Magic Monday: What Should The Role of the Front Line Sales Manager Be?

Where can you find the magic at work today? I find it in collaborating with other entrepreneurs to deliver value to our clients.

A colleague of mine, David Masover, interviewed me to get my perspective on what the role of the front line sales manager should be to drive growth. He interviewed five other experts and compiled the results into the format of a panel discussion in his e-book: Your Front Line Sales Manager: Glorified Sales Rep or Driver of Growth?

I think you will find the way David put together the interview answers an interesting read that looks at the complexity of the role of the sales manager balancing selling with managing and leading while ensuring bottom line results. I don’t think sales managers ever completely get away from selling, or should they. The question is on what percentage of their time should they be engaged in selling versus managing their people to sell.

I told David, “To be a really, really good manager, you need to get charged by empowering others to be the one to close the deal, and so if you’re a fantastic salesperson who’s just been promoted, if you don’t somehow have a mindset shift or are able to shift getting excited about seeing somebody else close the deal versus you being the one to close the deal, you’re probably not going to be too happy being a manager, and you’re probably not going to be good at it, because you’re probably always going to be wanting to step in and do it for them versus letting them do it.”

You may access the full interview with David and me here.

David also offers some free training, in addition to a more comprehensive paid training program you may access through the e-book. I am most curious to learn what your point of view is on what the role of the sales manager is, or should be in your organization.

This week’s reflection questions: What percentage should your front line sales person be selling versus managing? What works in your organization? How do you know your sales managers are engaged in activities that will give you growth that is sustainable?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: The Bare Essentials -Taking my Laptop and Cell Phone for Sure!

This week’s reflection questions: If you have to pack yourself up and live or work somewhere else for a few days, what would you take with you? What priorities would you focus on and leave the rest for another day or just take off the list?

If I was displaced for a few days, and I could still, or needed to work, I would take my laptop, cell phone and a notebook. As noted, by the picture, staying hydrated is also important!

These are the bare essentials that one needs to work these days. Because of the nature of my business - coaching, training and consulting – I am either on site at clients or on the computer or on the phone. Even though I rely heavily on technology as a tool, I still prefer to do some of my best brainstorming and thinking via hand written notes, thus the journal notebook. But, these are the bare essentials required in terms of tools.

In terms of priorities, the focus would be: client meetings, business development activities and the operations (website, financials, etc.) - in this order. The focus is creating value today, discovering opportunities for tomorrow and making sure everything is running okay. While there are a lot of details in these three items, essentially all activities fall into these three areas. Being a small business owner, if anything falls off in the short-term, it’s the operations. The people relationships are the most important – and yet the operations are the systems and structures that enable everything to run smoothly in the long run, so the operations can’t be neglected for too long.

Ironically after I invited this question in, there was a horrendous storm with 80-100 mile an hour winds that cut through the area two nights ago. The friend I stayed with last weekend when I was displaced had a transformer right outside her house effected. When she looked outside she saw four potentially combustible fires that burned for four hours, into the wee hours of the morning. She called yesterday to tell me her house is roped off like a crime scene with no access to get out of her driveway.

We discussed her walking down the street and me driving as far as I could go to get her and have her come and stay at my house until things are fixed. She has a generator and decided to stay put, and noted how well she is finally getting to know her neighbors after living there for twelve years. Amazing what displacement can do in terms of connecting people!

If my situation was as such that there was no access to electricity or wifi, I’d be forced to let go of all “the stuff” held by, and within, technology for a while. I’d be in conversation with others, be in nature, and be with my own thoughts. When it comes down to it – these are really the bare essentials of what we need to survive and thrive. All the rest are enablers and supports.

What about you? How do you think about the bare essentials of your business or your life?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: Staying Steady When You are Displaced

A fleet of trucks required to make my Monday Magic…

There are many ways in which you can feel displaced: at work someone younger and/or more talented comes on board and outshines you. Your boss, and major champion, resigns. A new technology is introduced, changing key aspects of your job. At home: Your last child goes off to college. Your spouse is more distant. Your ex-spouse just remarried. The list goes on…

In all these scenarios, something changes your relationship to your job or your family. Intellectually, we know we can change very little outside ourselves, but when we are hit with the reality of it, we try to change other people or situations to dynamics that make us feel more secure or comfortable. This is human nature – we are wired to protect and seek safety. It’s biological.

