Sales Leadership

Developing Your Team

Technology gives us the ability to measure Sales Rep Performance across many dimensions. Unfortunately this improvement in measuring performance has not translated into significant changes in sales manager behaviors and the ability to “coach” and develop of sales representatives.

Based on research, it’s clear that most sales managers are failing to coach effectively. A majority of sales representatives report that managers do not provide support to help them improve performance or have specific development plans beyond sales quotas.  Unfortunately, many managers transfer all accountability to their sales reps when objectives are missed.  The problem is that managers don’t understand how to effectively coach reps to drive improved performance.  How could they? Most companies lack effective training for sales managers. Companies operate under the model that promoting successful sales reps is enough for success as a manager and fail to define outcomes, or create focused objectives that include people development while continuing to drive for results (transactional and transformational). 

Managers typically review a sales report and state the obvious to their rep; "you’re not meeting your numbers.”  This is often followed with "coaching" to sell more! Often the manager falls back to what they know and proceed to tell their rep how successful they were in sales, or what so and so is doing and you need to be more like them.  The conversations miss the opportunity to find out the real issues and focused development areas needed for the rep.  How many managers successfully define the outcomes (beyond sales), understand each team member’s strength, remove barriers that hinder performance and continue to work on developing their individuals?  I often see less than 10% of a manager’s time spent in these areas - combined!

Ultimately managers end up transferring the blame to the sales rep who was “not able” to meet the expectations of the position (not that the expectations or outcomes were clearly defined).   The end result…the sales rep is fired or leaves…potentially costing the company hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire someone else who can perform!

There are two areas that can provide insight into the effectiveness of your sales management team.

Quantity of coaching is an easy metric to track and should show that your sales managers are spending at least fifty-percent of their time in coaching, observing, and developing their team.  If your managers are unable to devote this much energy to your team, you may want to review how they are spending their time and delegate non-coaching time to someone else.   Quality of coaching is more difficult to measure, but can be done via direct feedback from the sales reps on a regular basis.  The use of 360-feedback surveys can be used as well as skip-up interviews and quarterly development updates between the sales manager and his or her boss.

As a twenty-year veteran of corporate America working for high performance companies, I have learned through my own executive coaching training and client work that many opportunities are missed through the course of conversations. The skills needed by managers require presence, understanding, probing, listening and the ability to understand and help each team member’s unique strengths.  These skills take time to develop and are vastly different than the ones needed when selling or driving results (revenue).  The good news is these skills can be learned, and when effectively incorporated they can increase revenue, performance, engagement and skills of your sales managers and team.

John Brambert is the President of Trinity Performance Group, a team of seasoned Executive Coaches trained in the leading worldwide coaching programs. Trinity Performance Group’s goal is to provide a wide range of executive coaching, leadership and team development, and related services to our clients.  See More in John>

Sales Leadership: Playing for Second

Playing for second place does not sound like much fun, does it?  That is especially true in the world of sales, where your paychecks, commissions and bonuses are directly tied to your ability to be number one. 

In working with sales leaders, I find there’s a balancing act, as the culture within your organization may not support a second place mentality.  Depending on circumstances you may only have one chance to close the sale.  Yet, many of the sales teams I work with now have several competitors, and working with the decision makers entails a multi-level sales approach, often increasing the length of the sales cycle.  Thus, sales people are positioning themselves for second place.  

So what traps should you be watching for when you secure second place?

1.  How much time and energy do you spend when you’re not recognizing sales?

2.  How well are you protecting your position as the “backup?”

3.  Are you still moving forward in the sales cycle, or, are you waiting for number one to drop the ball or make a mistake before you earn the right to be in first place?

Many times I see the third point happen, unconsciously, and the sales cycle continues to be delayed until a big enough mistake occurs and the customer begins to evaluate other vendors.

So what can you do if you’re currently holding the second place position and waiting for someone else’s mistake to vault you forward?  Take a look at the checklist below and see if any of these ideas will help you.

1.  Are you continuing to gather key client information?  Are you evaluating information and looking at alternative solutions to identified problems?

• I find that many sales representatives overlook their client’s needs and focus on the features and benefits of their products or hedge that they can provide better service than their competitors.  While this may be true, you can improve your odds for increased success by focusing on current or potential problems and finding ways to fix them.  

      Key Point:  Are you asking questions and gathering information?

