Rule #36 Sales Meetings
The region meeting. The area meeting. The national sales meeting.
You’re at work! Get that in your head. For every moment you are
away from home, you are at work at these meetings. You are being
watched and evaluated. Am I trying to make you paranoid? No. But great
salespeople are passed over as leaders because they somehow forget this.
Part of my job entails grooming leaders in our organization through various
activities. Self-awareness means you think about what you are saying,
wearing, who you are with, and who is around.
Is there a bad vibe coming from troublemakers who can’t see the cup as
half full? Quotas too high? Comp plan not what it was? Product issues?
Management failures? Every organization has people who are negative. Be
part of the solution and help your friend see the positive—or stay clear of
those folks. Speak truth to both power and provide the answers when people
ask for your insights into problems and areas of improvement. But
don’t accuse others in your assessment by name unless it’s the prosecutor
asking point-blank. If you are asked for your opinion and your insights,
point out problems and be sure to provide a possible solution that inspires
hope that things can be fixed.
As an aside, let me say a few words about “carrying the water for others.”
It’s a mistake. In my career I got used once. Someone I thought was my
friend took advantage of my loyalty and heart for the company and our
mission. I was foolish, so it was as much my fault as theirs. But he was malicious.
This “friend” saw something in some reports that he thought was
fraudulent on the part of a salesperson in another region. This “friend”
subtly brought the information to my attention, expressed his concerns
about the issue, and expressed his fear that his own inability to address it
due to a lack of relationship with the key players would lead to a big problem
for our company. He also manipulatively stroked my ego, and I fell for
the flattery as he insisted that I was “well-respected” and that I would gain
a hearing if I looked into it. Somebody had to do something! Well I got a
hearing. In the end, however, I was the one who got an earful—from the
vice president, who had oversight in the matter. The incident got ugly
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when my “friend” launched a barrage of allegations about the matter in his
exit interview on his way out of the company, which caused a lot of grief
for the rep in question and the management team involved. A full-scale
investigation ensued. All parties were eventually found innocent.
This “friend” burned all his bridges on his way out—and I got singed, with
a stern warning from upper management to avoid getting involved in a situation
like this going forward.
They were right. If a teammate has a concern, encourage him to take his
concern to the appropriate person. Don’t you feel obligated to get
involved. Biblical wisdom in Matthew 18 basically implores us to address
problems directly or overlook them completely. A relationship is assumed
in the Matthew 18 directive, so if you don’t have one with the offending
party, go to your supervisor. In this case, my “friend” was obligated to go
to his fellow manager of the other region, not to me.
Discussing possible infractions with your fiends is just gossiping and will
only lead to problems. When you share concerns about possible wrongdoing
at work, you take another person’s livelihood into your hands. So be
careful—for everyone’s sake.
From a legal standpoint, you don’t know what lawyers know. But you can
complicate a matter exponentially without intending to if you put in an
email. So pick up the phone when you feel you need to talk to someone.
Course jesting, sexually explicit language, comments about the opposite
sex, and profanity all make you look small, perverse, and desperate.
They also signal business immaturity to anyone who is business mature
in the conversation. National sales meetings should not be an invitation
to relive your college days. That was then; why is this you now? You
are making yourself a liability. Your ability to produce revenues means
the company will tolerate you a little longer. But you are digging your
own grave at the company and leaving yourself exposed to false rumors
and accusations. Next thing you know, you will be defending yourself
to people who know what you’re like, and you will be guilty by association
based on your track record—regardless of what you didn’t do.
And in this court of opinion, that will be enough to at least scuttle your
career.
Meetings also pose the pitfall of losing credibility. Are you trying to convince
everyone you are a good guy with professional attributes? Not after
that conversation in the bar last night! They say character is who you are
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when no one is looking. Why do so many people try to build a reputation
of excellence, hoping no one from the bar last night is remembering?
As a leader in the organization, don’t minimize these things. They play out
eventually, and you will regret overlooking these flaws in your people. Set
the tone. Encourage your people to follow your lead.
If you happen to be lucky enough to have a part in planning a sales meeting,
please take note: The purpose of a sales meeting is to rejuvenate,
invigorate, and motivate. Sales is eating a lot of rejection over the course
of a year. Sales is launching out into a world every day that is too busy to
see you. Sales is not knowing where your next win will come from. Sales is
lonely. And we love it! At the meeting, pick me up. Remind me why this is
the place to be. Give me actionable ideas and tools that will make me successful
tomorrow. Show me how to use them. Give me time to practice
with them. Let me compete with and against my peers in games and contests
designed to improve my sales skills. Get me involved and engaged and
give me a chance to get out of my chair and contribute from the front.