Sometimes our environment displaces us such as experiencing a storm or an accident. I woke up last Friday morning with no heat. I live in the Northeastern United States so this was not good news this time of year. I waited four hours for my oil company technician to arrive who told me my boiler was shot. My house was mighty cold. I spent the day getting two more opinions and by the time I landed on a vendor to install a new boiler, it was 4 pm and no boilers were available. So, my displacement was, I spent the weekend a couple miles away at friend’s house.

This meant that I cancelled my weekend house guest and navigated my dog in a new space with my friend’s cat. I was disappointed to not have my houseguest but found the weekend a bit of an adventure getting to know my friend (who I just met a few months ago), better and making myself comfortable at her house.

When it came time for Monday morning, having lost most of my workday Friday, I felt the pressure to get refocused despite my environment: I am spending the day holed up in one bedroom with a space heater while a team of technicians work on installing a new boiler in my basement. The water is turned off with periodic banging and “oh nos…”

All of this was an inconvenience while I work on staying focused and productive – producing client proposals, and keeping my top priority calls and meetings. Fortunately it is temporary and, although a huge expense I’m not thrilled to be paying, I will be on track after today. Fortunately this did not happen a week earlier in sub-zero degree weather.

Being displaced from my home for a few days unexpectedly helped reorient me. There is nothing like getting out of your everyday routine to refocus you on the bare essentials of what is really important.

This week’s reflection questions: If you have to pack yourself up and live or work somewhere else for a few days, what would you take with you? What priorities would you focus on and leave the rest for another day or just take off the list?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: With Strategy, The Key Word is We

This week’s reflection question was: It’s great to have a strategy but the bigger question is, now what? How do we make it come to life? (Please note, this was written on Friday but published today:) ).

I noticed I framed this questions differently than previous weeks. Instead of asking “you," I asked “we.” When setting and executing on strategy, this is a key word. No one has all the information on what is going on in the market, with your customers or how to get people to get stuff done. You need coordinated activities that deliver value in the places you want to.

This all seems obvious, but the smarter, more insightful and more ambitious you are, the more at a disadvantage you may be if you think you have all the answers! Especially today, with so much change and disruption in business, you really need everyone in sync with each other and staying focused on the right goals.

I was struck this week, in dialogue with clients, how often they believe that everyone has the same understanding they do –on what it is the organization is trying to achieve and how their job contributes. Lack of clarity is both, one of the biggest reasons why organizations fail to effectively execute on their strategy, and also one of the biggest levers you can use to get people more aligned.

This requires work. It requires engaging in an ongoing dialogue with your leaders and employees. Notice I say dialogue, not communication. Too often leaders say something – they speak it – and believe it is done or that people have understood. The notion of dialogue is that it is ongoing and entails a back and forth and testing of understanding. It’s a commitment and requires deep listening and presence.

This leads to making sure people buy-in to what they need to be doing and why. All of this is a process – day-to-day – that is required to not only get people on board, but keep them there. Strategy is never a “one and done” situation. It’s a more of, “here we are again – what does this mean, and how do we move forward knowing what we now know?”

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: What Do You Do After You Have Your Strategy

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax. Where can you find the magic at work today?

What organization would not have a strategic plan? If they didn’t, they certainly would not admit to it – otherwise – what leadership is running the company?

The bigger question is – what do you do after you have the plan – written, agreed upon – now go execute on it? Here is what I have found: In the best organizations, the CEO writes their goals each year based on the plan and reviews it in a periodic, disciplined way. His goals are communicated and cascaded to his direct reports and to their direct reports, and so on. Then there is also discussion, not only up and down, but across the organization to ensure there is consistency and integration, using a common language. This process takes a lot of work and a lot of discussion – but it can save a lot of time in the long run.

Then there needs to be a clear and consistent way to manage the implementation of these plans. Few plans ever get executed as designed. Life happens. People don’t do what they say. Things take longer. Customers don’t buy in the way you thought they would. New competitors change things. Stuff changes.

This why strategy is a commitment and a disciplined process that must be revisited ongoing throughout the year in a proactive way. The companies who are not that effective do less, or little of what I mention above. They might talk about it, but don’t actually spend the time having the difficult or repetitive discussions to make sure people are on the same page.

There is no shame in what was done or not done in the past. The key is looking toward the future to see how things can improve. I gave a talk on strategy last week and had an executive invite me to her organization today. My first question was – why and why now? Is this part of an ongoing improvement in your process, the beginning of a new cycle, or has something changed dramatically?