2.  Forgetting to ask for the sale.

• After spending time with the sales leader, I almost always find there was an opportunity to ask for the business, yet it did not happen.  Typically I see the following reason as the primary issue that creates this cause / effect occurrence.
• Some sales leaders believe the best way for them to earn a client’s business is when someone else makes a mistake.  They find it difficult and even challenging to ask for the opportunity.  Unconsciously they believe there’s still more that needs to be done before they have earned the right to ask for the business.  I find there’s a resistance that they’re unaware of, that keeps them from moving forward.  (Please click the following link and view the “Earn Your Way” triad: http://trinityperformancegroup.blogspot.com/2011/06/sales-leadership-how-we-approach-others.html).  

Key Point:  Is it possible you have already earned the right for the business but may be holding back as you feel compelled to do more?  

3.  Not spending enough time with these accounts that fall on your own “second place” list.

• Typically I hear stories from sales leaders that indicate they may only call on their “B” list of accounts a couple of times a year, fearful that they may not have a realistic chance for their business.  I often hear how they are surprised by news or information that would move the sales process forward but hear it through an alternative source or “after the fact.”

Key Point:  Are you spending enough time with accounts that may have positioned your competitors on their vendor list?  What potentially holds you back from being added to their vendor list?

Typically I find that sales leaders can lessen self-imposed obstacles by addressing one or more of the areas listed above, and almost inevitably we find there’s an opportunity for sales with clients that have pegged us as only number two.

John Brambert is the President of Trinity Performance Group, a team of seasoned Executive Coaches trained in the leading worldwide coaching programs. Trinity Performance Group’s goal is to provide a wide range of executive coaching, leadership and team development, and related services to our clients.  See More in John>

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

During the recent five-day “Enlightened Business Summit” focused on Emotional Intelligence, leaders of several Top 100 Companies, from some of the most innovative and successful workplaces in the world, and from several powerful global non-profit organizations spoke about the power of emotions in leadership and in business. Although moods and emotions are an essential domain of human life and organizational action, until recently, emotions have been banned from the workplace and professional environments while rationality and cognition have been rewarded as the primary means of knowing.

It has been demonstrated through work by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (Descarte’s Error), and through research reviewed by David Brooks (The Social Animal) that good judgment requires emotional input. The idea of non-emotional thinking is actually an emotional state itself, one without passion and ownership. Good judgment is an essential leadership competency and a desirable quality for any human being.  Working in an environment without passion and ownership is, among other things, de-motivating. Daniel Pink (“Drive”, “A New Mind”) speaks of three emotion-based qualities that are motivational for humans in a work setting: 1) Autonomy - a sense of self direction; 2) Mastery - humans like to get better at what they do; 3) Purpose - people want to know why they are doing something, that it is meaningful, and that they are contributing. A survey of over 12,000 people (reported by Daniel Pink) reveals that there is one overall factor that leads to job satisfaction, which is “making progress in meaningful work.” Autonomy, mastery, purpose are all dimensions of human experience involving moods and emotions.

Organizations exist for the coordination of action to produce a shared future, and are places where humans come together to make things happen. “Emotions direct our attention and mobilize us,” and predispose people to particular kinds of action. For example, a resigned team will perform less successfully than an ambitious team.  Moods and emotions are contagious, and we CAN change our emotions through increasing our awareness while we utilize emotional skills. As leaders (and we are all leaders) it is our responsibility to create and sustain moods in the workplace that generate communication, creativity, collaboration, ambition, innovation, success etc. Along with self-awareness, empathy and relationship management, mood management is a quality of emotional intelligence that leaders must be skilled at personally as well as with their teams and organizations.

The world and our current global crises are calling for leadership, and leadership is a human skill. More than ever, we need emotionally intelligent leaders who can stay calm, clear and centered, and can articulate the way forward in the midst of fear and anxiety. Being human is about connecting to self, others, the world. Leaders must be able to connect with what they care about, and with what others truly care about, and must be communicative, bold, focused and resilient in bringing forth the work to actualize this human care.

Leaders are being called forth to deal with unprecedented situations and complexities in today’s world. Technology will not serve here; rather capacities of self-awareness, emotional management, empathy, and relationship management are effective beacons. Executive coaches can help leaders develop this type of emotional intelligence in themselves, and can help them create and sustain productive emotional contexts in which people work out of a sense of purpose and contribution. Our emotional intelligence must catch up, and surpass, our technological intelligence, for leadership is a truly human phenomenon.

Kymberly Johnson is an executive and leadership coach experienced in guiding leaders to evolve into, and embody, their unique and profound leadership capabilities. With the awareness that systems and cultures must continue to progress, Kymberly brings extensive knowledge of human and adult development to enliven innovative and conscious leadership practices available in today’s world. Read More

Executive Coaching: Power vs. Force (part 3)

In part one we examined how we can slide down the slippery slope from “power to” (competence) into “power over” (domination) and in part two we showed you some examples. 