Make use of adult learning tips and tricks to make the meeting engaging by
changing it up all the time (move rooms, panel discussions, games, workshops,
etc.)
Create an event to help me get to know my peers and their best practices.
Mandatory fun is a good thing—even when not everyone can do it. People
used to ask me if I golfed. “Once a year, when it’s free!” I would say.
(For a while that was true of running, too. A great location in a warm climate
in the middle of January at a fine resort can inspire me to go out and
run!)
Find a way for me to connect with my peers, who share a passion for things
I am most passionate about: politics, religion, and family. “Can’t talk about
those things,” you say? We talk about them plenty. You are just facilitating
activities that give us time to connect at fundamental levels and tap into
the strength of those passions. (FYI: If your conference calls are lifeless and
lack humor and engagement on the part of your team, check your last sales
meeting. People on your team probably don’t know each other well
enough to feel comfortable making jokes, poking fun, and being vulnerable
enough to share their thoughts if you didn’t find ways to help them
connect at the meeting. When was the last meeting?)
Finally, inspire us by showing us ways our jobs are making the world a better
place.
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Many salespeople gather at national sales meetings each year with nagging
questions they hope to answer as part of a decision to stay with the company
or go:
• Is this the place to be?
• Do we have a future?
• Is the company culture changing for the better or worse?
• Do we have the right leaders in place?
• Am I part of a good team or a great team?
• Can I hold on until that next great innovation in the pipeline that
leadership keeps promising will come?
Think carefully about the experience of the meeting. What is the theme of
the meeting? What are the overarching topics we need to focus on when
we leave? Who will make the most impact and be the most remembered?
And why?
Prepare the presenters with final reminders to help them put their best
foot forward. And work with meeting planners who can help avoid logistical
debacles that become legendary stories later.
We salespeople are a fickle, pretentious bunch who will get a sense of how
well we are doing as a company by our assessment of the meeting venue
(city, hotel, accommodations, etc.), the food, and the mandatory fun (golf,
bowling, charitable activities, etc.). These things will all convey to the sales
force “trajectory”: Are we heading in the right direction as a company?
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Should I stay or go?
The biggest mistake you can make is not meeting. The opportunity cost is
not making it a great meeting.
Elite execution demands rejuvenation and invigoration on the part of
meeting planners, along with conscientiousness on the part of salespeople
at sales meetings at all times.
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Sales Management
As you are successful, if you handle your success well with your peers, you
will get noticed. I am not writing a separate chapter on sales management,
because my intent is not to tell you how to be a great sales manager. I personally
have not been a great one. I hope to be a great one someday.
My intent, instead, is to lay out some considerations that elite salespeople
should think through with regard to sales management.
If you’re very good at your work, chances are very good someone thinks
you are just the person to lead a team somewhere. If that opportunity
comes with nothing more (training) than a pat on the back, beware. Also,
don’t take a promotion to work for someone who didn’t have a say in you
taking the new position.
Sales management requires training: coaching, administration, knowledge
of employment law, interview skills, etc. It is a different job. When a person
expresses an interest in management, I ask them to consider three
questions:
1. How do you feel about depending upon other people for a paycheck
who are less committed than you?
2. Do you enjoy holding other people accountable?
3. Do you have a management process that can help you diagnose
performance problems?
Sales management without management training is a great way to bruise a
good career and get disillusioned about management opportunities,
thereby limiting your upward mobility in leadership. In my short term as
a sales manager, I did manage to learn that you are responsible to people,
not for people. There is a big difference. In the first instance, you are giving
people clear direction and tools to succeed. In the second instance, you
are stressing out, micromanaging your team, “super repping,” owning
problems that don’t belong to you, holding onto people you should be firing,
and generally failing as a leader.
I have been very fortunate to befriend several amazing “people managers”
and serve under a few truly great leaders. But I have been around long
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enough to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.
In his book Succeeding (John T. Reed, 2003), John T. Reed states his
“Reed’s Law”:
No one can be more honest than their boss. If you are, you will
soon encounter a situation where your boss has done something
you must protest. And when you do, you’re history. One corollary
to that rule is that if no one can be more honest than his
boss, no one can be more honest than anyone above him in the
organization’s chain of command. Your level of integrity is limited
to the lowest level of integrity above you. That’s because if
you cannot be more honest than your boss, he cannot be more
honest than his boss, and so on.
