experience. Implement quick, end-of-week meetings over coffee, where your sales team can come together and share recent experiences.

There is little point in teaming salespeople if you can’t harness all this potential. Informal meetings without pressure are great for bonding members otherwise ‘out in the field’.

The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo - President of the Philippines from 2001 until 2010

# 6 – Hold Your Sales Team Accountable for Results

A healthy sales team flourishes on positive feedback. Acknowledge their contribution to company success, and be generous with praise. However, hold them accountable when turnover is down. That is, after all, part of their job.

We flourish and grow when others notice us and recognise the contribution we make. However, we should not praise for the sake of it. This diminishes the value of the reward.

# 7 Invest in Your Sales Team and Grow

Our sales team arrives from who knows where, and in time they are bound to move on to new horizons. The best we can do is hold on to the good ones as long as possible and maximise the benefits of having them on the team. But life, however, is a two-way street.

We achieve those two goals by developing as much of their potential as possible. This goes further than paying for training. We must invest time mentoring them for their success.

Final words

Being a manager or business owner is acting as custodian for a company, its employees, and their customers. All four are in a symbiotic relationship where one should benefit all. If we look after our salespeople, they look out for their customers, and everybody wins. That surely should be the culture of every successful company!

Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people.

Steve Jobs - Chairman, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Apple Inc.