Ethical Sales Leadership: Raising the Bar (1 of 5)

“Beware of no one more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.” Charles Spurgeon, British Baptist Preacher. (1834 – 1892)

Over a decade ago, I launched Sales Growth Specialists. I was tentative about whether this was really the career where I wanted to invest my life. I was leaving an industry I loved, the health care industry, which held intrinsic value for me. Why? Because I knew my work was contributing to helping grandparents who previously got frustrated at not being able to hear the high-pitched voices of their grandchildren. It gave me an indescribable internal buzz to know I was making a positive contribution to the passing on of values to the next generation.

I was discussing my trepidations with a new colleague in the sales force development field. Sensing my hesitancy and lack of enthusiasm in charging forward, he asked me to elaborate. Much to my own surprise, I heard myself saying, “I’m embarrassed to be in sales!” Being a good coach, he probed even deeper. I responded with, “I hate sales! It’s slimy, slippery and manipulative! And, that is not who I am!”

Then came the most life-impacting part of the conversation. He said, “Danita, that’s the very reason you need to be in the industry – to raise the bar, to call the industry to a higher standard.”

My lunch date with another friend a couple of weeks ago, reminded me of this conversation. In my next posting, I’ll tell you about the important lessons I learn over lunch.

Sales Growth Question: What are you doing to raise the bar for those you are leading with regards to ethical business processes?

Sales Growth Lesson: As transformational leaders, we can inspire and motivate others to nurture an ethical culture in our sales teams.

January 30, 2012 | Filed Under Sales Leadership, Transformational Leadership | Leave a Comment

Hope is a Sales Leadership Strategy (2)

Definition of hope: an activating force that enables people, even when faced with the most overwhelming obstacles, to envision a promising future and to set and pursue goals.

We all watched in dismay on Friday, January 13, as 3000 tourists and 1000 crew members aboard the Costa Concordia, an Italian cruise ship, faced the nightmare. Their dream of a lifetime turns into a titantic-like disaster.

I’m amazed watching the news coverage about the tragedy. Initial reports are about the destruction and loss of life. But then miracles happen. People are rescued from their cabins; families are reunited – and these stories bring hope.

Susy Albertini, the mother of missing five-year-old Dayana Arlotti, was on the island and had planned to leave flowers at the wreck. But, she said, she could not go through with it while a glimmer of hope remained that her daughter might be found alive.

In the wake of the financial recession, negativity was also initially making up most of the headlines. But then, as with other disasters, stories of hope and heroism, start to filter through. The entrepreneurial energy of leaders kicks into gear.

How can you not be consumed by a feeling of hopelessness as you’re facing increasing higher goals with no expansion of resources? As a sales leader, how can you harness the true potential from hope and use it as a powerful sales tool?

Reading the article “Towards a deeper understanding of Hope and Leadership”, published in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies by Martha Helland and Bruce Winston, I learned about how Hope inspires you, as a sales leader, to make a mind shift – away from despair and towards a hopeful future. With your mental shift, you encourage your team to the innovation and tenacity that’s born in hope. Hope is:

Born in relationship.
Inspired by the belief that the future is open and can be changed.
Generated by positive action.

High Hope Leaders have these characteristics:

Set goals by making realistic assessments of their ability to attain a goal.
Pursue goals with determination and energy.
Generate more goals.
Strive towards productive relationships with others where they can reach goals as a team.
Experience less stress and are able to implement effective coping strategies when faced with unforeseen challenges.

As sales leaders, we have the responsibility – now more than ever before – to instill hope in our sales teams. I take courage from these words by Albert Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” And, we’re reminded of the power of real hope in I Cor. 13:13, “These three things remain, Faith, Hope and Love.”

SALES GROWTH QUESTION: What can you do to lead your team away from negative thinking towards hopeful thinking?

SALES GROWTH LESSON: Hope is an important virtue for sales leaders.

January 23, 2012 | Filed Under Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Transformational Leadership | Leave a Comment

Hope is a Sales Leadership Strategy (1)

Some psychologists identify hope as an activating force that enables people, even when faced with the most overwhelming obstacles, to envision a promising future and to set and pursue goals.

College break is over and I’m sending two students back to the university. Over break, we had long discussions on the degrees they might pursue based on the needs of the continually shifting global economy and their unique set of gifts, talents and interests. There’s much uncertainty since most of the careers as we know them will be gone in the near future – phased out in favor of new ideas and technologies.

Hope - A Leadership Strategy

Even though many industries are reporting better-than-expected sales and there’s a general sense of hopefulness in small to mid-sized businesses, we know that we’re still facing challenging and uncertain times. The paradox that captures headlines every day is this – the only certainty we seem to be sure of, is that uncertainty has come to stay.

Interestingly, research in the field of Positive Psychology now supports the power of hope. Inspiring Hope actually is an important leadership skill in the New Normal.

Look at it this way – without hope, sales teams fall into a state of status quo. They believe they have no control over anything anymore and they should just wait it out until things get better, i.e. the economy gets better, the competition goes bankrupt or the company management finally gets their act together. Of course, these beliefs sabotage the energy and creativity needed to create a sales team that can consistently win more new accounts.

I can tell you for the lessons I have learned in business as well as growing up on a ranch in North Dakota, where uncertainty was part of our daily lives, ‘waiting for things to get better on its own’, was never an option.

Rather, I was taught a sense of hopeful realism – a reasonable expectation of a good end – neither a misleading hope nor a false despair.

With intentionality, hopeful realism can become a dominant attitude throughout your sales organization.

In our next posting, I’ll share some ideas on how you can harness the true potential from hope and use it as a powerful sales leadership strategy.

SALES GROWTH QUESTION: What are you doing as a Sales Leader, to make sure your team stays both realistic and hopeful at the same time?

SALES GROWTH LESSON: Hope does not sit around waiting for things to get better on its own. Hope takes action to make things happen.