Summary

When the market shifts, your salespeople are not going to figure it out on their own. That’s your job. As a sales leader, your responsibility is to see the change coming, get ahead of it, and point your team in the right direction before they burn time and energy working a market that has already moved.

This Is Where You Earn Your Stripes

I had Rob on the show recently asking a question I hear from sales leaders all the time. He’s got high performers, the market around them is shifting, and he wants to know how to keep them focused on the right opportunities when who he thought was his best prospect six months ago may not be worth his team’s time today.

Salespeople are myopic. They are wired to focus on what’s directly in front of them, and that’s exactly what you’re paying them to do. You want them laser-focused on getting in the door, advancing the deal, and closing it. The trade-off is that they are almost never going to wake up one morning and decide on their own that the trends are shifting and the team needs to move. That instinct belongs to the leader.

When the market changes, it falls on you to see it coming, anticipate where it’s going, and start redirecting your people before the opportunity window closes. Your best salespeople will push back. They’ll tell you the money is still where they’ve always found it. Your job is to show them where it actually is now.

Go Where the Money Is

Willie Sutton was a bank robber in the 1920s. When the press asked him why he kept robbing banks, he said: because that’s where the money is. That principle applies directly to sales targeting when markets shift.

Early in the pandemic, I had to redirect my top salesperson out of professional sports and into financial services. Sports had no money. Banks were flush. The pivot was uncomfortable and she pushed back hard. But banks carried us through those years, and today our financial services practice is one of the strongest parts of the business. That happened because, as the leader, I saw where the opportunity had moved and made the call before the pain became unavoidable.

What It Actually Takes to Stay Ahead of a Shifting Market

Seeing the market shift before your team does requires consistent, deliberate habits. I read the Wall Street Journal every morning. I watch Bloomberg. I consume as much business news as I can, and what I’m doing is looking for trends and patterns that tell me where things are heading.

I’m also listening from the ground up. What are my salespeople telling me from their conversations? What do the inbound patterns look like? What deals are we actually closing right now? Those ground-level signals, combined with what you’re reading externally, give you a real picture of where the opportunity is moving before it becomes obvious to everyone.

When you identify a shift, show your work. Sit down with your team and walk them through where you’re getting your information and why you’re making the call to redirect. If you do this consistently, it rubs off. Point them toward the trade publications, the industry blogs, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, whatever is relevant to your market. Over time, they’ll start picking it up. But don’t expect them to get there on their own.

Point Them in the Right Direction Every Single Day

Your job as a sales leader is to get your people in position to win. When your team shows up in the morning, you need to know exactly where to point them. Specifically point out the accounts, the lists, and where the opportunities are right now. That level of direction requires you to be doing your homework before they walk in the door.

Salespeople are paid to close. You are paid to see what’s coming. When markets shift, the leaders who stay market-aware, read the signals early, and redirect their teams before the pain sets in are the ones who build organizations that perform through change. The ones who wait for their salespeople to figure it out on their own are the ones who lose ground they never get back.

Predicting the future and staying ahead of the curve is not a bonus skill for a sales leader. It’s the job.

The CLEAR Coach program at Sales Gravy is built for sales leaders who are serious about getting their teams in position to win. If you’re ready to lead at a higher level, start here: salesgravy.com/courses/clear-sales-coaching-training

Frequently Asked Questions