How to Bring Your Team Back to Life
Doyle Slayton | Jul 15, 2008 | Comments 19
Last week I received an email from a loyal reader asking me for advice on how to bring his team back to life. With his permission, I decided to add this as another new element to SalesBlogcast.com! Here is how it will work. I will post the email below and open the comments section to our readers. Next week, I will follow-up with an answer of my own. This new feature will allow us to have an open forum of suggestions and ideas!
“As a loyal reader of your SalesBlogcast.com and member of your LinkedIn Group, I have a giant favor that may be good fodder for your next entry. I am about to throw myself under the bus and possibly some of my managers, so keeping my identity confidential is of the highest priority.
Here is the issue…
I have been a winner as a sales person and a sales leader in my company year upon year. I have been consistently called upon for guidance in helping other sales teams in my region excel. The last year has been very difficult for my team. Revenue is down significantly, though margins are still top notch, maintaining those have come at the expense of personnel, and corporate mandated cut backs in bonuses and commissions. In fact, the other day my direct supervisor told me, “At this point, I do not care about the quality of the phone calls that come out of your office only that the quantity of them increases.”
This statement in and of itself made me aware a huge philosophical difference that I cannot reconcile with the way that I operate and ask my team to conduct themselves. I understand the pressure to drive revenue… that is one of the reasons I love my job… the pressure creates an environment in which achieving seems more rewarding.
To the point, my frustration and disappointment may have trickled into my sales team. I believe in sharing information with my team, truthfully and openly; but somehow they have picked up on my frustration and have fallen victim to negativity.
I fear I am too late to turn it around and that my actions have dug us into a hole.
What is your advice? How can I deal with a company (manager) so short sighted as to throw consultation to the wind and adopt the telemarketing approach to sales? Most importantly, how can I get my team back on track?
The funk is thick and I am struggling to see my way through.
Thanks in advance for help!”
-Anonymous
Once you have read all the great comments below, click here to read my response to this excellent question!
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Filed Under: Blog • Featured • Leadership • Reader Questions • Sales
Wow:
So management has essentially said go and do something that is fundamentally incongruent with your values, did I get that right?
As I see it you have two basic options. Option 1 is to give management what they ask for and deliver calls without regard to the quality and probably effecting your future relationships with your team and customers.
Option 2 is a little bit riskier. Option 2 requires you to have a candid discussion with your management that goes something like this.
I lead a high performance team that has consistently demonstrated our ability to achieve superior results. That is evidenced by both our past performance and by our ability to maintain excellent margins in a down economy.
My ability to do that is based on my relationship with my team and my customer base. What you are asking me to do is to sacrifice the integrity of those relationships because of a short term situation.
I don’t think you intended it in that way, but that is what you have asked.
Depending on the answer you get back you have to ask yourself whether you can and choose to continue to associate with an organization that knowingly asks you to behave in a manner inconsistent with your personal and professional value structure.
With your track record finding another employer is not unachievable, even in a down economy. Once an employer causes you to sacrifice your integrity it is difficult to ever retrieve it.
Mark Herbert
Anonymous,
What you describe is very ordinary and while the fix is quite simple that doesn’t mean it will be easy. Here you go:
Step 1 – Decide that your future is secure and that all of your professional goals can be achieved at your current employer.
Step 2 – Start to act like it around your team.
Step 3 – After displaying your newfound attitude for a couple of weeks, gather your most influential account managers (10-20% of the total group)
Step 4 – Explain your concerns to this group of most influential. Tell them that you yourself were in a funk but that you have re-dedicated yourself.
Step 5 – Ask the influential top account managers to brainstorm several ideas with you to help drag the team from its funk.
Step 6 – Implement the top 3 ideas.
Step 7 – Enjoy the success that will come with a top performing team.
Good luck to you!
Dear Anonymous;
I’ll be short and to the point – Get out now while your reputation and track record is intact!
Run, don’t walk, to a company where your boss’ aspirations align with your own.
I’ve had this happen. I worked 70 hour weeks for almost two years only to have my boss not appreciate who I am and how I operate.
You only get one life to live. Make the most of it. Don’t worry about your team. When you land on your feet at your next job you’ll bring the best of them with you.
Call my cell phone (403.874.2998) if you want to banter ideas on how to get out and how to make the most of your transition to a home where your character, values, and aspirations will be appreciated and you are much more likely to get ahead.
Each person is a wonderful individual, so I hope you’ll allow me to speak from my own personality, my own leadership style. This is not textbook.
First of all, I pray about every thing troubling me. I DO recommend that for everyone else, too.
