Not only for its own sake, but as part of the life-long, habitual practice of being thorough in everything you do. So, why do we say that organisations are built on culture?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines an organisation as “a group of people who work together in an organised way for a shared purpose”. I see this definition as having four parts: (1) A group of people (2) Who work together (3) In an organised way (4) For a shared purpose.

However, breaking the definition down to such a degree changes the original concept, and instead of objectively defining an organisation, I believe it idealises one. The first point is the bare minimum to be an organisation; the other three are the qualities that make up a productive organisation.

Furthermore, they form a pyramid of importance: a group of people can be anything from a successful company to a smattering of passengers on a bus, but a group who works together become a team. If that team can work together in an organised way, you have efficiency. Finally, if a shared purpose can underpin and inform the actions of that team, then you have something special.

So, where does culture fit into this definition?

The simple, but not particularly easy answer is: everywhere.

A group of people will always naturally develop a culture over time. Supporters at a sporting event grow rowdy or excited or despondent together over the course of one match. A group of high school friends, whether consciously or not, will over time decide what they do and don’t like to do, and will in turn either support or dismiss the actions of their peers based on this culture.

Beyond the first part of the definition, the idea of culture splits in two: conscious and unconscious.

Your high school friendship group, for example, probably isn’t aware that their obsession with a particular genre of music could be closing them off to a wider world of sound. On the flip side, that same obsession might happen to foster an appreciation for the virtue of disciplined, consistent practice needed for constant improvement. Either way, it’s most often luck.

A step beyond this (usually) unconscious culture-building, is “working together” in “an organised way”. To stay with the high school example, this is where something like team sports come in.

Instead of building a culture based on who you sit with at lunch and what you end up idly chatting about, these people build their culture around more organised, conscious objectives. For one thing, you change into a different uniform to participate in this culture – you change from the school uniform, which everyone wears, into your particular sport’s designated training or playing gear. You wear numbers on your back, which will, in many sports, decide exactly how you’re meant to work together. In rugby union, the number 10 can commonly expect a pass from the number 9.

Though more complicated, this same kind of structure extends to the working world. If you’re an assistant manager, you can expect most of your directives to come from the manager. If you’re a sales rep, you should expect to be making some sales.

However, in both situations, and really in any organisation, this is the broadest, least productive understanding of culture you could have. If the depth of your connection to your number on the sporting field is knowing where you’re meant to stand, then the only culture your team has is that you’re playing a particular sport. If the depth of your connection to the title on your name tag is knowing that sales reps make sales, then your workplace’s culture is probably only as deep as “people work here”.

Culture is everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s always working for us. Our culture of convenience is one of the reasons for Australia’s (and much of the developed world’s) obesity crisis, for example. Our culture of connection in the digital age is one of the reasons so many young people are experiencing higher levels of depression and anxiety than ever before. These examples highlight the difference between conscious and unconscious cultures. Whether you know it or not, every group, every organisation has a culture, and the impact of each one is inescapable.

So the goal, then, is not to build a culture – that will happen no matter what. Instead, the goal is to build the right culture.

In rugby union, everyone must wear boots. But in the All Blacks, rugby union’s most successful national team, everyone wears black boots. Apart from headgear and mouthguards, boots are the only uniform item that individual members can pick for themselves, and as such, you see a dizzying array of flashy, neon colours striding across the pitch on any given game. The All Blacks, of course, don’t have to wear black boots, but it’s about culture: everyone’s on the same team, driven by the same goals, and wearing the same boots is just another reminder of this fact.

But who decides this?

In a team like the All Blacks, who decides everyone wears the same boots? In a huge company, who decides that every member should prioritise learning? Who makes the standards, and who upholds them?

The answer, in any domain, is the leader. In a truly productive organisation, that really means everyone, because in a productive organisation, everyone behaves and acts like a leader. But realistically, and especially in bigger organisations, a leadership structure needs to be anchored by specified, formal leaders. And so then, the question becomes, how do you choose the right leader?

Choosing a leader is a concentrated version of choosing a culture. Culture is ultimately the behaviour and practice of a group of people, and the right leader will not only influence their team’s behaviours and practices in the right direction, but will bring a new dimension of understanding to what makes a productive culture. Productivity is the ratio of outputs to inputs, and so maximising this ratio is only half the battle – the other half is prioritising the right outputs. Publishing more books is a good step for a publication house, for example, but only if they’re good books.

Clearly, selecting the right leader is incredibly important for an organisation, and doing so can sometimes feel like weathering a heavy storm on open seas without a compass. So if I can at least offer a compass, that might be the first step in offering some security and clarity in making this all-important decision.

I use this framework when consulting or offering support to others, but I also use it regularly to assess myself as a leader. I am the leader of my small business, and so I need to consistently check myself, and assure that I am the right person for the job. Since designing The 15 Disciplines framework, it has been the bedrock of all of my leadership thinking, and so serves as the starting point for my leadership investigation.

15 questions to establish the criteria for choosing leaders in your own organisation:

1. Do you have the capacity to override your own emotions to respond productively to a situation rather than react unproductively?

2. Will you lead from a foundation of credibility, not a foundation of authority?

3. Will you ensure ethical decisions are made for the greater good of the organisation, despite the harm, discomfort or inconvenience it may cause to a few, or even yourself?

4. Will you challenge the way people in your organisation think and act so that they understand how this impacts the intended outcomes?

5. Do you hold a strategic perspective of all factors in and around your organisation that either energise or de-energise its capacity to achieve its objectives?

6. Do you have the capacity to prioritise and systematically coordinate activity with a team to ensure it will achieve the standards required of a task or project?

7. Will you establish and maintain a position of control to ensure delegated tasks will be completed on time and to standard without relinquishing overall responsibility for the task?

