When Water Cooler Chat goes Wrong

Complaining is not the same as being productive

One message I have always been careful to deliver to my employees is that complaining about work is not the same as being productive at work. One might find, with a group of like-minded colleagues, a willing audience to discuss things that could be improved. We have all worked someplace where we have encountered bureaucratic headaches, difficult team-members, unfulfilling career paths, and perceived lack of executive vision. Talking about these things can feel encouraging and allow one to walk away feeling like something has gotten done. But it is important to remember that in truth, nothing has been done. The discussion may feel good, but it is not the same as implementing a solution, increasing revenue, or decreasing costs. 

Worse yet, when employees feel that this behavior is productive, they tend to do it more and encourage it in others. This increases the amount of complaining, decreases the amount of work accomplished, and results in a downward spiral of productivity and ultimately morale.

 It is a manager’s job to prevent this from happening. The first thing one can do is promote an open-door policy. That is to say that the door is always open to criticism, ideas for improvement, and career concerns. Transparency is always a positive thing, and very often ideas are spot on and come with justifications that can help raise them up the flagpole. Secondly, it is important to remind employees that complaining about things to other employees before they have been elevated to those who can act upon them is not only unproductive, but it is unacceptable. This may sound harsh, but it is not. Every company has the responsibility to control its own culture. Organizations have the same right to forbid employer-focused complaining as they do to prevent sexually harassing speech.

But that authority does not have to lead to an authoritarian relationship. When employees know that the things that bug them, the things they want to improve, and their ideas for a better workplace are landing on the welcome ears of an interested manager, the need to complain at the water cooler will be naturally mitigated. 

Getting the Most Out of Your Sales Team (4 of 4)

Putting what we can control into practice

In this series, we have been talking about getting the most out of your sales team by establishing common goals, directing all things that have an impact in the same direction, and holding everyone accountable. In this segment, I am going to list how these tools can be used on a daily and weekly basis to affect behavior in the desired direction. These are just examples, and you should riff on them in your own way. The important thing is to remain consistent in communication and action. If there is a shared goal out there, do everything in your power to make it known and to get your team to reach it. Oh, and you haven’t established your shared goal, then you aren’t doing your job.

All guns pointed in the same direction will get the job done.

• Clearly define and publish the company objective – the shared common goal.
• Management needs to talk about the shared objective at every opportunity.
• Set expectations that individual effort on this goal is expected every week
• In weekly sales meeting, openly ask each salesperson if they have made progress and expect a “yes”
• Be prepared to set activity quotas around the goal
• Recognize that sometimes salespersons are going to make up stuff to fulfill the request – and that’s OK. Everyone recognizes BS when they hear it, and that awkwardness that follows is an incentive to try harder next week. But no one will know if the question isn’t asked. So, ask the questions and suffer the awkward.
• Establish honest dialog with everyone regarding the quality of their efforts – call BS when appropriate.
• Kindly draw attention to failings and work with the individual to avoid them in the future
• Congratulate BDMs who find great new prospects early
• Ask the successful BDMs to share how they are succeeding and use that to train
• Make sure all obstacles to this goal are being removed – remove friction from the sales process. If the salesman’s credo is ABC, the sales manager’s is ABRF (always be removing friction).
• Make sure responsibility comes with authority. Empower your salespeople to negotiate on their own. Ensure they know the product and pricing parameters. It is often good for a process to say, “I have gone as low as I can, but I want to make this work so let me see if I can get my manager on board.” But it is bad for the process when the client feels the salesperson doesn’t have the authority to negotiate to a close. It’s a subtle difference.
• Purchase the tools they need to allow them to hit their objectives. If you have a lot of SKUs, purchase and configure a pricing tool from your CRM provider (back to ABRF). If your team need leads, research lead sources, and buy the list most likely to bear fruit.
• Let them control their method, but always be available to assist
• Hold them accountable
• Help your sales team expand their network. There are always more prospective clients to meet. Let them use your person network, or encourage them to join new clubs, groups, or join a charity board.

And everything else you can think of! When shared objectives are clear, identifying ROI on an investment that furthers that goal is an easy task. Spend what you need, support your team, hold them accountable, and keep all the guns pointed in the same direction. If the shared goal is achievable, this is the best, fastest, and most positive way to reach it.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing is not enough, we must do.

Bruce Lee

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Make sure you read the ones that accompany it, and please use the comments to tell me what you think or to share your experiences.

Getting the Most Out of Your Sales Team (3 of 4)

Understand what is not in your control

In this series, we have been talking about getting the most out of your sales team by directing all things that have an impact in the same direction. But it is also important to know what is not in our control and not waste energy or sleep over it. Broadly speaking, things outside of our control, belong internally to a person and are developed and influenced outside of the organization. Here are my top five.

When things are outside of your control, accept it and work around them.

