Sales Management Leaders and Responsibility
I just got back from a July 4th at the TTT Ranch. Of course, If You’re Not From the Prairie, it’s difficult to understand the many unique dilemma’s ranchers face.
However, as I contemplate further, I realize that ranchers face many of the same challenges that we face is sales management.
My father saw quite a few tractors stuck back when I was a kid. Yet he never made excuses, never blamed anyone or anything, and never, most importantly, never settled for a stuck tractor. He did what he had to do to get it out and put it back in service. Sometimes, that meant solo shovel work, but more often it was a joint effort of family and friends. My father was a man who didn’t pick and choose the facts of a given situation. He accounted for all of them. And he always found that the simple fact of a stuck tractor – literal or metaphorical – was no match for the internal and communal resources at his disposal. It wasn’t blind optimism and it certainly wasn’t pessimism of any stripe. Rather, my father’s attitude toward adversity was one of hopeful realism.
Remember the construction company president I mentioned earlier? The one who saw the facts of a challenging economy and stiff competition? The one whose response was to lay off 50% of his workforce? In many ways, my father’s attitude toward adversity is much like that of another construction company president I had the pleasure of speaking with just 24 hours after the first. Same market, same economy, yet this president said, “Yes, the next 18 months will be extremely difficult. However, this is a time for us to operate wisely as well as to open new channels to our clients so that we’re poised to capture market share.”
Remember James Stockdale, the POW who knew exactly how bad his situation was – and exactly how he was more than equal to it? Like my father, like James Stockdale, this company president didn’t ignore either the negative or positive facts of his situation.
And – this is crucial – they communicated all of those facts to their organizations. My father never hid the facts of what we were up against. He always reminded us that our resources were greater and that we were more flexible. James Stockdale communicated a clear, realistic, and hopeful assessment of their shared situation – using code when he had to. And the construction company president who sees an opportunity to capture market share while markets are shrinking makes sure everybody in the company sees it, too.
Research into the challenging economic cycle before 2002 conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that companies which kept employees in the loop saw profits 200% higher than those which didn’t.
Such is the power of hopeful realism in the hands of many.
How the Sales Leader gets unstuck
I’m still thinking about North Dakota, TTT Ranch and stuck tractors…and earned – and unearned – optimism.
When your tractor gets stuck, you can curse your luck and lower your expectations. For example, a construction company president I once spoke with threw up his hands and said, “Yup, 2008 is bad. And 2009 is going to be even worse. We’ll need to lay off 50% of our workforce by this time next year. We just need to hunker down and make it through.”
If this statement left me less than hopeful and inspired, imagine how this guy’s employees felt? Now everyone in the organization has let the muddy economy gum up their mental gears. And if they’re not careful, that mud is going to dry, forming a tough crust that will keep them from ever coming up with the creative solutions they need to plant, tend, and harvest their crops, season after season, whatever the weather. Because they’ve focused solely on the mud, this organization’s tractors are not only hopelessly stuck, they’re not even tractors anymore – they’re monuments to defeat.
On the other hand, you can adopt a wait-and-hope-and-see approach. Surely, the mud will be drier tomorrow, so why break a sweat today? Why not just put on the rose-colored glasses and hope the weather lady on Channel 13 has a long, dry stretch in store?
It’s not that I’m against optimism – actually, I’m a huge fan. It’s like diesel fuel, a motive force. Without it, tractors – and businesses – just sit there, mud or no mud. The problem is that this kind of hope is “unearned optimism.” It makes you feel good, but you haven’t done the legwork to justify it. It’s having an opinion without shoring it up with facts.
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, once interviewed Admiral James Stockdale, the highest-ranked naval “guest” of the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp. Stockdale endured torture that makes waterboarding seem benign. He spent seven years in Hoa Lo Prison, four of that in solitary, complete darkness. And yet he never gave in, never stopped inspiring his fellow soldiers to remain strong in the face of overwhelming adversity. Asked how he survived, Stockdale replied that he refused to lose faith in a good end to his story. Collins then asked Stockdale who didn’t survive the ordeal. His reply? The optimists who were sure that they’d be out by Christmas. Or Easter. Or Thanksgiving. Or Christmas, again. Ultimately, these optimists died, brokenhearted.
In Stockdale’s case, the optimism he felt, “the good end” he never stopped believing in, took into account the grave facts of his long captivity. But it was also based on the fact of his determination and his deep knowledge and respect for his own internal resources, which couldn’t be diminished by the enemy. His brand of optimism was what I call “hopeful realism” – a levelheaded response to adversity which acknowledges all the facts, negative and positive.
It is this same hopeful realism which gets stuck tractors and stuck businesses unstuck. It is a reasonable expectation of a good end – neither a false hope nor a false despair. And it can become the dominant attitude throughout your organization.
So, how are you as the president, CEO, owner or sales leader handling your “stuckness”? What are the obstacles that are making it difficult for you to get unstuck? What mindset might you change to help you and your team get unstuck?
I look forward to hearing from you!
P.S. Have you seen the summer eBook from Top Sales Experts? Very good!
Sales Leadership Behavior: Know your business
As you know, I’m reading Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. The first leadership behavior that the authors feel is critical for building a culture of execution is “Know your people and your business” (pg 57).
As leaders, it’s important that we’re where the action is, that we’re directly engaged with the business. I often find the presidents, CEOs and VPs of Sales are making decisions based on filtered or incomplete information. I don’t want to offend anyone; often I find that business leaders have surrounded themselves with “yes people.” It makes sense — people don’t want to risk losing their jobs so they don’t bring bad news to the table. Or, they have a high need for approval and are uncomfortable talking about what’s really happening in the business.