8. Will you orient yourself to new information in a timely manner to ensure your decisions remain relevant to achieving objectives?

9. Will you ensure all people are provided an equal opportunity to succeed and treat them differently, according to their demonstrated competence and commitment?

10. Do you have the capacity to maintain a positive culture and leverage small successes to elevate people’s performance?

11. Will you create an inclusive environment through the fair and appropriate dissemination of information and expectations?

12. Will you maintain a healthy emotional and physical lifestyle to ensure you are in the best condition to lead and inspire others to do the same?

13. Will you connect a diverse group of people to a common cause to ensure unproductive sub-cultures do not form?

14. Will you be a credible exemplar of the standards you expect of every team member and build accountability in others for those standards?

15. Will you create a safe place for people to share the good, the bad and the ugly to ensure a continuous cycle of learning and growth in team capacity?

Remember that culture is a living thing: it is constantly evolving, and leaders need to do so in order to remain productive. Check in with these questions whenever you feel that you or your organisation’s leaders may need to evolve with changing times or priorities.

The post 15 Critical Questions Leaders Need To Answer appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Albert is fanatical about his work, striving to deliver value to companies he works with and the people within his team. He brings extensive expertise across Banking, Financial Services and Insurance and core focus areas in Financial Crime, Fraud, Data, Analytics and Identity.

In his free time, Albert is a passionate target rifle shooter and volunteer, serving as Director of NRAA, Chairman of the Victorian Rifle Association and Vice-Captain of the Australian F-Open Rifle Team,

(1) What was your first sales role and in which industry?

My first sales role was when I left South Africa in 2006 and moved to New Zealand. I had to find a job pretty fast to secure a work permit and found myself selling EFTPOS terminals to small retailers. The role was entirely phone based and taught me incredibly valuable lessons in how to be successful as a salesperson. 

(2) What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

My first lesson as a sales professional was that input equals output. It’s a rather simple one, but one that had a huge impact, especially in a role that offered remuneration directly linked to my efforts. If I put in the work, hit the phones, engage with clients, follow up on my leads with determination and grit, the dollars will start to roll in. I understood very quickly that if I apply this simple lesson, I could take control of my own destiny and be in control of how much money I get to take home every month. With a young family at the time, this was incredibly valuable. 

(3) How or why did you become a sales professional?

What’s interesting is that I didn’t become a sales professional by choice. I moved to New Zealand 15 years ago and I needed a job. However, once I fell into sales, I never looked back.

Sales is the only profession that can shape the culture of an organisation. As salespeople, we get to engage with everyone across an organisation, be it the product development team, operations, marketing, procurement, customer service etc. The culture of the sales team will shape the overall culture of an organisation. In a nutshell, the sales team has the power to drive a high-performance culture, and to shift and lift a culture through accountability.

(4) How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?

My approach to sales is two-pronged. Firstly, in order to be great at selling, one has to be inquisitive. You have to be curious about what are the challenges of your clients, understand their pain points and their long-term goals. Being a great sales professional goes beyond just closing deals. It’s about providing solutions to your clients.

By being curious and genuinely wanting to know about your clients, you will be able to unlock trust and value. The clients will quickly understand you are committed to their success and will start to see you as their partner, an extension of their team. If you can unlock trust as a sales professional, your clients will keep coming back to you, even if you don’t close that deal today.

In terms of the values I live by, I’m a man of my word. If I say I’m going to do something, you bet I will follow through with it. It makes me reliable, it builds trust with my team, clients, and other stakeholders. I don’t over-promise and under-deliver and if I make a mistake, I’ll own up to it.

(5) In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?

In my experience, the three most important factors are:

Taking action – to be successful in sales, you need to have the willingness to spring into action and be proactive about it. You can’t afford to sit back and wait. You need to have the willingness to make phone calls, go door-knocking if you have to, engage with your clients, etc.

Curiosity – if you ask the right questions, you will uncover your client’s pain point and therefore will be in a better position to offer the right solution for them

Drive – a successful sales professional is also one who has a never-ending hunger in the belly. This hunger is what will keep you going, hit those numbers and build up your sales pipeline.

(6) What did/do you love about sales?

What I find the most exciting and rewarding is when I get to see how my clients, or others are positively impacted by the solutions I provide to them. Especially in my current role at GBG where we help create an environment where everyone can transact online with confidence by reducing the risk of fraud, there is a bigger societal impact to what we do. Cyber criminals and fraudsters use stolen money to trade children, slaves, drugs. To know that in my role at GBG I am contributing to putting an end to this, is deeply rewarding.

(7) What did/do you dislike about sales?

The perception that people have of sales professionals is what I don’t like. We are often seen as manipulators, liars and money-driven vultures. And to defy this perception comes with the job, day in day out.

(8) Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.

The biggest highlight of my sales career is when I closed a multi-million deal with one of the four banks, at a company where the average order value was $10K. It took 18 months and multiple conversations across the organisations to find out how each department would benefit from the software I was selling at the time, in order to finally get it over the line.

(9) What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?

The best advice I received very early on in my career was that there are multiple ways to achieve success in sales, depending on your personality, the industry you’re in, what you’re selling etc. Very often, once sales professionals reach their high, they think they’ve unlocked the secret formula to closing deals. And they tend to believe that their approach is the only approach that works, which is not true.

So, it’s important to be open-minded to other people’s approaches, learn from them and keep evolving your own formula for success.

(10) What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

I wish I had known that I didn’t need to buy the most expensive suit and tie for people to take me seriously. While how you present yourself as a salesperson is important, it’s not what will impress your stakeholders. 

