Reasons Why Sales Diversity Is Important In Your Team

When we talk about diversity, we mean a range of very many different things. You have often heard people talk about cultural diversity, tribal diversity, and diversity in languages, which means a range of many things involved. Sales diversity is our business today.

Having diversity within the sales team means having different sales representatives with different backgrounds who speak diverse languages. We have seen an increasing number of clients recognize the business value in finding diverse sales representatives.

Diversity can have a significant positive impact, especially on the sales team, because people find it friendlier and easier to support a company where there is someone of their tribe or share the same background.

Merhawi Kidane says that diversity means hiring and retaining employees representing several different characteristics and walks of life. An organization can increase its diversity of gender, education, ethnicity, social-economic backgrounds, age, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs. Diversity is advantageous to apply a range of different perspectives to the problems that a company needs to get solved.

According to a study by Havard Business review, they found out that a team with a member who shares ethnicity, culture, or tribe with a client is more likely to win the support of that client as compared to the other members within the team.

Diversity within a company allows lots of innovative and creative ideas vital for the company's survival and growth, creating high rates of employee engagement and productivity, yet this is what most employees are looking for.

REASONS WHY YOUR COMPANY NEEDS DIVERSITY IN SALES

1. Diversity overcomes Groupthink

Groupthink is a tendency of highly cohesive groups to assume that their decisions can’t be wrong. All members must support the group’s decision and ignore any information contrary to it. In other words, it is a strong tendency for decision making groups to close tanks, cognitively, around a decision, assuming that the group can’t be wrong and all that members must support the decision strongly and that any information contrary to it should be rejected.

Groupthink usually occurs due to a very high level of cohesiveness among group members; groups that fall, victim to groupthink, tend to consist of persons who share the same background and ideology. The other thing is emergent norms; these suggest that the group is incapable of failure and morally superior. Therefore, there should be no further discussions on the issues at hand.

Taking a look at the meaning of groupthink and what causes groupthink, it would be too bad for a company in an environment where this certain aspect is occurring, and it would collapse in the next few years. However, in a company where the rural and tribal diversity, groups can never exist because of the different people with different thinking capacities, ideas, innovativeness, and creativity.

2. Connects better with customers

Where one man fails, another one can step in. The same analogy applies to the field of sales. Assuming that there comes a customer, let’s say, from the Karamajong (a tribe that occupies the biggest part of northeastern Uganda) who doesn’t understand English and loves to do business with Monkeypesa. Unfortunately, all the people in sales of Monkeypesa don’t understand his or her language; what do you think would happen next?

The client would probably have to leave the company and move to somewhere else where there are people who can speak the same language as he or she does; thus, Monkeypesa will have lost a potential customer.

Additionally, the customer would feel more comfortable talking to someone who clearly understands them than any other person.  Also, it builds trust and friendship between the two parties. Rapport is a good thing to have with clients.

3. Attracts many more customers and employees from diverse places

East-West home is the best. It is human nature that people will always get attracted to where they feel like it's home. This not only exists in people’s cultural world but also in business and sales. Sales diversity widens the customer pool.

Additionally, many people love to work in an environment where there are diverse people because such environments promote great learning, higher productivity rates, and a healthy business environment.

4. Diversity eliminates and reduces the rate of biases in the recruitment process.

It's human nature that we all have our personal biases and preferences that hinder our judgments and the choices we make.

In an organization where there is diversity in the sales team, all these biases are eliminated and can’t be seen anywhere; thus, judgment during the recruitment process will be done based on qualifications, knowledge, ability, and who deserves what. This is important for an organization that wants to grow and explore; therefore, diversity in salespeople and the entire company is recommended and necessary for all companies.

5. Diversity eliminates company and sales stereotypes

Stereotypes refer to beliefs and explanations about group members that all group members possess certain characteristics and behave in certain ways.

Stereotypes are cognitive frameworks consisting of knowledge and beliefs about specific social groups. They involve generalizations about the typical or modal characteristics of members of various social groups. They suggest that all members of such groups possess certain traits, at least to a degree. Once a stereotype is activated, these traits come readily to the mind; hence we can easily identify traits related to different ethnic groups.

There are tribal diversity stereotypes in a company that can never exist because people are different, and more so, they have different beliefs. Diversity in the sales team and the entire company regarding age, culture, and tribe are important. At least people are focused more on work and productivity than centering and talking about other tribes.

6. Promotes learning knowledge acquisition and openness to the outside world

There are lots of learning from each other in a company where there are diversities in terms of knowledge, education backgrounds, and qualifications, most especially for those of low qualifications learning from higher qualifications. This adds knowledge to them and value in terms of productivity and performance, which is core for the company's success.

7. Promotes balance within an organization

Diversity promotes a balance within an organization through hiring different people with different genders, say both males and females.

Diversity of the sales team encourages hiring people of different backgrounds and ethnicity, thus striking a balance. It is an advantage in that the team is built differently. More so, it becomes easy to balance people's strengths and weaknesses; for example, if one tribe is weak in performing one activity, the other tribe could perform it, thus supporting each other in terms of productivity.

8. Diversity is a powerful and good strategy, as well as a driver to change.

Currently, sales organizations prioritizing diversity realize the powerful impact a more diverse sales team can have on the bottom line. A broader range of mindsets and backgrounds leads to better thinking and innovation and an improved ability to overcome stale ways of working and truly connect with the customer.

Considering today’s competitive environment, empathy-based selling has become critical to sales success. The ability to listen, connect, and empathize with customers is a game-changer, and a diverse sales force is better placed to have empathy for its diverse customer base.

9. Diversity Makes the Team Stronger

Diversity builds teamwork and causes employee satisfaction.

According to a Harvard Business Review study, companies with both “inherent” and “acquired” diversity out-innovate and outperformed other companies. Employees at these companies are 45 percent more likely to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year.

They are 70 percent more likely to indicate that the firm captured a new market. Companies with greater gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to see higher profits.

Final thoughts and conclusion

It’s not always good to embed all your trust in one group of people but rather to try the luck of different groups in the name of diversity. If you want the true fruits of diversity, then have in mind, you must appreciate each individual's value and promote different career paths and opportunities within your organization.

MonkeyPesa is here with a ready-made Business Management Suite that helps streamline everything from Leads to Deals, Tasks, Accounts, and contacts. MonkeyPesa is genuinely built for Sales teams. It is simple but well streamlined and organized. Are you an entrepreneur? Please leave your details here & we will contact you: https://www.monkeypesa.com/sales​ Learn everything you need to know to help empower your grow your business through the roof. We shall be learning to integrate services like Email Marketing, SMS, Social Media marketing, and customer support, all in a single business system. You can contact us on or by a phone call or WhatsApp at +256757537658.