It’s great to have a strategy but the bigger question is, now what? How do we make it come to life?

At Sage Leadership Strategies, this is what we do well – facilitate leadership teams to put the structures and discipline in place, and have the difficult conversations that will really enable things to happen in the way that you need to. Please call us for a complimentary discovery session: 203-730-2103.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved

Follow up Friday: Decrease Assumptions With Pilot Checklist

This week’s reflection questions: Where can you be more curious in your work? Where do you need to go back to basics to uncover what is really going on? How does this serve you in being the expert?

This week I gave a presentation to a mix group of small business owners and organizational leaders from for-profit and non-profit organizations. What they all have in common is they were looking for ways to create better engagement with their employees.

The focus of the talk was on a very practical model that explains the key levers leaders need to consider when looking to impact the climate they create in their organization. I know this model well, having used it for fifteen years with thousands of leaders around the globe.

The workshop participants were learning the model for the first time. Their questions and “aha’s” are always fun and interesting, and it keeps the model fresh for me. More importantly, it keeps me fresh for my clients in that it allows me to see different ways the challenges and levers manifest in their situations.

As participants shared, I found myself “pegging” their issues – oh they are dealing with x and y, etc. But then I took a moment to pause and really appreciate the depth of what they were wrestling with. What I didn’t know was the specifics of each of their stories at that point. In these dialogues I am reminded that when I make assumptions about their orientation or what exists or doesn’t exist in their organizations, I can be wrong and can lose the connection with a potential client.

I was reminded to keep my assumptions in check, and in so doing I thought of the benefit of a pilot’s practice and mindset which is engaged before each flight. Pilot’s go through an exhaustive checklist of functions they need to perform before the plane takes off. It is a protocol, a discipline, a ritual – and corners should not be cut lest the oversight leads to an error in the plane’s functioning, potentially endangering the passenger’s lives.

I reminded myself to think of the discovery process with a potential client as a ritual where I make a point to ask certain questions and keep the ratio of my talking to actively listening to them in check (30% me talking, 70% them).

As a successful consultant and coach, I have demonstrated competency in these areas but I can’t take them for granted or get sloppy. I have found this to be particularly true in areas where I pride myself on being capable. Paradoxically, it can be in these very areas that I have blindspots, especially when I am so sure about my assessment.

Going back to basic questions as a foundational practice was reinforced for me. I think of it like my pilot’s protocol to be implemented in almost a meditative way that focuses on the practice of it versus being goal-driven. It’s equivalent to the concept in meditation practice of having a beginner’s mind.

Discovery invites curiosity. Assessment implies certainty and closure. I need to make sure to keep the aperture on my inquiry open long enough to see clearly the nuances of a situation. This is particularly true when I am looking at the complexity of people and organizational dynamics.

Where can you reinforce or remind yourself of your back to basics practice with your craft – to hone your expertise further?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved

Magic Monday: How Do You Balance Curiosity with Your Expertise?

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax. Where can you find the magic at work today?

Magic Monday is about discovering new perspectives on old problems. It’s about realizing that things you didn’t think could happen, can. It’s about being open to possibility.
My clients hire me for my expertise in leadership, executive development, facilitating high performing teams and helping individuals be more personally effective. Sometimes managing ourselves is the hardest job!

Some use the word personal mastery implying that we can master ourselves. I don’t think we can ever fully master ourselves but it is in the pursuit of better managing our thoughts, being more authentic in the healthy expression of our emotions, and keeping our body healthy that we create a vital spirit – a vitality for life.

The problem is, when you are an expert, sometimes, you stop being open to wonder. You stop being curious, especially about the basics of your craft. Sometimes you can work on autopilot, or worse – make grave assumptions about people or situations because you have seen it “a thousand times before.”

The true master is a master at practice – always embracing a beginners mind, remaining curious. S/he asks the dumb and basic questions. I am struck by how often I am brought in to an organization to facilitate a senior leadership team in their planning sessions and there are many assumptions about how “everyone is on the same page.” The goals are crystal clear.

Yet when I start asking some basic questions about what the goals are or what they mean, or how they would put action toward those goals, the reality is quite different. And this is where the real work is – uncovering people’s understanding, beliefs and perceptions. This is where you sometimes need to go slow to go fast – take time out and regroup having the hard conversations. This is how you truly get aligned as a team, and it will save you much time in the long run.