(11) What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

Support – Get to know your team and their preferred ways of working. Provide the support, resources and training they need and commit to their success and their professional development. Ultimately, you are only as successful as your sales team

Accountability –  Hold yourself and your team accountable and be ready to have the hard conversations. 

(12) What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

Clarity of message is of utmost importance. Very often, the reason why sales teams don’t deliver is not because they are not hardworking or don’t have the right skills. It’s because they didn’t understand the tasks, the products, or how to cross-sell or up-sell.  As such, it is important to also foster a culture where your team feels comfortable to ask questions when in doubt or if they need clarifications on anything before sending them out on the field.

(13) How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?

Fraud detection and identity verification have taken on a new meaning altogether in the past decade. With financial crimes on the rise, organisations across the globe are increasingly relying on technology to protect their businesses and customers against rapidly evolving financial crimes. Organisations both large and small are increasingly looking for comprehensive identity verification and fraud prevention practices to try to keep up with the rapidly evolving threat landscape. 2020 has particularly been a pivotal year for identity-based fraud. COVID-19 created both a global healthcare and economic crisis, making the environment ripe for sophisticated fraud rings to capitalise. 

In the next 10 years, the use of Artificial intelligence (AI) to fight fraud will become even more widespread in identifying fraudulent transitions and strange behaviours. It will be increasingly possible to analyse thousands of technological and behavioural data points in a matter of seconds. However  according to some reports, fraudsters will start to use fake faces for biometric verification whereby these “Frankenstein IDs” will use AI to combine facial characteristics from different people to form a new identity, creating a challenge for businesses relying on facial recognition technology as a significant part of their fraud prevention strategy.

(14) How do you balance life and work?

By setting clear boundaries, for myself and for those around me. You have to create your own work-life balance, it won’t just happen. I make sure I take the time for myself. For example, every Friday, I commit to working from a remote location in the country. A weekly change of scenery keeps me feeling refreshed and this translates in my work as well. I’m more energised and it makes me more effective.

(15) What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I’m a competitive rifle shooter and I grow strawberries on my farm to make delectable jams.

About GBG Plc

Headquartered in the UK and with over 1,000 staff across 16 countries, GBG Plc specialises in digital identity and fraud solutions. Its technology helps clients transact quickly, safely and securely with their online customers. Many of the world’s best-known businesses rely on GBG to provide digital services and keep the economy moving, from US e-commerce giants to Asia’s biggest banks and European household brands. 

For more information visit https://www.gbgplc.com/apac/

The post Leadership Q&A – Albert van Wyk appeared first on Head Of Sales.

This is an unlikely but true story about iconic brands being protected by an amazing airline captain, the power of social media, and how to create customer-centric culture. Every enterprise can learn much from this story as it exemplifies the incredible benefits of empowering and trusting employees to not only do their job but also represent the brand – in this case, also save lives. The QF32 incident occurred in November 4th, 2010. The ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) published their final report in June 2013, and Air Crash Investigations released their documentary in February 2014.

But before both of these, in late 2012 I was fortunate enough to interview Captain Richard de Crespigny in his home. As we discussed the incident, it became very apparent to me that Richard is not only a talented and seasoned pilot, in both military and commercial aviation, but also an exceptional leader. Richard de Crespigny is an example of what Jim Collins calls ‘Level 5 Leadership’. There is much to learn from the culture he imbues on any flight he commands. Richard is more than a professional pilot, he is committed to giving his passengers the best possible experience and being a positive representative of the Qantas, Airbus and Rolls-Royce brands.

On November 4th, 2010, Captain de Crespigny was in command of QF32 flying from Singapore to Sydney. I’ve been on this flight a number of times but not on this occasion. At 7,400 feet during climb-out there was a catastrophic failure of an inboard Rolls-Royce engine resulting in a very rare uncontained explosion. Shrapnel flew out at supersonic speed crippling control systems running along the Q380’s left wing leading edge, peppering the fuselage, invading the underbelly, puncturing two wing fuel tanks in at least ten locations and wreaking havoc with 21 of the 22 aircraft’s systems. In my opinion it was far more serious, and far closer to being a disaster, than anyone has been willing to acknowledge – there was a fire that fortunately self-extinguished in the wind. Jet aviation fuel is kerosene, not petrol, and it burns with low thermal properties.

Miraculously, no passengers were injured and, due to the low altitude, the passenger cabin was not compromised by decompression. But exploding shrapnel had penetrated the underbelly, slicing through both of the two main electrical trunk lines – the backbone of the aircraft’s central nervous system. There are many electrical wiring looms within the A380 for inbuilt redundancy but it was incredibly unlucky, and potentially fatal, for two primary looms to be taken out at the same time. Passengers heard several loud ‘bangs’ and could see obvious wing punctures and the fuel vapour trail, but there was far more damage than the eye could see. The largest passenger airliner in the world was severely degraded and had probably lost 50% of system networks and 65% of the aircraft’s roll control. It was set-up for catastrophic cascading events unless the flight deck had the right leadership culture.

On the ground in Indonesia, the engine cowling with the Qantas logo, along with other debris, had rained down over the populated town of Batam, including onto school grounds. No-one had been injured but the Twitter-sphere and Internet were abuzz. The Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, was travelling in a car with his head of Corporate Communications when they received a phone call asking why Qantas’ share price was falling dramatically. For them this was the first sign of a problem and highlights the instant speed of social media and its power to impact a brand in real-time.

Back up at 7,400 feet there was calm on the flight deck as the world’s most experienced A380 flight crew [literally] dealt with the situation. Qantas has the well-deserved reputation of being the safest airline in the world – it is the oldest continually operating commercial airline globally and no passenger on a Qantas jet aircraft has ever been killed as a result of an incident. All pilots are hired to become captains and this means that they only hire the best. On top of this, Qantas invests heavily in training and every captain is checked-out seven times a year. Just as in the military, there are full and frank peer reviews any time there is an incident. Safety, transparency and accountability are dominant cultural elements for all Qantas pilots – not something that exists in all airlines.