Secondly, just like you say your team has picked up on your negativity and let it influence them badly…you can turn that around by visualizing and affirming the opposite (and teaching them to do the same). It’s absolutely true that our negative vibes/attitudes/actions are influential upon those around us…influential even upon our phone contacts and internet contacts.
Would you be open to learning about visualizations and affirmations if you don’t already know the power of your mind?
Would you be open to taking several of your closest team members into your confidence and teaching them what you learn and experience concerning visualization and affirmations??
Here’s a video you could share with them: http://sunrise-production.org/loamovie.html
I’m very hopeful that my #1 suggestion as well as my #2 suggestion will be of use to you.
Warmly,
Dianne
Tim is dead on, you have to exhibit your new dedication before you talk to the leaders. Action speak loudest.
But I’d consider doing what Tim said while you also do what Craig said. Alignment is critical to sales success.
Dear Anonymous,
You might want to read chapter 2 “The problem with most Measuring Systems ” of Mark Graham Brown’s book Keeping Score – Using the Right Metrics to Drive World Class Performance. It came out 12 years ago, but it’s contents is as relevant today as it was when then.
I use it in my consultancy practice to help management like your’s to understand, that selling is not a numbers game.
Reading this, might first of all reassure you, that you do the right thing. Based on this new assurance, you then have to decide to wheteher you want to give your boss a last chance and try to educate him/her based on what you just read or you run right away if you consider educating your boss is a waste of time.
In any case do not change your approach, stick to your guns be it with your current company, if they proof to deserve to have you or with a more insightful new employer.
Best of luck!
A Winning Team requires a clear vision and strategy. If the leader of the team is not inspired by the vision then the team will underperform – simple.
Your work is to create a vision for your team that you wholeheartedly believe in, and then lead from the front in an enthusiastic and positive manner.
If you don’t and you keep your attention focused on ‘what you don’t want’ you will feel increasingly negative and exposure to you will be detrimental to others.
You already know ‘what you don’t want’ so use that valuable data to get clearer on ‘what you do want’ and then hold your attention on it regardless.
Good luck!
Johnny “Winning Teams” Frankland
Anon.,
Its been my experience as an inside sales manager that there is always room for improvement in the numbers. Tell your team that you are getting pressure from above to increase the number of calls they are making.
Ask your people to help you by making x number of extra calls each day, without sacrificing relationship or rapport-building.
Also, you might have an opportunity to teach your people to qualify harder, thus slightly decreasing the amount of time spent with prospects not likely to buy.
Everybody wastes a little time. While it might not be enough to fully satisfy the short-sighted people above you, you can probably make some time-based improvements through better adherence to your selling process.
Listen to more of your people’s calls. The best calls are usually the shorter ones. Make sure your guys are making the most of their time and conversations.
In the meantime, find someplace (like this thread) where you can get the doubt out of your system without infecting your team. This can be a good place to bitch.
Finally, what planet is your direct supervisor from? Have they sold before?
While you may be able to make incremental improvements in skill and process that lead to a higher volume of calls, your sales will go down not up if the quality of your calls is sacrificed.
Regardless of how you deal with the immediate problems, its time to dust off your resume. This environment will kill you, so you need a new gig. Start now before you get desparate.
Serve!
John
Hi,
To help you, I’ve got more questions than answers right now:
One of our responsibilities as a manager is to make our own manager look good. How is your manager measured?
Is it really that there is a “philosophical difference” or is your manager getting edicts from above? Did you make assumptions? Remember the 80/20 rule works just as well with your manager as it does with potential customers. In fact, your manager is one of your most important customers.
What is your manager’s personality style…analytical..driver…? Knowing this will help you learn how to “manage your manager” so you won’t have to feel frustrated again.
You said you love your job and the excitement of working under pressure. If you resolve this conflict would you once again love working for your company?
These issues aren’t black and white and won’t be solved with a quick fix reply. I’ve seen this same scenario time and time again. Everything is about people! Good for you for taking ownership for the issues. The good news is, your situation, while frustrating for you, isn’t unique and it can be “fixed”. Please feel free to connect with me through LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_side_pro and we can talk more about your specific issues and I’ll give you some immediate suggestions for day to day changes you can implement today. By the way, if you think it’s exciting to work under the pressure of goals, think how excited you’ll be when you overcome this challenge. The mark of a great manager is how they deal with adversity to continue to create success.
Heather Cornell
How Opportunity Works, Inc.