Having these “back to basics” conversations are so important – particularly when you are under pressure to move fast – and particularly when you think you have all the answers or are the “expert” in a situation.

My reflection question this week: Where can you be more curious in your work? Where do you need to go back to basic questions to uncover what is really going? How does this serve you in being the expert?

At Sage Leadership Strategies, we work with successful leaders helping them grow into their next level of contribution. The outcome is more clarity, ease and confidence. If you are an ambitious, open learner, seeking or responding to, your next level of challenge, please contact us for a complimentary strategy session.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved

Follow up Friday: Reaching Out is Key

This week’s reflection question: Where are you less than confident? What supports do you have to help you get clear and think things through?

As an entrepreneur, here is what I noticed about myself this week – I get less than confident when I am too scattered, trying to do it all. I can lose sight of my core competency as a Coach and Consultant. I can get in overwhelm mode.

When I am clear on what I should be working on at any given point in time – and where I should delegate – then I am more confident in how I am leading my business so I can be more present with my clients. The key is reaching out to those I trust to get perspective. I have colleagues I can call on, and I belong to a Mastermind group. I have found this group invaluable in terms of working with other entrepreneurs who understand my unique challenges.

Here is what I noticed with my clients – the more successful they are – sometimes the harder it can be to ask for help. They may be confident about things that they really should be asking for help on – we call these blindspots. And sometimes they are less than confident on things that they really have nailed, but don’t realize it because it’s new and out of their comfort zone.

The key is discernment. It comes down to knowing who you can trust to help you sort things out – and being willing to take advice or feedback. It starts with picking up the phone and having the conversation.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: Over-Promoted or Lucky for The Challenge?

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax. Where can you find the magic at work today?

One of my clients was recently promoted into a job much larger than the one she had – in terms of breadth, depth and number of direct reports. Everything about the job feels huge to her. She said initially she was terrified everyday – but of course couldn’t tell anyone. All eyes are on her and she needs to project confidence and capability – even when she is secretly unsure.

Anytime you take on a new job there are new people to get to know, and new tasks and ways of thinking to master. The bigger the job the more you are stretching – and the greater the potential for your mind to run amok. We are wired for survival and our mind will do anything to keep us safe.

This client, as is the case with most of my clients, is smart, ambitious and has been successful at whatever she’s done. So, when put in a situation that is such a stretch – it can be very threatening to the ego. Initially she was not just questioning, but convinced they made a mistake. This is a very common reaction.

I will never forget when I was working at General Electric (GE), one of the leaders in sharing his lessons learned said: “If your job isn’t terrifying you, you aren’t stretching enough. Seek the jobs that terrify you. This is how you will grow.”

This is great advice. But where is the safety and support to express and work through this terror? Organizations want people’s passion and strong emotions – only when they are positive! Yet, if you are really growing and ambitious with a standard of excellence – you are going to have moments of panic, frustration, impatience. This is not necessarily bad, and to be expected. It’s more a question of what you do with these emotions – how you channel them and manage yourself so you can make decisions from a neutral space, knowing your triggers. A trigger is anything that causes you to react versus respond.

The bigger the job, the bigger the stakes – and the greater the potential to get triggered into a negative reaction – especially if you have a very public job with it’s pressures and deadlines. We only truly know our boundaries of capability when we are stretched or pushed to go up against, or beyond them (failure).

Here is what I have discovered in over 25 years coaching leaders – at some point, no matter how capable one is, they all experience these emotions. It’s part of the journey in realizing your potential and taking your sense of serving your constituents to the next level of contribution.

It is also at this time where folks start to question who they are, what they are doing “here” now, and can they accomplish what they need to? This space is especially hard to navigate for someone who identifies themselves as smart, ambitious and successful, as there is more pressure – internal and external – to “get it right.” In this kind of situation, having an external trusted advisor, such as a coach, can be very helpful in terms of having a safe place to strategize, debrief and/or vent to move through bumpy spots on the growth journey.

In the case of my client, she wasn’t seeking the job but was asked by her management to apply. Clearly they saw things in her that she didn’t see in herself. The gift is, she is now starting to understand and work with what it is that they saw.

This week's reflection question: Where are you less than confident? What supports do you have to help you get clear and think things through?

At Sage Leadership Strategies, we work with successful leaders helping them grow into their next level of contribution. The outcome is more clarity, ease and confidence. If you are an ambitious, open learner, seeking or responding to, your next level of challenge, please contact us for a complimentary strategy session.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.