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. This is also true for sales leaders.
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.
© Copyright 2012, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
Hope is a Sales Leadership Strategy (1)
Today’s Sales Leaders need hope.
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.
© Copyright 2012, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
Strategic Sales Initiatives 2012
Strategic Sales Survey for 2012
Last December, I asked my readers to participate in a strategic sales survey. The response was impressive with over 250 business and sales leaders like you responding to that request. A year has past and it is time to gather benchmark data for 2012 strategic efforts. Please consider investing 3 to 5 minutes again this year to participate. Your insights are valuable.
What is in it for you? Like last year, participants receive a free summary of the data that you can use for your strategic sales initiatives. The report included last year’s sales results, next year’s growth projections and the strategic sales growth initiatives being planed.
Last years report was praised for the usable, real world, strategic benchmark data it provided (compared to the gloomy editorialized news we see daily).
Thanks in advance for your help.
PS: This is a confidential survey, your responses and participation will remain private.
PPS: Feel free to forward this link to business and sales leaders that would find it useful. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/753646/Sales-Growth-Specialists-Strategic-Initiatives-Survey
© Copyright 2011, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
Shift your Sales Focus to Serving First
This series of posting is part of a research project for my Masters program in Transformational Leadership. If you could participate in this short survey, it would be much appreciated. Here’s a quick, 15-second survey.
One of my own biggest sources of servant leadership inspiration was none other than St. Francis of Assisi. Now, St. Francis wasn’t a rich man, so you couldn’t measure him by that yardstick of success. In fact, I wanted to use St. Francis and his famous prayer as the centerpiece of my graduation speech, but was warned by my superintendent: “Danita, your job is to inspire people to be successful. St. Francis wasn’t successful. He was just a poor monk. To inspire people to success, you need a stronger image.” Those who know me well won’t be surprised to learn that I went ahead and used St. Francis’s example anyway!
I keep the Prayer of St. Francis on a wall in my office as a daily reminder of the higher calling to servant leadership in all of life, including business. For those who don’t know this prayer, here it is:
Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joyO divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console
to be understood, as to understand
to be loved, as to love.
for it is in giving that we receive.
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
and, it is in dying that we are born
to Eternal Life
Sales Growth Leadership Question: What reminders do you have in your life to remind you of your “higher calling”?
Sales Growth Leadership Lesson: Inspire your team on a daily basis to make a difference in at least one person’s life.
Sales Growth Leadership Action: Invite your sales team to work through Energize your Dreams in order to help them align their personal and professional lives.
In my next blog posting we’ll look at the 6th Paradox: A focus-forward-approach.
What are your thoughts? I invite you to a quick, 15-second survey, regarding your insights.
© Copyright 2011, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
Servant Leadership for Sales Success
This series of posting is part of a research project for my Masters program in Transformational Leadership. If you could participate in this short survey, it would be much appreciated. Here’s a quick, 15-second survey.
During my first year in sales with Xerox Corporation, I attended a Zig Ziglar seminar in North Dakota. I’ll never forget one of Zig’s mantras: “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” You too can inspire this attitude in your organization. There are a few people who have inspired me over the years to realize that helping people get what they want can be a reward in its own right.
“Robert K. Greenleaf, in The Servant as a Leader, coined the term “servant-leadership”. According to Greenleaf, service leadership is a natural feeling that inspires one to serve first and only then make the conscious choice to lead based on that service.
A book that also helped me to grasp this concept fully is the excellent how-to book, Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving by James W. Sipe.
Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts and now chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute describes leadership as “circular” and notes that its highest form consists of leaders embracing their organizations and everyone in them.
Or consider Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford and former CEO of Boeing. Leadership, according to Mulally, isn’t about oneself but the people one works with, all of them great in their own ways.
Finally, take the example of Jesus Christ, who in many eyes is the Leader of leaders. Yet he washed the feet of his disciples. More than that, his entire life was service.” – Leadership Shift Paradox #5 pp. 65
Paradoxically, the first becomes last, and the last becomes first. Management leaders who use their position to serve become greater leaders. Leaders who don’t serve don’t lead.
Sales Growth Leadership Question: Where do you build “serving” into your leadership practices?
Sales Growth Leadership Lesson: Make the act of serving others a part of your company’s business plan.
Sales Growth Leadership Action: Take the Revolution 360 to identify the strength of your leadership relationships, roles, responsibilities and results.
In the next section I’ll give you some tips to help you encourage this concept in your organization.
What are your thoughts? I invite you to a quick, 15-second survey, regarding your insights.
