I was asked for suggestions on a workshop a colleague was running called “Demand excellence in your sales team”. He was looking for content and opinions on how to shape the day. Here were my suggestions:

• Leaders who must revert to demanding will fail. It is a strategy that only works for a short while. I would call it “Building excellent teams” or “Coaching for excellence”. A notion that Daniel Goleman put forth in Primal Leadership … the pacesetting style sets you on the path to failure and what you call the meeting will set the tone and expectation.
• My themes would be:
• Set clear expectations with the team (Performance, development, teamwork, etc.)
• Follow up with regular 1:1s that are quality meetings. Not just a review of the funnel, but development and coaching events. Set the expectation of the leadership team.
• Managers need to be in the field (so do executives). Participate with your sales team so that you can coach based on first hand experience. Participate in pre-call planning, sales calls and team activities.
• Sales success and failure is a team event. Lead by example and invest in the success of your people. A personal motto – “I don’t think about how I will be personally successful. I spend all of my time thinking about how to make my teammates successful knowing that if they succeed, my success is guaranteed”

My 2 cents.