On this particular flight, Captain de Crespigny was being checked by another senior pilot who was himself being trained as a checking captain. This meant that there were five on the flight deck instead of the normal three – the Second Officer (Mark Johnson), First Officer (Co-Pilot Matt Hicks) and three captains – but all had no doubt that there was only one person in command. Before take-off, Captain de Crespigny had ensured that there would be no confusion concerning the chain of command and that everyone’s roles were crystal clear. He discussed these issues at the pre-flight briefing, during the drive to the airport and again before the A380 pushed back from the aerobridge in Singapore.

During the incident everyone knew their roles, and every issue and task was dealt with calmly and professionally. The First Officer, Matt Hicks, dealt with well over one hundred alarms and checklists while Captain de Crespigny concentrated on flying the aircraft, monitoring his First Officer, keeping his situation awareness, weighing his options and laying strategies to complete the flight. The second officer visited the cabin to investigate the damage and to communicate with the Customer Service Manager, Michael von Reth.

Multiple failures had severely degraded the already leaking fuel system. They had lost all ability to transfer fuel between the eleven different tanks creating dangerous imbalances that became worse with time. They had also lost all the wing slats, which provide greater lift and enable the aircraft to fly slower for landing. Back in the passenger cabin, Michael von Reth and his team were calmly assuring passengers while watching for any signs of panic in individuals and then quietly addressing problems with empathy and reassurance.

Everyone on the flight deck and the cabin crew had trained for just this emergency and they instinctively knew what to do. The flight deck team trusted their leader to lead. The leader trusted his team to perform every standard operating procedure and delegated task. The A380 was the most technologically advanced and robust (redundant systems) passenger aircraft in history. They were flying safely and just had to figure out how to mitigate the extensive failures and to get down safely at Changi Airport back in Singapore. Captain de Crespigny knew that height gave them more time and options so he told the flight deck team he was initiating a climb. “No!” they all said in unison. It was the only time in the entire flight that there was any discord – teamwork in action. They were in stable level flight and they did not have all the information about what was wrong… leave everything as it is. No ego, just teamwork. Captain de Crespigny simply said, “okay.”

With less than a 3% margin for error in landing airspeed to pull-up on the available runway they managed an incredibly difficult landing. Way faster than normal and with badly degraded brakes, no reverse thrusters, they came to halt with a mere 100 meters of runway left. But they were not out of danger – 3 tonnes of fuel poured onto the tarmac, pooling around white-hot brakes. The fire crew held back because the outboard engine on the damaged wing would not shut down. Eventually foam was sprayed all over the fuel and Captain de Crespigny decided that the passengers were safer on board than executing an emergency evacuation. Eventually the outboard engine was stopped and everyone walked away safely.

Captain de Crespigny led his team faultlessly and harnessed all the resources available to him. Despite all the damage caused by the Rolls-Royce engine explosion, and despite the potential problems with having too many cooks on the flight deck, Captain de Crespigny maintained a calm atmosphere where everyone knew and performed their roles. At one point in the crisis he re-set the flight deck team to focus on what systems were working rather being focussed on the endless alarms and lists of things that had failed. He communicated clearly and dealt with the realities but focused on the positives. He managed the risks by making sure they didn’t rush and that they triple-checked all calculations. He also quietly prepared for a glide landing (Armstrong Spiral) in the event that all engines failed. Most importantly, he didn’t make assumptions but instead tested the aircraft’s handling characteristics while he had the safety of height before the final approach. This is not standard operating procedure but was a master stroke on his part.

The QF32 incident made headlines around the world but beyond the airmanship, leadership and teamwork on the flight deck, Captain de Crespigny then instinctively continued to lead when back in the terminal with his passengers (customers). Despite his emotional and physical exhaustion from piloting and managing the crisis over four hours in the air and on the ground, he then assumed the role of customer service and Public Relations (PR) representative for Qantas, Airbus and Rolls-Royce.

He didn’t need to refer to a manual to do a masterful job because the culture within Qantas empowered him with shared values of transparency and service excellence. Rather than leave it to PR and customer service people, he took charge and when every passenger was safely in the terminal he went and spoke to them saying: “When you fly Qantas you’re flying with a premium airline and you have every right to expect more. An army of Qantas staff are right now finding you hotel rooms and working out how to get you to Sydney as soon as possible. But right now I want you to write down this number – it’s my personal mobile phone and I want you to call me if you think Qantas is not looking after you or if you think that Qantas does not care.” Then he explained what had happened, why, what would happen next and disclosed everything he knew. He answered every possible question in multiple passenger lounges for over two hours. He prepared everyone for the media circus that would ensue and stayed in the lounge with passengers until there were no more questions – eventually he was standing on his own.

Later, when the media shoved microphones in the faces of passengers asking: ‘Did you think you were going to die?’ – they responded: ‘No, the captain and crew were fantastic; they kept us fully informed at all times.’ When someone else in the press asked: ‘Did the crew or passengers panic?’ – they responded with: ‘Everyone was calm. The captain explained that the fire trucks sprayed water to cool the brakes, laid foam on the leaking fuel and tried to snuff an engine that wouldn’t shut down.’ Captain de Crespigny’s full and open disclosure and personal guarantee had transformed 440 passengers into the best PR and brand agents that Qantas management could have ever hoped for.

1,000 Qantas staff had leapt into action, looking after their customers by organising buses, finding hotel rooms, communicating and meeting individual needs until all 440 passengers were returned safely home. Everyone was deeply grateful to Captain de Crespigny, the flight crews and ground crews for keeping them safe.

