How to lead a sales team effectively? This is the simplest question every sales manager should know. However, forming your own management style and imprinting your team with your personal touch is not easy. Based on years of sales management experience, I have summarized a five-character method for leading a team. I find it quite effective in practice, and I share it here for your reference. Sales team management is essentially people management. The true purpose is to motivate team members to work actively and conscientiously.

The first character: Compare (比) Within the sales team, a culture of 'comparing' must be fostered: laggards compare with top performers; low achievers compare with high achievers. Only then can the team generate forward momentum and maintain vitality. To create such a 'compare' atmosphere, the following methods can be adopted:

  1. Regular publication: Whether it's sales targets, development progress, or other metrics, regularly publish each member's performance within the team. This is direct and highly motivating for top performers, while also showing laggards the gap. However, choose assessment indicators carefully; a one-size-fits-all approach without considering market differences may backfire.
  2. Irregular publication: Similar to the first method, but the timing of publication is irregular. This allows managers to balance the team based on circumstances, control the atmosphere, and enhance control.
  3. Psychological approach: This is often used in teams with many new employees. Managers disclose indicators to subordinates privately, either regularly or irregularly, making them feel valued and giving them time to learn and improve before competing, thus creating a fair competitive environment. The core of this character is to let team members know their own results and others' results, and proactively compare to identify gaps.

The second character: Learn (学) After deliberately fostering a 'compare' atmosphere, the next step is to focus on 'learning'. There are three types of learning: low performers learning from high performers; high performers learning from low performers; and everyone learning together. Different types of learning create different team cultures and thus different team temperaments.

  1. Low performers learning from high performers: This is straightforward—low performers actively observe and imitate high performers, learning work methods and improving business skills.
  2. High performers learning from low performers: This emphasizes the manager's role in balancing the team. If performance differences arise from market variations, bring both sides back to the same starting line. Also, introduce successful experiences from weaker markets to stronger markets.
  3. Everyone learning together: This requires managers to create learning conditions, such as two hours per week or fifteen minutes per day. These learning sessions focus on summarizing experiences and lessons, with managers analyzing and providing targeted theoretical learning to deepen understanding. The core of this character is to enhance communication and mutual exchange among team members based on market conditions, ensuring steady improvement in business skills.

The third character: Chase (赶) After identifying gaps through comparison and enhancing communication appropriately, the next step is to take action to 'chase'. 'Chase' naturally means to pursue and catch up. This stage is about laggards putting what they've learned into practice, improving their shortcomings, and improving the market. Managers should strive to create a situation of 'you chase, I surpass' within the team, and create conditions for this atmosphere, even using reward and punishment systems if necessary.

  1. Encouragement: Through 'learning', laggards see the gap and recognize their shortcomings. In the 'learning' stage, it's crucial to show them the next direction and, through simple explanations, make them feel 'it's actually that simple', boosting their courage to catch up.
  2. Reward and punishment: Use systems to guide laggards to strive and catch up, creating the understanding: 'I know what to do; if I don't do it, I'll be punished; but if I do, I'll be rewarded.' The core of this character is that laggards begin to take action. This is a critical step. If only 'comparing' and 'learning' occur without members starting to improve, negative emotions may spread within the team. Managers must quickly identify and eliminate the causes; otherwise, team vitality will be lost.

The fourth character: Help (帮) Laggards begin to strive to catch up, but objective market conditions exist and are not determined by subjective will. If they chase for a long time without catching up, or even can't see the back of the leader, morale can be severely impacted. At this point, managers should implement 'help'. 'Help' comes in two forms: manager's help and top performers' help.

  1. Manager's help: This is straightforward—managers provide assistance to laggards when difficulties arise in catching up. The goal is to help laggards quickly increase their catch-up speed or narrow the gap with top performers. This can also be seen as a differentiated allocation of market resources.
  2. Top performers' help: This results from cultivating team awareness. First, use policies to guide top performers to help laggards; second, educate top performers to raise awareness. Once this mutual assistance atmosphere forms, combat effectiveness is extremely strong. However, it's also the most difficult, with the challenge lying in guidance. The core of this character is to maintain laggards' enthusiasm for effort, strengthen team awareness, form internal cohesion, and effectively enhance team execution.

The fifth character: Surpass (超) Laggards, through their own efforts and team help, finally surpass top performers and shed the label of laggard. This is the ultimate goal of team management. 'Surpass' has several scenarios: comprehensive surpass, partial surpass, and conditional surpass.

  1. Comprehensive surpass: This means laggards have surpassed top performers in all aspects, completely shedding the laggard label. This is the most gratifying situation because it represents overall business improvement.
  2. Partial surpass: Laggards surpass top performers in one or several aspects, but not overall. This occurs during the process and intensifies competition within the team. Managers must guide healthy competition and prevent negative impacts.
  3. Conditional surpass: Laggards have made progress but haven't objectively surpassed top performers. Managers set certain conditions to create partial surpass. This mainly aims to encourage and motivate. The core of this character is to initiate real competition within the team, keeping every member under some pressure. At the same time, adjust business and market strategies based on the competition process to maintain healthy competition.

The above five characters—Compare, Learn, Chase, Help, Surpass—represent a process of a sales team moving from scattered to cohesive, and also a process of capability enhancement. If mapped to management templates, each character has corresponding templates: Compare: Goal assessment, information dissemination process Learn: Training design, business meeting system Chase: Business incentives, sales policy modification Help: Resource allocation, team culture building Surpass: Market segmentation, business direction adjustment These five characters are most effective for managing newly formed sales teams and can quickly shape the team.

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