Updates from the Leading Association for the Cleaning Industry Worldwide

Becoming A Better Sales Leader
By Jim Pancero

Welcome to the second article in our “You Can Always Sell More” series. In this piece, we’ll discuss how improving a sales force requires you to evaluate and then strengthen your sales leadership team’s skills and focus.

Salespeople, especially experienced ones, tend to see themselves as a unique breed. They often have large egos and believe that selling requires a lot of risk taking, creativity and long hours. But these large egos can also create a challenge for sales leaders. The big-ego people live in a very “hierarchical” world, where they’re constantly ranking everyone as better or worse. It may not be a healthy practice, but it’s still a part of the makeup of many salespeople and needs to be considered by any sales leader.

Most experienced sales reps also believe that a manager cannot successfully lead a sales team if he or she has not worked as a salesperson first. How, they ask, can you possibly understand the unique challenges and demands that a sales rep faces if you’ve never actually sold?

Of course, having a selling background does not exactly guarantee your success as a sales leader. The majority of ineffective sales managers have successful selling backgrounds, but no idea how to effectively lead a team. You can be a successful sales leader without personal selling experience if you offset this perceived gap by improving other skills of selling. For instance, you need to master all five of the Central Leadership Values.

1. Being a “leader” instead of just the “lead doer.” Are you leading as the “lead doer” (even carrying accounts yourself) or are you working to actually lead your team as a coach and strategist?
   
   
2. Being balanced as a “coach,” disciplinarian,” and “number cruncher.” There is no one best “bias” for a sales leader. Your company is like a jigsaw puzzle with your sales leadership piece being the last insert. The shape of your jigsaw piece (or leadership bias) needs to be defined by the gaps the others leave.
   
   
3. Having empathy, loyalty and trust in your sales team. Team members have to believe you’re on their side and truly care about their personal success. Most leaders spend up to 90 percent of their communications on negative issues and feedback. Successful sales leaders offer more than suggestions, critiques and ideas — they also offer support and affirmation.
   
   
4. Being proactive and “future focused.” You can’t change the past as a reactive manager, but you can help impact the future as a proactive leader.
   
   
5. Believing in the structures of selling. Most reps are only intuitive, believing each customer’s personality and buying situation is so unusual that every opportunity needs to be handled as a unique challenge. Helping your people understand and apply the steps and structures of selling can significantly increase their sales consistency and also improve their competitive advantage and selling success. (Structures of successful selling will be covered in future articles.)

Evaluating, Prioritizing, Strengthening
It’s now time to complete an online Sales Leadership Evaluation (available free). After completing your evaluation, you’ll want to select the specific areas that, if improved, could generate the most profound leadership skill improvements and benefits to your team.

In the next article, we’ll cover how you can evaluate your sales team and design an improvement plan to help increase their selling success.

Jim Pancero founded his advanced sales training and consulting company, Jim Pancero, Inc., in 1982. He can be reached at 800-526-0074. For in-depth electronic versions of this article series, register here, by entering your e-mail address and “ISSA” as your password.

In its relatively short existence, the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Existing Buildings (EB) has helped fuel the demand for environmentally preferable services and products, including the demand for green cleaning. And now ISSA is making available to its membership a complimentary document that makes the connection between environmentally preferable cleaning and maintenance activities and LEED-EB certification. Members can access Cleaning and Maintenance and LEED-EB: What’s the Connection? at www.issa.com/leedeb.

In just a little over two years since being finalized, LEED-EB has proliferated as both private and public sectors have embraced the program. LEED-EB confers certification upon buildings that garner a predetermined number of credits based on specific performance measures and prerequisites.

Green Cleaning and LEED-EB.
Of particular note, green cleaning and maintenance activities can contribute a significant portion of the total points needed to obtain LEED-EB certification at a relatively low cost. Those sections of LEED-EB that address cleaning and maintenance activities set forth a framework by which facilities, service providers, and others can develop a green cleaning program.

Background.
The USGBC is a coalition of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote facilities that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work. Its core purpose is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated.

The LEED-EB rating system addresses:

• Whole-building cleaning and maintenance issues, including chemical use
  
• Ongoing indoor air quality (IAQ)
  
• Energy efficiency
  
• Water efficiency
  
• Recycling programs and facilities
  
• Exterior maintenance programs
  
• System upgrades to meet green building energy, water, IAQ, and lighting and performance standards.
  

LEED-EB Certification.
LEED-EB certification is based on a maximum of 85 points. A minimum of 32 points must be achieved to obtain certified status. To earn certification, a building must satisfy all of the prerequisites and a minimum number of points to attain the established LEED-EB project ratings as set forth below.

LEED-EB certification levels:

• Certified: 32 to 39 points
  
• Silver: 40 to 47 points
  
• Gold: 48 to 63 points
  
• Platinum: 64 to 85 points
  

Points for Green Cleaning.
Environmentally preferable cleaning and maintenance products and services can contribute 13 or more points to the certification process, representing more than 40 percent of the total minimum points needed to achieve certified status. Thus, cleaning practices and products play an important role in the LEED-EB certification process.

More specifically, cleaning operations impact three of the six major LEED-EB categories: sustainable sites, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. Moreover, most of the cleaning-related items in LEED-EB are relatively inexpensive and easy to implement.

ISSA’s Cleaning and Maintenance and LEED-EB: What’s the Connection? identifies those LEED-EB prerequisites and credits that are related to cleaning and maintenance and describes the actions necessary to achieve credit for those items. ISSA members can obtain a copy of this document online or send an e-mail to ISSA Legislative Affairs Director Bill Balek (place “Cleaning and LEED-EB” in the subject line).