None of the passengers ever called Captain de Crespigny’s mobile phone to complain or to ask for help. Richard explained to me that this is his audit process, proving that the entire Qantas organisation performed brilliantly during this extended crisis. Qantas, to their credit, never reprimanded him for overstepping the boundaries of his responsibilities on the ground in the terminal with passengers – they were grateful to have a leader step-up when needed, technically and commercially.

Captain de Crespigny is a shining example of the fact that the leader determines the culture … no, the leader is the culture. He believed that he was not just responsible for flying the aircraft safely but he represented his employer’s and suppliers’ (Airbus and Rolls-Royce) brands. In the days, months and years that followed he neutralized sensationalist media and highlighted that the safety and training culture within Qantas combined with the safety and robustness of the Airbus A380 were the reasons why the incident ended without loss of life.

Richard shies away from individual praise and continually states that it was a team effort – he is right. But make no mistake, had QF32 ended in disaster, and it very easily could have, then he would have accepted sole responsible for the loss of life. That’s the burden of leadership – you don’t get to blame others.

Captain de Crespigny is a classic example of a Jim Collins Level 5 leader and he continued to fly A380s for Qantas until 2020 – when COVID forced retirement. Just as he’s done his entire career, he walks the cabin on long haul flights and talks with passengers. He believes that a good leader has to be seen and nothing reinforces a culture of friendly service more than leaders exposing themselves to customers. Richard de Crespigny’s also knows that no cabin crew want to see passengers complaining about service to the Captain. He has behaved this way his entire career because he is committed to giving passengers their best possible experience. He even built an online community for all the passengers to connect and help deal with their fears or need for additional information.

After reading the book QF32 and also after interviewing him for several hours, I formed the view that Captain de Crespigny embodies the following philosophies to which every leader should aspire:

• Be an unrivalled expert and passionate about what you do. Richard’s intimate knowledge of the A380 helped him manage its systems in a crisis and lead the team with clarity.
• The job is to provide a great experience for customers [passengers], not fulfill the role technically [fly the plane safely].
• Avoid complacency and don’t make assumptions. It is the things you do not know that can get you. Be positively paranoid and manage every conceivable risk.
• Teamwork is everything. Communicate clearly and ensure that everyone knows their role and is empowered to perform it.

The Qantas A380, Nancy-Bird Walton, which was operating as QF32 on November 4th, 2010 is now back in the air after what was reportedly the longest and most expensive aircraft repair in aviation history. Fly with Airbus, Qantas and Rolls-Royce with confidence – companies that have great cultures.

My advice for every business is to build a great customer-centric culture and empower your people to passionately represent your brand in all channels, especially social.

While I’m on the topic of aviation, here’s what I learned from my own plane crash when flying an aerobatic biplane many years ago.

Below is a keynote I did in 2012 talking about QF32. I have since been converted by Richard to now be a huge fan of Airbus! Also, not all Qantas pilots prefer Boeing – certainly not Richard. Both are brilliant designers and impeccable manufacturers but the philosophy of flight control software laws are different.

See Air Crash Investigations documentary here. Read the Transport Safety Bureau report here. Link to my full white paper: Everyone Represents the Brand – How to Create a Customer Centric Culture.

The post Leadership Lessons From Air Crash Investigation QF32 (Airbus A380) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Throughout his career at media agencies and publishers, Ricky has worked with major global and local brands within prominent categories, including FMCG, auto, finance and retail.

Prior to joining Twitch, Ricky was the Managing Director of Unruly (News Corp/Tremor) for three years where he led the sales, operations and other business functions. During Ricky’s tenure the business grew to be one of the most profitable (EBITDA) in the APAC region. Before changing lanes into the sales side, Ricky spent 11 years at the buyers’ side. He was at GroupM, with the last years leading Maxus (Wavemaker) investment nationally as Head of Investment.

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

My first sales role was as an account exec for Mediasmart, the publisher of for the Yellow and White Pages—talk about the heydays of digital advertising!

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This is a cliche for a reason—networks are incredibly important in the sales field.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?

From my early days selling lemonade in front of my parents’ house to being named employee of the year for customer service in my teens working at McDonald’s, I’ve always had a knack for sales—it’s seemingly built into my DNA. I love conversing, building connections and creating positive outcomes with people in all parts of my life. This coupled with my real passion for commercial acumen and hustler soul made jumping into sales a no brainer.

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?

The two most important mantras I live by are:

• Progression before perfection. I truly believe in this manifesto as time is our biggest, most sacred commodity. Everything you as an individual or a team do has to be accountable—there should be a value proportion attached to your work, with you ready to sell it at any given time. This thinking also helps to continually improve new iterations of your offerings rather than waiting for the perfect solution, as there’s no such thing as ‘being perfect’. For example, steam engines haven’t been reinvented since the 17th century—they’ve instead been consistently evolved in line with customer needs and modern technologies. This analogy should be applied to everything we do.

• Be your biggest devil’s advocate. This is the only way to keep up and remain relevant as times change. I fundamentally believe that we need to stop sitting in meetings where everyone agrees with everything said, like the group thinks the world is full of waterfalls and rainbows. Don’t kid yourself! Instead, throw tough questions in, be ready for uncomfortable situations and pressure test every scenario. If there is one thing we’ve learnt in 2020, it’s that there’s no such thing as future-proofing!

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?

Without a doubt, relationships, honesty and transparency.

6. What did/do you love about sales?

Outside of hitting targets and the multiple benefits attached to this, I get such adrenaline when there’s an all-round positive outcome for every party involved. Any sale is ultimately the byproduct of hard work, multiple meetings, negotiations, contracts and everything else in the middle that’s agreed upon along the way. So at a macro level, you could almost attribute a sale to eternal ‘happiness’.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?