• Feelings: Everyone is responsible for their own feelings. Some people are more susceptible than others to outside stimulus, but there is no standard. You as a manager should not worry whether a team member is happy, sad, angry or remorseful. Your job is to deliver information honestly and treat them fairly. Furthermore, sometimes people are not happy in general. That doesn’t mean they can’t be a great at sales. A top producer can be going through a divorce and still be excellent at opening doors and closing. As managers, we want everyone on our team to find their happiness, but that is out of our control and not something to worry about.
• Productivity: Some folks are super productive, and some aren’t. You will always have a spectrum on your team. Productivity tools may improve everyone’s performance, but they will not eliminate the gap between the most and least productive. As they say, a rising tide raises all boats.
• Motivation: As with productivity, some people are motivated, and some aren’t. Sometimes motivated people go through periods when they are not motivated. You never know what is going on in a team members head. What you do know however is that if you are honest with them, set their goals fairly, and give them eth tools they need, they will get there or suffer the consequences.
• Philosophy: As I mentioned above, you can’t get into your team members’ heads, and you certainly can’t change what’s there. So don’t even try. You can lead by example, you can make sure they have what they need, but the way they think about sales is up to them.
• The ability to mind read: Manager’s simply cannot hold people accountable for things that are not articulated clearly. If you aren’t getting what you want, ask yourself if your requests have been delivered in precise, honest language.

An important note: The one-time sales managers do have control over these things is during the hiring process. In an interview we can search for those who think the way we want and pass on those who think differently. So, make sure you identify the traits you value and craft interview questions that will shed light on personality traits important to you and your organization. This is a good time to review your company’s Core Values.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Make sure you read the ones that accompany it, and please use the comments to tell me what you think or to share your experiences. In tomorrow’s post, the final in this series, I will share examples of putting all these tools into practice.

Getting the Most Out of Your Sales Team (2 of 4)

Core values are the most powerful tools in your belt

In this series, we are talking about getting the most out of your sales team by establishing common goals, pointing all things that have an impact in the same direction, and holding everyone accountable. But when we talk about everything pointing in the same direction, a few of the things in our control have special significance. These are your most powerful tools.

Shared goals. They can take many forms including account growth, retention, speed of closing, and new business development. I liken these to the Eiffel tower, a destination in the distance that we can always lift our head up and see to ensure we are heading in the right direction. But they are also powerful motivating tools. We all know that sales guys are competitive and will strive to maximize their performance. However, what makes a professional athlete happier, achieving his personal best or winning the championship. Andre Dawson won the MVP in 1989 while playing for the last place Cubs, but he would trade that award for a World Series Ring in a heartbeat. Fortunately, being part of a team chasing a shared objective allows individuals to follow their personal interest and participate in the excitement of team victories.

Honesty as a Core Value. When you are not honest with your staff, they know immediately, and they create a narrative as to why you are lying. These explanations often veer towards the extreme and lead to speculation about impending lay-offs, interpersonal affairs or loathing, or illegal activities. Always answer honestly, and if there is something that is proprietary to the executive team, just say that isn’t something we are talking about right now if asked.

Consistency. Advancing from a manager to a leader is hard and one of the things it requires is consistency of message. All the things I talked about yesterday (concepts) and will talk about on Friday (examples) need to be done every day – and many times every day. If there is a shared common goal (and there always should be), it should lead and end every discussion you have with your team. You will hold your people accountable if you want to succeed, but you will also do it all the time – privately and in front of the team. Everyone must know that what you expect of them is the same thing they can expect of their peers.

I am a big fan of Core Values having experienced how powerful they are when brought to a team that was working without them and over time I may add to this list.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Make sure you read the ones that accompany it, and please use the comments to tell me what you think or to share your experiences. In tomorrow’s post, I will talk about the pitfalls managers encounter when they try to control things over which they haven’t any power.

Getting the Most Out of Your Sales Team (1 of 4)

Pointing all your guns in the same direction

Getting the most out of a sales team can be a struggle. Even the best salespeople struggle to open doors even when qualified leads are presented. And management teams know that successfully incenting behavioral changes can be an elusive goal. Still some teams seem to get it right, and those that do almost always follow the same two simple principles.

When I talk about guns, i am doing so metaphorically. Still, this image is cool.

• They ensure that BDMs have all the tools required to be successful
• They hold each salesperson responsible for the achievement of assigned goals

We all understand the concept of accountability, even if sometimes we have a hard time delivering on it. But what on earth is “tools required”? It’s more than a CRM, or an targeted comp structure but those things are on the list. The actual list of tools required is EVERYTHING we, as managers, have at our disposal to influence behavior in a desired direction. And when all are lined up, behavior is guided salespersons are better prepared, and holding people accountable becomes much easier.

What is in our control?

The list of everything can be long, but here is the top dozen:

• Shared Common Goals – the single most powerful tool at a manager’s disposal. More on this later.
• Compensation – a program which favors the behavior we desire and penalizes all others.
• Incentives – perks which support the behavior we desire in a nonmonetary way.
• Reprimands – pointing out (privately for god’s sake) when an employee does not live up to expectations.
• Culture – one that is psychologically safe and encourages sharing and ideation. It is the size of the pie that matters, not the size of the slice! When the pie grows, everyone’s slice can grow also.
• Training – Ensuring the team has all the skills needed to hit their goals.
• Process – process removes confusion from sales and allows greater focus on the relationship.
• Tools – CRMs, Pricing tools, technology, fashion consultants – whatever they need to maximize their efficiency and eliminate friction.
• Performance measurement – count everything and show it over time and relative to success.
• Core values – This is 50% of why people stay or leave. The trinity of Trust, Honesty, and Accountability is a good start. More on this tomorrow.
• Reinforcement – When someone does a great job, let it be known!
• Expectations – Salespeople will pursue exactly the goals they are given. When management is clear and desired numbers are written, incentives align.

If the world wants the product you sell, and all guns are pointing in the same direction, the team will hit its target.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Make sure you read the ones that accompany it, and please use the comments to tell me what you think or to share your experiences. In tomorrow’s post, I will talk about a couple of the items on this list that have significant power.