I had three keynote speeches on sales and marketing strategies for revenue growth last week.

Two of the audiences were Renaissance Executive Forums (one in Detroit, and one in Washington D.C.), and were made of up of business owners and executives — with many companies over $50 million in the rooms. The third audience was the D.C.-based Institute for Excellence in Sales, made up of over 100 sales people. So, two sets of audiences: management and front-line salespeople.

Here’s what I came away with which I’ve never thought about before:

Although they come at accountability from different sides, managers and salespeople are equally uncomfortable with it.

Both groups know they need it.

Both groups know they would perform better with it.

But neither group particularly enjoys giving or receiving accountability.

I could see people’s discomfort when the discussion turned to this topic.

And yet, nothing new that’s worthwhile happens without accountability.

We cannot make change without it.

To dramatically increase revenue at your firm, we need to implement these four steps — which is what I do for my clients:
1.Salespeople need to make a plan regularly. What specifically will you do this weeto sell more?
2.Salespeople need to track their results. How did it go? If you planned to ask for a referral on Tuesday, did you do it? If so, what happened?
3.The results must be turned in to somebody who is expecting them. This is called accountability. If the manager doesn’t receive your report, she must inquire about it. What happened? Where is it? I thought we were on the same page?
4.We must recognize the successes publicly. Science tells us that recognition is more effective than financial compensation when it comes to making change.

The key step is the third one.

Nothing happens without accountability.

How is the accountability at your organization?

To infuse positive accountability into your organization in order to grow sales dramatically, call me at 847-459-6322 or reply to this message.