602-418-5712
Dear Anonymous,
A “major” philosophical difference between you and your immediate supervisor such as this proves the need for you to take a long serious look at who you want to be with this company. If you do not have the ability to easily fold to a such a foolish request of making calls for the sake of having calls logged as your super seems to have then you should seriously consider looking for the exit. If as you say you are a winner you will not have trouble finding another place of employment.
Question: Have you determined where such an edict came from? If it is higher up in the organization then this is a group you do not want to work for in the end. If it is coming just from your super then you need to gain some allies further up the ladder w/o submarining your boss to see how he can be turned around.
I do not think you have an easy process here and certainly need to consider the longterm rather than a bandage approach. There are always other jobs, there is only one healthy body/soul. I hope you are able to work it out soon and that the bus has good brakes.
Anonymous,
In my career, I’ve worked in sales and marketing, but I’ve also worked “on the other side”, as strategic planner, CFO and COO… I am always baffled at how people from both sides seem to lock themselves up in their own silos and forget about communication!
I understand very well that you have your goals and your ethics, and believe me, I admire that very much! I haven’t met too many sales leaders in my life who would make a point in keeping margins up while maintaining exceptional relationships with their customers at the same time. Only the best achieve that!
However, there are times in the life of an organization when immediate revenues are more important than margins (like in the case of very high inventory levels for example), and something much worst than a disillusioned sales team might happen… like laying everybody off and shutting down operations!
I don’t know if that’s the case in your company, or if your supervisor is just being a bad leader who wants to ascertain his credibility with his own supervisor. But one thing is sure, something is going on in this slow market and you ought to be aware of it so as to adapt your sales strategy. So if I were you, I would ask your supervisor to let you know what’s really going on, and if he doesn’t want to tell you, he should at least give you an idea as to what kind of discount you can start offering your customers to increase overall sales. In other words, he should be able to confirm to you that indeed, revenues are more important than margins at this point.
Mind you, I am not talking about “telemarketing techniques” here! I am not an advocate of more cold calls like your supervisor seems to be. I’d rather try to see first if your current customers could absorb higher volumes at a discount. If you are allowed to do that, it would actually be another way for you to strengthen your relationships with those best customers, allowing them to help you while doing them a favor. Now of course, make it very clear it would be an exceptional (temporary) deal only for your best customers, and that you wouldn’t do that with everybody else!
Once you have a clearer idea of a new sales strategy that won’t clash with your ethics, you can revitalize yourself… and your sales team!
Good luck!
So…let me play devil’s advocate. Here is what I got out of the above scenario. You are all about quality. You want your team to really deliver well qualified opportunities to the sales organization.
Your boss appears to be all about activity. He wants your guys to pick up the pace and make more calls. You find this “insulting” and more in alignment with telemarketing. But, is it really?
He may not have phrased it well… he didn’t for sure…but is your organization holding on to opportunities longer than they should trying to take them too far down the sales process? And, if so, is that a problem that you created yourself because that is your vision of what the job should be?
You need to step back and redefine the objectives of your team based on what the business dictates. Take ego out of it and don’t get caught up in semantics. You may be the problem as opposed to the solution and if so, you may need to move on to an organization that shares your vision.
Just MHO but we are the Inside Sales Experts!!
Dear Anonymous;
Laws of Attraction is a reality.
You are accountable for your actions/reactions; however, you are not accountable for anothers response.
Since you are labeling the staff as “your team” I am seeing you as a manager and you exposed communication that perhaps your subordinates shouldn’t have heard (verbatium), and this is the issue you present.
You can turn it around with positive presence and attitude. Play the directive that was provided you, you have nothing to loose. If your staff values their role, they will follow by the example you lead.
Sales is a numbers game — nothing wrong with building a pipeline of “potential prospects” as one never knows when they will dial that # and hit the jackpot with a buyer just waiting for that call, or when that “potential prospect” will become a reality.
Believe me, based on my history, I have done both dialing for dollars and qualifying for dollars. Both are prosperous.
Good luck with your decision.
ab
Mr Anonymous.
I too have had similar situations, so I have nothing to add. Since there is a lot of empathy and really good advice, please stay from under buses because you are a survivor! Please do all of us a favor and let Doyle know what you finally did because we all care and empathize. Bob Getz HR Solutions USA
I’m a firm believer that honesty is the best policy. You’ve already said that you believe in sharing information with your team – openly and truthfully. I would say you can continue to do that. If you are a good leader (which it sounds like you are) then your team looks up to you, respects you and desires to follow your lead. Being honest doesn’t mean that you vent your negativity. Your negativity is YOUR issue/truth, it is not necessarily THE truth (remember, it’s all about perception). The TRUTH is how you are feeling, and what you are DOING about it. In this case, that means you say “I don’t know what to do about the situation and I need help.” Your team might have ideas you don’t. I’ve often thought that as a leader/manager, I’m supposed to have all the answers. These days, I use other people to help me a lot more. It seems, as a result, that I have become more respected. I am aware that people see me as more human and vulnerable. They become capable of seeing that not all will go their way. It’s not about things going our way all the time, it’s about how we handle it, that makes us good leaders.