Winning and losing are essential elements of every sales process. However, my biggest dislike has to be not receiving feedback from a lost deal as it means you can’t truly unpack why you weren’t successful in converting the deal and learnings can be missed. There’s so much emphasis on winning, yet the biggest insights come from losing.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.

This has to be unlocking one of the biggest FMCG clients in a previous role. After spending no money with my team for several years, they became one of our highest-value clients in the ANZ region. This didn’t happen overnight—it was off the back of constantly asking the client for feedback on why they didn’t see us as a partner in the first place. We worked constantly on their feedback and it paid off. I’m proud to say we became their best partner in recent decades.

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?

‘People with problems need solutions’. Some time ago, I attended an Elkiem High Performance Masterclass, and this sentiment has stuck with me ever since. Solutions are fairly easy to locate within your arsenal once you know what the exact problem is, so spend time sharpening your axe!

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

Know your audience. One size fits all has never worked in the fashion industry and will never work for any organisation trying to keep its customers happy. Be agile, be dynamic and always bring the customer lens to everything you do.

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

The three key attributes of a successful leader are:

• Trust
• Respect
• Like

My advice is to spend your time on the first two elements—once your team trusts and respects you, the last likeability will come automatically. Too often can leaders spend time on getting the team to like them, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean they trust or respect you.

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

Your words should never travel far away from your actions. To foster a high-performing sales culture, you need to lead by example in everything you do. Soft-skills are essential here—empathy, emotional intelligence, resilience for your team and clients are all just as important as objection handling. Success starts from the top, so walk the walk.

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?

Embrace the disruption or be disrupted. Across my advertising career, I’ve tapped into so many industries and have to say this applies to everything we’ve seen in the past decade and what’s coming up over the next 10 years. I’m sure some in the taxi and hotel industries are still scratching their heads on what went wrong, but really, most could see the dominance of Uber and Airbnb coming miles away.

This ladders back to the importance of creating a culture of self-critique. Put your own ideas, offering and solutions through a pressure cooker, then view them through the customer lens. If you’re struggling to be your best devil’s advocate, bring in a third-party for some brutal honesty. Reflecting even on the events of 2020, it’s clear that every organisation needs to have a strong focus on the ‘why’. The stronger the reasons, the wider your choices.

All this said, I’m really excited to see what the next 10 years have in store and I truly believe Twitch is the future of entertainment. Throughout the shelter-in-place restrictions, we’ve experienced an unprecedented surge in the number of hours our audience is watching and all-time high levels of engagements with not just gaming content but also sports, music, entertainment—you name it. People want connection and it’s what our powerhouse community does best. My big, hairy, audacious goal is to cement our place among Australia’s biggest media networks, so watch this space!

14. What are some of the biggest challenges in moving from management into executive leadership?

As your career progresses, you move from a part-time to a full-time delegator and spending time on being proactive than reactive. This is all while being accountable to every function within the organisation. To find true success, you need to embed a leadership team at the management level who are respected and trusted by business and reflect your wider decision-making process.

15. How do you balance life and work?

To be honest, my work-life balance isn’t great at the moment. With the work from home arrangements, I’m still learning to differentiate between where work finishes and home starts. However, I’m getting better at this every day. What’s helping me is to implement walking meetings, move away from my desk every hour or so, and shut all devices for a minimum of three to four hours when the ‘workday’ finishes, like I do when physically working at a place.

16. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I’m really gifted to be surrounded by some amazing friends and family. Usually, my spare time’s filled with hanging out with them, which sees my wife and I enjoying lots of breakfasts, dinners and even house parties. By no means am I a pro at golf, but I love to hit the greens every now and then. Really, I love a good workout—there’s nothing better than working up a sweat at the gym and getting the endorphins pumping to destress.

About Twitch

Launched in 2011, Twitch is a global community that comes together each day to create multiplayer entertainment: unique, live, unpredictable experiences created by the interactions of millions. It brings the joy of co-op to everything, from casual gaming and world-class esports to anime marathons, music, and art streams. Twitch also hosts TwitchCon, the biggest community event of the year, where tens of thousands of people come together to celebrate and connect with others who share their interests and passions. We’re always live at Twitch. Stay up to date on all things Twitch on Twitter and on our Blog.

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The blueprint for sales success in an enterprise company is unlikely to work for small business. Likewise, sales strategies for highly regulated industries such as healthcare and financial service are unlikely to work for retail.

Opinions (and input) from external parties who have industry experience, matter. Your direct competitors might be well positioned to locate the missing pieces to the puzzle but the chances in having a competitor share sensitive information, is highly unlikely and more importantly anti-competitive.

‘Trial and error’ is an option adopted by many, although the opportunity cost of fixing an error or pivoting in a reactive manner, is high once you’ve committed time and resources to achieve plan A. Sometimes, there is no turning back or a suitable plan B.

When formulating or choosing a strategy, using quantitative data will help to realign emotion and intuition reducing the need of navigating blindly and relying on guesswork. If your ‘gut feel’ is right at least 51% of the time (technically a majority win), the expected value from a coin toss will only deliver hope rather than certainty.

The global State of Sales 2020 report, conducted between 13 May to 30 June 2020, surveyed 5,951 full-time sales professionals across Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East and – all respondents were third-party panelists (not limited to Salesforce customers).

The top four sales tactics for success over the next 12 months were:

1. Increased flexibility with customers

2. Improved data quality and accessibility

3. Simplified sales processes

4. Personalised outreach

Why is each strategy important and how sales leaders can do it better?

4. Personalising Outreach

Authored by Jo Schonheim, Head of Sales and Marketing of True Sydney.