Part 1

Part 2

PART THREE: The good news is that we can restore, and help sustain our power by shedding the self-defeating “ego structures” that show up in our lives as:

• Defenses – what or whom am I defended against?
• Habitual Patterns – what behaviors are so ingrained that they’re under my personal radar, and get in my way?
• Triggers and Reactions – what do I always react to instinctively versus taking the time to consider a wise response?
• Avoidances – what makes me so uncomfortable that I can’t or won’t address it?
  

James Flaherty’s Integral Coaching model points to how we can concentrate and focus our authentic power by paying attention to:

1. Timing: When our interests, talents and energy match the support we can muster from others and events as they unfold naturally, and without effort.

2. Yielding: Including the forces of life within our intention, using their impetus instead of trying to overcome them – “going with the flow” instead of “pushing the river.”

3. Discipline: Staying focused, remaining patient, desiring one thing, eliminating the inessential, letting go of our personal likes, persisting in our practices, and reminding ourselves what’s important, not only what’s urgent.

4. Leakage: Power can “leak out” (even hemorrhage) through: unfinished business from the past, negative emotions, compulsions and obsessions, distractions, procrastinations, and worry.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

1. In what ways are you powerful?

2. In what ways are you forceful?
3. What is your primary way of losing concentration and focus of your personal power? Why is that?
4. What one thing could you do right now to help you cultivate authentic personal power, the competence to claim highest level of emotional intelligence, as well as embody and sustain your personal potential?

Sandy Hogan is an executive coach headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. Through integral coaching, teaching, writing and speaking she is dedicated to “evoking of others the highest in themselves.” She infuses compassion and creativity into her coaching style and philosophy, working with clients’ particular leadership issues, backgrounds, disciplines, careers, goals, and views of life. Her clients are corporate executives, management professionals, non-profit and community leaders, and people who find themselves in the midst of major transitions. More on Sandy >

Executive Coaching: Power vs. Force (part2)

In part one we examined how we can slide down the slippery slope from “power to” (competence) into “power over” (domination). In other words, we can move from effectiveness into ineffectiveness, from operating from groundedness to operating from ungroundedness.  How often we move back and forth, and how long we’re able to sustain “power” are good indicators of high emotional intelligence.

The charts below, adapted from Dr. David Hawkins’ book, Power vs. Force, show an example of how each EnneaType’s strengths can easily slip in to less-effective behaviors (force) that knock us off center and disable our connection to our authentic power:

 One: The Perfectionist

Power	Force
Impartial (I am non-judgmental)	Righteous (I am superior)
Surrendering	Worrying
Responsible	Guilty

Two: The Helper

Power	Force
Helpful (I assist you without attachment)	Meddling (I insist on offering you assistance)
Devoted	•       Possessive
Empathetic	Pitying

Three: The Achiever

Power	Force
Encouraging (I facilitate achievements)	•       Promoting (I “advertise” achievements)
Diplomatic	Deceptive
Praising	Flattering

Four: The Individualist

Power	Force
Appreciative (I am content with what I have)	Envious (I want what you have)
Egalitarian	•       Elitist
Selective	Exclusive

Five: The Observer

Power	Force
Detached (I don’t have an attachment to the outcome)	•       Removed (I refuse to engage)
Aware	Preoccupied
Thoughtful	Pedantic

Six: The Loyalist

Power	Force
Courageous (I will do it no matter what)	•       Self-doubting (I don’t think I can do it, no matter what)
Equal	Superior
Loyal	Chauvinistic

Seven: The Enthusiast

Power	Force
Abundant (I have enough)	•       Excessive (I want more)
Enlivening	Exhausting
Spontaneous	Impulsive

Eight: The Challenger

Power	Force
Powerful (I invite you to follow)	Forceful (I demand that you follow)
Authoritative	•       Dogmatic
Confident	Arrogant

Nine: The Mediator

Power	Force
Reliant (I can rely on you to help me)	Dependent (I can’t do it myself)
Conciliatory	•       Stubborn
Serene	Dull

In part three we will part three we will examine how we can restore, and help sustain our power by shedding the self-defeating “ego structures” that show up in our lives.

Sandy Hogan is an executive coach headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. Through integral coaching, teaching, writing and speaking she is dedicated to “evoking of others the highest in themselves.” She infuses compassion and creativity into her coaching style and philosophy, working with clients’ particular leadership issues, backgrounds, disciplines, careers, goals, and views of life. Her clients are corporate executives, management professionals, non-profit and community leaders, and people who find themselves in the midst of major transitions. More on Sandy >