Whatever the reason, it’s disastrous for the leader. An owner of a telecommunication company has made a deal with his salespeople that he will visit any client or prospect whenever they want him to. He’s not there to sell; he’s there to do a Senior Executive Overview. Interestingly, he reports that in every situation he’s come back with new business opportunities that his salespeople hadn’t seen. Joe is committed to getting un-filtered information from their clients.
Other times, the information is incomplete. People are doing the best that they can; however, sometimes they lack your depth in the industry and market. Other times, they don’t have a strategic mindset where they can connect the dots as quickly as you can. For example, when I was involved in the ownership team at Micro-Tech Hearing Instruments, my leadership team was great at surfacing current client and product information. However, when we needed industry trends, the ownership had to connect with other strategic players in the industry. To get complete information, you may need to connect directly.
What steps are you taking to know your business?
And, what steps are taking to know your people? We’ll talk more about this in the next post. Stay tuned.
Tips to Profitably Restructure Sales – Examine Mindsets
TIP 2: SALES RECRUITING – CHECK THE MINDSET
The motto of one of my clients is, “Adversity nurtures creativity.” He knows that leaders set the pace and the tone of a company. You are being observed by your staff all of the time. They take their cues on how to think, feel and act from you. If you are tough-minded, confident, and recession-proof, you will draw like-minded people to you.
In addition, you need salespeople who have a recession proof mindset, who think differently that than the average salesperson. In fact, I was helping a client, who was recruiting for a sales, sift through a stack of Express Screens (Sales Assessments) for a VP of Sales opening. Only 4 out of 52 Screens had a recession-proof mindset that could lead up a growth initiative during these challenging times. To meet the demands of this new economy, they need Objective Management’s 4 Crucial Elements and the 5 Major Performance Factors.
If your existing team has the 4 Crucial Elements (Desire, Commitment, Responsibility, Outlook) than you’ll need to coach your recession-busters to help them develop their “hunter” instincts, their “qualification” mindset, and their “closing” skills. Recession-busters are not afraid to ask tough business questions, talk about money, or navigate the political landscape within companies to find the true emotional decision maker. They understand that their success in intimately tied in with the success of the company.
So, does your sales team have the mindset to be a recession-buster?
Danita
Tips to Profitably Restructure Your Sales Team – Sales Strategies
I think we’ve all come to the realization that the economic downturn is a reality. However, with a focused sales approach, you have a unique opportunity to gain market share and remain profitable. These turbulent economic and market conditions are creating an ideal environment for business leaders committed to creating a more focused sales approach, maximizing their return investment and capturing market opportunities.
Leaders know that the key to thriving during these times is designing a disciplined sales force based on well thought out sales strategies, mindsets, and sales processes. When the best option to strengthening your sales team is to restructure a sales organization, you must draw on the power of personal discipline to make objective decisions.
TIP 1: SALES STRATEGIES
Be diligent in defining your sales strategies and aligning each member of the sales team to those strategies. Don’t waste time and resources guessing if you’re making the right decisions. We’ve identified 19 different aspects about sales strategies that are core as you hire, coach and direct your sales team.
An objective sales assessment is the most effective way to learn which sales people will generate revenue based on your strategic objectives. In these economic conditions, you can only afford to retain salespeople who will successfully sell your product or service in your target market with your pricing strategy. Evaluate each salesperson you currently employ to determine who can be successful in your selling environment, who can be trained and coached to be successful, and who will only tie up your resources without a positive return if retained. Your profile, based on these 19 variations, should overlay all sales hiring/firing decisions.
The Sales Management Lesson: By using sales assessments you can identify if a salesperson can and will successfully sell your product or service.
If you need info on these 19 areas, send me a note–danita@Salesgs.com
Danita
How to Improve Sales Performance: Sales Manager learns the “real” motivators
One of my favorite books is
The One Thing You Need to Know…about Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success. In it, March Buckingham states:
“Great management is not about changing
people. Great managers take people “as is” and then focus on
releasing their talents.”
Here’s an example of this principle in action:
Walt, the sales manager, is extremely frustrated with Dale, ready to have the Performance Action Plan conversation. As a regional salesperson, Dale covers a large geographical territory. Keeping Dale on the road is expensive. The problem is that his sales performance results don’t justify the large expenses. Walt tries talking to Dale, with no change in his actions or performance.
Walt calls, asking if I have any suggestions prior to the PIP conversation. After talking through his frustrations, we decide to assess Dale’s attitude and interest preferences, compare that with Walt’s, and see if there were any insights that help solve this dilemma.
Through the sales assessments we discover that Walt ranks high in Utilitarian: he is driven to ensure that every single meeting has a clear return-on-investment and that his sales people are making the most revenue from each visit
On the other hand, Dale, high in Social, is focused on helping his prospects and clients. In fact, he “helps” them even if the company doesn’t benefit. His high Social motivation is sabotaging his sales effectiveness.
Armed with this new understanding, Walt reframed Dales’ purpose. Instead of a Performance Improvement Meeting, they had a Help-the-Company meeting. Walt started the meeting with, “Dale, it’s great that you care about your prospects and clients needs. In addition, you also need to think about the needs of your teammates and all the employees of the company. They have families to feed and kids to send to school. They need your help. When you do your part by closing sales, they stay employed and can keep serving their families.”
It was a light bulb experience for Dale!
So, by understanding the values of your people, you can achieve company goals more easily.
Understanding an individual’s attitudes helps understand WHY he or she behaves the way they do. By learning their values, you can tune your communication to resonate with them.
The sales assessment tool that I use measures the relative prominence of six basic interests/attitudes: Theoretical, Utilitarian, Aesthetic, Social, Individualistic and Traditional. If you’d like more info in this process, feel free to contact me.
So, what steps are you taking to understand the “real” motivators for your sales team?
I look forward to hearing from you!
Danita
 |
 |
 |