By (my) definition, personalising outreach refers to the tailoring of targeted outbound marketing. It can be personalised either to the individual recipient or organisation, and in a myriad of ways. Either addressing something about the recipient (their name, their role, a personal attribute), the company or industry they’re in. Mission critical, it includes something specifically of value to them: an industry insight, a personalised offer or CTA (Call to Action).

The intention is to demonstrate empathy; so the recipient feels seen and understood. Two of the most important things us mere mortals crave. This is powerful in forging foundations of rapport and connection. 

It’s important as the more personalised it is, the more likely it is to resonate. The more powerfully it resonates, the more likely it is to have impact and elicit an emotional response in a prospect. Afterall, emotion drives behaviour. And behaviour drives action.

It’s also rare, meaning it stands out and cuts through the noise.

Can you remember receiving a personalised piece of Marketing?
What was your reaction?
What was your opinion of the organisation after reading it?
Did you sit up and pay more attention?

I’m guessing worst case, you lingered over it longer then you normally would, before fast filing it? And best case, it sparked enough curiosity causing you to act on the CTA, and click through?  Am I right?

All great outbound marketing shouldn’t be to try and SELL. And by great, I mean effective. It should be to pique enough CURIOSITY to move prospects to the NEXT STEP (through the CTA).

How Can Sales Leaders Can Do It Better? 

1. Less is more. Like time with family, it’s Quality over Quantity.
Gone are the days of “it’s a numbers game”. Volume is for spam.
And there’s no ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card if you get slapped with a Spam filter.
Niche your focus when building your Leads List so you can afford the time to personalise your marketing.

2. Precision is everything; without a target, you’re bound to hit it.
Get laser focused on not just WHO you want to target, but WHAT you want to achieve. What’s the Objective? Get clear on what success looks like for your outbound reach. 
Define the Outcome and reverse engineer achieving it.

3. One hour’s thinking, 5 minutes work – not 5 mins thinking, an hour’s work
Don’t be that douche that failed to plan. Think it through and craft your message (and yes, typos and poor grammar erode trust and credibility faster than one dares to imagine).
Slack input equals sloppy output, which will just see you work harder, to achieve less. 

4. Empathy: take time to know what you don’t know.
Research, prepare and share valuable insights. Insights could be talking to their pain points, developments in their industry or movement in their market. Your objective is to deliver value straight out of the gates; capturing their attention in the first few seconds. No more powerful way to do so, than to personalise with empathy, so it feels like you’re talking to them, about them in a personal human-to-human way. Remember, resonance drives action.

5. Being dry as toast is not going to land the lead.
You are not a robot. So bin the corporate speak. Remember, you are a human speaking to another human. Use a human voice, in a professional tone. Don’t be afraid to be a little cheeky; capturing attention is different to seeking attention.

The Golden Rule: Resonance is Everything.

3. Simplifying the Sales Process

Authored by Bill Beedie, Head of Sales ANZ at Houston We Have

Establishing a Sales Process in a sales organisation used to be fairly straight forward. The Sales Process was a set of repeatable steps that a sales person and business would undertake to move a prospective buyer from Suspect through to Client. Whilst allowing for industry/company variations the main stages would involve: Prospecting, Preparation and Approach, Demonstrations/Presentations, Negotiations, Close and Implementation.

It was ALL about The Seller’s Sales Process!. How we reached out, educated, persuaded and eventually won over the client.

TODAY EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED – from Buyer Push to Customer Pull.

Sophisticated buyers of today do their own research online through a variety of digital and social platforms and by the time they reach your business they will likely know what they want, what you offer, and what price they want to move forward.

The “Buyers Journey” is now the start of the sales process and the implications of this are profound for sales operations not yet on board with this new paradigm.

Is the Modern Sales process now more or less complex? New processes may first appear daunting, complex and fragmented, however once the rules, processes and technology of the new game are embedded, it will prove to be simpler. We will get more done, using less resource, to reach target markets more effectively and do business faster.

How Can Sales Leaders Can Do It Better? 

1. Marketing and Sales need to work seamlessly to deliver high value experiences for new and current clients
2. Don’t focus on your product or service (no one cares), it’s what your solution or service does to assist clients with their problems, so do you really know your customer and your value proposition
3. If clients are researching online, can they find you, will they see value in how you profile your services, goods, and culture, will they be comfortable you can assist them in their business
4. When clients reach out for information is your business adding value to their investigation, i.e. quality digital assets, value add white papers, testimonials, etc
5. Are your sales team members skilled using online tools for investigation and know how to professionally contact and follow up
6. Are your sales people adding value to the clients “Journey”, clients are looking for things they don’t know: insights on business, their market, trends in the industry, examples of how you’ll make it work for them
7. Traditional soft sales skills in business, negotiating skills, relationship building, are still critical but now need to be applied in the new paradigm, is your sales team digitally enabled?

It’s an extraordinary time in B2B sales and business leaders and sales leaders alike need to stay on top of current trends and invest in technology and their people to stay abreast of the challenges and take full advantage of the benefits, the digital and social media age offer. 

2. Improved data quality and accessibility – Data breadth vs Data Depth

Authored by, David Christiansen,  Director, Sales and Marketing at ACP Solutions

As sales people, we are always after a sale made easier by a higher close probability and a shortened sales cycle. Sounds easy enough. Target the right person or people within your ideal customer profile and bang – they are ready to buy and they’ll pay what you propose. Wish it was that simple right? How do I get my hands on a list that has the right coverage with the right data elements which can then be fed to my SDR’s or even better, my CRM to support my pipeline requirements to cover 4X quota?

These questions have been the challenge for data sellers for years and where they choose to invest their resources in data build with breadth or depth continues to provide headaches for all sides. Do I buy the data set that has the coverage I am after or do I buy the smaller data set that has the data elements or data depth that I value?