As a manager you will be obligated to toe the line and represent upper
management to your team—whether you agree with the decision or strategy
as a dutiful soldier following orders in a consistent chain of command—
lest you discourage the troops and inhibit execution of the plan.
Take this advice to heart and choose your promotional opportunities carefully
with good counsel from trusted advisors who are higher up the ladder
than you.
Above all, your obligation as a manager is to find the silver lining. That
really is what leaders at all levels do for us. No matter how things look,
how tough things get, or how incoherent or ridiculous the orders, your job
is to carry out the mission and get your team on board.
I often think of the Tom Hanks character, Captain Miller, in the movie
Saving Private Ryan. In a scene entitled “Gripe,” Captain Miller is given
orders to take eight men to go find Private James Ryan. Along the way the
men begin to rationalize the mission as a poor use of their time and effort
and decide it is an unjustified risk. After several minutes of griping about
the mission, one of the men voices his opinion, stating, “This entire mission
is a serious misallocation of valuable military resources.”
One of the other men then asks the captain his thoughts: “Captain, what
about you? I mean, don’t you gripe at all?”
The captain’s reply is one of the best encapsulating and defining moments
for any leader down the line in the chain of command: “I don’t gripe to
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you, Reiben. I’m a captain. There’s a chain of command. Gripes go up, not
down. Always up. … I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You
should know that as a ranger.”
Captain Miller is then asked what he would say if he was to gripe up the
ladder to his superior. His reply is even more telling: “Well in that case, I’d
say, ‘This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective,
sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover, I feel heartfelt sorrow for the
mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the
lives of my men’—especially you, Reiben—‘to ease her suffering.’ “
The job of manager/leader is more than helping people hit a number. It is
more than solving business problems. It is bigger than accomplishing measureable
objectives. The job of a manager is to define the way a group of
people under your leadership sees the world. Your job is to make them see
the cup as half full, along with the light at the end of the tunnel, the future
not yet visible, the opportunity forming on the horizon, the respite just
ahead, the payoff, the reward, the harvest in the future from today’s sewing
that will take time, and their ability to do what they have never done.
Casting a vision for the company is the job of the CEO, president, and vice
president. Casting a vision for individuals is the job of the manager.
Can you do that? Can you stay positive no matter what? Above all else, as
manager you must be the optimist. That is what you are getting paid to
do.
I have concluded that the job of sales manager is tricky. There are a myriad
of ways to “step in it” practically, legally, emotionally, culturally, professionally,
and financially, to one’s own ruin. Managers would love to tell
you that they are at their best, in the best frame of mind, and eager to take
your call any time of the day or night. But that is just not possible. In
today’s American climate of entitlement and litigiousness, managing people
is still extremely rewarding but increasingly hazardous. That said, you
should cut your manager some slack. No one—and I mean no one—in
your company deserves the benefit of the doubt from you more than your
sales manager. Especially if they are the one who hired you.
If you have a good manager, serve them well and support their efforts.
Look for ways to take something off their plate that can double as professional
development for you.
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If you have a bad manager, minimize their impact, manage yourself, reach
out to successful peers and other company leaders for insights, and avoid
whining. Don’t let your manager be an excuse for your failure. Many successful
reps are successful in spite of their manager, not because of him or her.
If you have a new manager, be patient, understanding, and available. Look
for ways to build their confidence. Quickly identify their strengths and
find them some quick wins to help them get established. Most importantly,
guard their reputation as much as it depends upon you. They are in over
their heads. It comes with the territory. Get over it and thank God their
problems aren’t your problems.
If they are overconfident, they won’t be for long.
If they are obnoxious, be the bigger man or woman.
If they attempt to micromanage you, either address it or overwhelm them
with more information and minutia than they ask for to make them regret
it and stop.
If they screw up, pick them up. It will be appreciated. If the screwing up
continues, they won’t last long, but your conscience will be clean.
Above all, if they make an honest effort to do the job right, know that it is
very hard and scary at times, and they deserve your respect and praise.
Do all that and you might make a great sales manager one day.
Global Professional & Clinical Education Executive │ Instruction Design & Delivery │ KOL/Faculty Management │ Highly Skilled in Training Physicians, Surgeons, and Sales Reps on Disruptive Medical Technologies and Devices
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