GROUP SALES MONTH: The Three Group Leaders You Don't Think About
Group Sales Month on Empowerment of a Salesperson is sponsored by FEVO. FEVO is a sales amplification tool used by industry leading pro sports teams, colleges, and festivals. For more information check out FEVO.com.
A group leader is the person we work with to set up the group. It's an insanely common name, and I'd be floored is anyone who sold groups reading this wasn't using it. They are also the easiest to blame when a group doesn't work. 'The logo was stretched out on the flier, no kidding no one did the group.' 'The group leader didn't REALLY get behind the group. No kidding it didn't work. Etc., etc. etc. Instead of using them as an excuse to fail, what if we used them as a tool (or tools) for maximizing groups?
In my article on the Adam Dunn approach to group sales, I mentioned I did a sales autopsy that led to understanding how critical the anchor group and hook were to maximizing a group. I also uncovered one more huge insight...how important the group leaders were to the success of a group.
Notice I didn't say 'group leader.' What I identified was that there were three essential characteristics involved with group leaders to achieve maximum success. Now, a group leader could maintain all three of these traits...and that's fine. However, in most groups, multiple people were necessary to fill these roles. Without further ado, here are the three critical group leader attributes that maximize groups:
Communicator: You need to know how a group communicates and who is in charge of communicating. That person also needs to be involved in your meetings to ensure you maximize the look, feel, and consistency of the message that's being sent out. Nobody wants to go to a party if it looks crappy on the Evite. People will go to a party if it looks like an awesome event, and they see that message often enough and in enough places to continue to remind them they should go. This all falls down when the communicator is not a part of the meetings, and does all the communicating on a hand-off from the group leader. Include them!
Decision-Maker: 'Yes, Brett, it would be great to have the person who makes the decision involved. Duh.' As much as we understand this, we need to ask about it. If the President of the company understands what and why we are doing an event, we will, more than likely, have more access to money and resources that will help make the event successful. Also, there's a bigger reason. Using my party analogy above, if the cool kid is going to the party...more people will go to the party. I had a group where they were giving out FREE tickets (company bought the 150 premium seats) and only had 75 given out 48 hours before the match! The group leader and I convinced the Area President that since they paid for this, we needed him to be there (he hadn't planned on going). Once it was announced that he would be going, the 75 remaining tickets went within the next 12 hours...and they ultimately bought 50(!) more.
The Fan: One of the most valuable questions you can ask in your initial meetings is, 'Who in your office is the biggest fan of our team or the sport?' Get their name...and get them involved. The energy you have about your team won't live in the environment that this message is spreading. While you can control what the message looks like and if the cool kid is going, you need someone creating excitement on the inside. Honestly, how important is this, Brett? It's actually the most important. While every 1,000+ groups I diagnosed had at least 1 of the communicator, decision-maker, and fan, EVERY group 3,000+ had the fan involved. If you think about the decision-maker creating top-down momentum, the fan creates a swirl of momentum from the bottom-up. And I would incentivize this person on the groups success. Have them on the field prior to the game if they hit XXXX amount of tickets. Give them suite tickets to another game. The more you get them running around stoking the fire, the more likely the communication will land and people will take action.
We tend to work with only the person we connect with when it comes to groups. We need to think bigger. We need to expand the scope of the group leader. The larger that scope expands, the more people that will want to be a part of the group, whether it's the cool invitation, the cool kid going, or the friend constantly egging you on to go.
It's crazy, I have rarely been perfect on having all these involved in one group. Yet, with the biggest groups I've been a part of, they always seemed to come back to the anchor/hook...and the quality of the group leader. Even if the quality of the group leader isn't there at the start, your job isn't to complain about it...it's to organize it. And the great insights above can organize you on doing just that. Go get 'em!