I wish you all the best on the path to your solution. You will find it. Trust what has always worked for you – consistency, excellence, achievement. If it doesn’t serve to allow you to remain where you are, then it will lead to a path and place which is better for the next phase of your life.
First question:
Why have sales slipped?
Second question:
How far off the mark is the team for the month, YTD, quarter, etc.?
Third questions:
When management cuts commissions or bonuses, or increases the quota mid-course, it is time to rev up the looking for a job mode. There will be few situations that recover when management resports to those internal tactics.
Fourth question:
How often is the pipeline of orders reviewed and what is the performance against the forecast? If the pipeline is full of items that stretch out because of customer planning, or are tied to economic slowdown, competitive pressure, or currancy exchange, then the pipeline will not match the revenue plans. The question then becomes what creative plan does managment have in mind to increase business? New products or services planned? Special programs for the customers (not sales)? If management offers no answers or plans start cleaning out your desk. It is not likely a sales problem.
I liked Mark’s Herbert’s response because it gave (a hot-head like
me) positive actions rather than bailing. I don’t know if this applies,
but, here’s more food for thought.
The #1 Reason People Quit Their Jobs
A Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded
that a bad boss or supervisor is the Number 1 Reason people quit their jobs.
“People leave managers not companies…in the end, turnover is
mostly a manager issue,” Gallup wrote in its survey findings…
poorly managed work groups are on average 50 percent less
productive and 44 percent less profitable than well-managed
groups.
When the folks at BadBossology.com did an online survey of 1,118
people, they found that half the respondents would fire their own
bosses if they could. Only 23 percent would send their boss for
management training.
Bad bosses are bad for business. Common bad boss behaviors
include:
Bullying
Incompetence
Harassment and discrimination
Inadequate compensation
Not respecting legal rights
Privacy invasion
Bullies create fear in the workplace. The New York Times says
bully-bosses enjoy making subordinates squirm and run for
cover. Bully-bosses threaten subordinates and rope in scapegoats
for their failures.
Bullies who abuse power are afraid they don’t have any.
A recent Monster Meter poll asked Monster members which TV
show most closely resembled their work environments. Here are
the results:
39% Survivor.
37% The Office.
13% CSI.
11% The Apprentice.
See “Why your boss is programmed to be a Dictator” (PDF file) at:
http://www.seniormanagementservices.com/Images/BossDictator.pdf
Craig,
You need to get outside of your box… running is not the only answer. If you take your box with you, it will still be there when you land. (See Leadership and Self-Deception.)
However, I have to say that your published offer and phone number is audacious and bold. I like your style.
To all who have replied and commented, I truly appreciate your feedback. Many asked clarifying questions which were appropropriate to the scenario and I sapologize for not lettng too much out of the bag.
What I can tell you ia that after reading ALL of your posts, I have been looking at the root cause of the dilemma, and began resetting my own perceptions.
In fact, I addressed the issue head on woth both my sales team and my supervisor.
We all came to the conclusion that it on US to fix the problem. Tim Rohrer’s reply pointed me in that direction and so far I havebeen able to get buy in from all parties involved.
With my boss, I leveraged my track record to gain some breathing room to operate the way that earned us top recognition in the past few years.
Ironically, with my sales team, I asked them for their input (as I always had) in coming up with the solution to our mutual problem…revenue was down. They all stepped up up and we devised new plan to pull ourselves out of the funk.
We renewed our committment to succeed, to lead our division in our new direction and take back our status as number one (even if it meant slightly depressed sales as compared to previous years).
I can tell you that as we close this week and the month of July we have reclaimed our status in one of the key revenue streams and are raming up our efforts in others.
Our plan was to place our focus on the best opportunity now, and to build upon that momentum with other opportunities.
Your suggestions were key. I also would like to thank Doyle for allowing me to use this forum to explore new ideas.
Thanks to you all and if you know of any sales leader who is not a member of this Blog/Forum, we owe it to them as professionals to share the wealth of knowledge disseminated here.
-Anonymous