© Copyright 2011, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
Commandments for Successful Sales Leadership
This series of posting is part of a research project for my Masters program in Transformational Leadership. If you could participate in this short survey, it would be much appreciated. Here’s a quick, 15-second survey.
In 1968, Kent M. Keith wrote the Paradoxical Commandments – so there is nothing new about the idea of paradoxical thinking.
“Optimism never hurts. Creativity works best in an atmosphere of complete freedom. Good leaders are self-sufficient and independent…
In one form or another, ideas like these have been handed down from one generation of business leaders to another. That’s understandable – these concepts just sound right. It’s all just common sense, right? The trouble with common sense, however, is that it’s often not sensible, no matter how common it is. When you look deeper into these widely held business truths, you find paradox. You find that optimism, pleasant as it feels, can blind you to real causes for hope. You find that creativity generates useful ideas only when it’s constrained. You find that the best leaders are also the most dependent.
Though there are probably hundreds, of common sense “truths” that are dragging businesses down every day, we’ll concentrate on seven of the most widespread that I see. Then, we’ll learn how to take advantage of the paradox – the “truth behind the truth,” giving you the insight and the tools you need to lead your business past unchallenged common sense to uncommon success.” – Leadership Shift
Until next time, enjoy these Paradoxical Commandments by Kent M. Keith:
The Paradoxical Commandments – by Kent M. Keith
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
- Love them anyway.If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
- Do good anyway.If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
- Succeed anyway.The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
- Do good anyway.Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
- Be honest and frank anyway.The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
- Think big anyway.People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
- Fight for a few underdogs anyway.What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
- Build anyway.People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
- Help people anyway.Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
- Give the world the best you have anyway.© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, 2001, www.paradoxicalcommandments.com
In the next section we’ll discover how optimism can lead to depressing sales results and how a more realistic approach to hope can open your eyes to the bona fide opportunities that lie ahead.
Sales Growth Question: What do you think separate a salesperson that succeeds with one that cannot succeed?
Sales Growth Lesson: Belief in yourself; put your beliefs into action and receive results
What are your thoughts? I invite you to a quick, 15-second survey, regarding your insights.
© Copyright 2011, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
What kind of Sales Leader are you?
This series of posting is part of a research project for my Masters program in Transformational Leadership. If you could participate in this short survey, it would be much appreciated. Here’s a quick, 15-second survey.
American poet, Maya Angelou, has written “…when we know better, we must do better.” If you’re like me, you haven’t heard of either Transactional or Transformational Leadership before. I only started learning about these concepts when I was working on a Master’s in Transformational Leadership. Once I learned the difference, it became clearer to me why some leaders seem to energize everyone they work with. It also became clearer why other leaders seem to not only drain energy from me, but from their sales staff as well. Let’s take a look at some of these differences:
“Business people often take a transactional approach to leadership and problem-solving. For them, problems are like complaining customers lined up at a counter – all you need to do is take care of the one at the head of the line, yell “Next!” and repeat as needed. But they find that, like complaining customers, the same squeaky wheels keep showing up over and over again.
Transformational leadership, on the other hand, takes the view that all problems, no matter how small, can worm their way into the very fabric of an organization, eventually becoming an unwelcome part of a business’s culture. Once these problems are embedded, they continually – and almost undetectably – wreak havoc unless they’re promptly addressed in a transformational, long-term way.
So, what are these mistaken assumptions that undercut a business’s best efforts and why do business leaders fall prey to these assumptions? In short, it’s because they seem to be common sense ideas. As such, they quietly become a fundamental part of business methods and processes. From there, they fester into invisible core weaknesses that can be hard to treat, since correcting those weaknesses begins with examining and overturning deep, unquestioned beliefs about the way business should be done.” - Leadership Shift
And, that is difficult work. Humbling work. First, even being open to considering that there might be a better way takes great humility. Next, learning what those sabotaging beliefs and mindsets are can be shocking to some. In other cases it’s embarrassing. However, it can also be freeing. And, that’s the next step, taking concrete actions to update one’s beliefs and behaviors so that they are more effective.
Sales Growth Leadership Question: What steps do you take to discover what beliefs you have that might be sabotaging your leadership effectiveness?
Sales Growth Leadership Lesson: Be intentional and honest about discovering mindsets and practices that could be holding you and your company back.
In the next section we’ll explore the essence of paradoxical thinking.
What are your thoughts? I invite you to a quick, 15-second survey, regarding your insights.
© Copyright 2011, Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists, All Rights Reserved.
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