For years this was a challenge I had in my role as a Director responsible for marketing data at a firm recognised as having the best data quality and data coverage in Australia. Building and maintaining data hygiene with the right elements, containing the right insights with high quality analytics appended is so expensive especially when these records may not be ordered by the clients I rely on to help me build them. How to price is them is a whole other discussion altogether.

We know that certain data elements in a business record do not change as often as other data elements. Addresses, company names, Chief Executive name and even their email address is pretty much publicly available. Additionally, these people are marketed to constantly and have filters protecting them against salespeople like us to stop them being bombarded.

Each person on earth will generate an average of about 1.7 MB of data per second. Daily smartphone and computer usage means that the volume of data is expanding rapidly. The average user shares dozens of media links daily, and all of that has to be stored somewhere. There is too much data to manage if you don’t have a plan to consume it.

How Can Sales Leaders Can Do It Better? 

1. Choose data depth and recency over data breadth.
2. Analytics, insights, and automation augment your ability, they don’t replace you.
3. Recognise the value of YOUR time and talent. Be smart with how you use data.
4. We all have a part to play building data and making it actionable.

1. Flexibility with customers – how flexible are your team?

Authored by, Charmaine Keegan, Sales and Mindset Training Specialist of Smarter Selling

Flexibility with customers is going to be the top skill required during 2021. This is going to the pivotal difference between winning a piece of business – or not.

Flexibility with customers, what does that even mean? It means you are engaging with your customers in a way that suits them, and not dictated by what suits you.

Many salespeople have ‘their way’ (their default if you will) of how they interact and engage with clients.  COVID saw many face-to-face reps unravel when they couldn’t conduct business in their ‘normal’ way. 

Their challenges were suddenly building up – the customer won’t return my call, I can’t see their reactions, they can’t see me, they don’t want to jump onto zoom etc.

Quite simply they have never had to exercise the prescribed skills. They are not used to being flexible.

Yet others embraced the opportunity to increase and enhance their skills, recognising that adopting different approaches was going to better their position.

This realisation that customers need us to work with them in different ways, and our need to be flexible, starts with that very first interaction when you are trying to convert them into a customer.

Learning how to handle clients preferring, for example, to only communicate through live chat or email, we as salespeople need to be able to foremost accept (not begrudge) these different communication methods to then be highly skilled in handling multiple ways of engaging, so that we are able to form a relationship, get the intel required, position ourselves as the trusted advisor and then put forward a compelling reason for that client to buy into us and ultimately get positive results.

What can a leader do to help their team be more flexible?

As a leader you can drive this by essentially being flexible yourself. Not complaining when a client asks to email rather than speak on the phone.  Adjusting positively to the ‘new normal’ (you over that term yet?).  Getting your team highly skilled on live chat, how to handle enquires exclusively through email. How to be polished on video conferencing. How to be resilient and adaptable and of course, arming them on how to professionally give the client a reason as to why jumping on a VC or seeing you face-to-face will be of benefit to them – but never assuming that that is the only way to communicate.

Flexibility in sales means acquiring a sophisticated, intelligent approach where you adjust your method to suit the client, and at all times, regardless of how you are engaging with them, you position yourself as the trusted advisor and solution provider.  It’s about being open to adjusting your approach, style and manner befitting to your client.

We call it ‘the dance’ i.e. You shouldn’t be forcing the client into dancing your way but adjust your footwork to match theirs. After all, our jobs as salespeople is to make the interaction seamless and easy – make it easy for the client to buy of you.

Keep up that fancy footwork.

Publisher’s note – I thank Jo Schonheim, Bill Beedie, David Christiansen and Charmaine Keegan for sharing their views and I encourage you to connect with them on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer – you can download the State of Sales report as it details drivers for business growth and resilience based on statistical feedback from thousands of sales professionals who will encounter many of the same challenges as your organisation.

This article is not a sponsored post and has been written independently of commercial influence. Head Of Sales is funded by advertising from many organisations including Salesforce.

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1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?
My current role is actually my very first role in sales! That said, having come from a marketing background, I have always worked closely with sales-based colleagues.

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?
Alignment – both internally and externally.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?
I was the Marketing Manager at Hyne when the National Sales & Marketing Manager’s role became available. The business wanted to promote from within, and I had a vision (that had been developed over my previous 4 years in the business) – supported by a track record – for where we needed to be and how to get there.

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?
My overarching approach is to a) think ‘strategy first’, b) understand the data, fact and detail of your subject matter, and c) be very clear and honest with people.

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?
A sound strategy, well documented and communicated planning, and buy-in from all of the key people involved.

6. What did/do you love about sales?
At times, sales can feel like the toughest job in the world – which actually serves to make the good days great; a feeling of reward that I’ve not yet found elsewhere.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?
The constant pressure to perform is always there, but it’s also what makes a sales role so exciting!

8. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?
The best advice I was given was to “… forget trying to be everything to everyone!”. This is sometimes hard for sales professionals to accept in the customer space, but the reality is that it’s simply not possible at all times. A well-constructed strategy and planning should assist in providing this direction i.e. what we are not doing, and with who.

9. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

The art of the humble enquiry.

10. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?
Drive, organisational discipline, knowledge of your subject matter and excellent communication skills are the 4 cornerstones in my view. It’s also important, I believe, to have the ability to inspire your people.

11. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?
Understanding what makes each individual team member tick. I do this through monthly 1-on-1 discussions where the topic is the individual and how they’re going, not the outcomes of the job that they’re doing.

12. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?
As an Australian manufacturer competing in a global commodity market, it’s become hugely important to leverage the available data and technology. This is absolutely true in the sales space also, where closely watched customer performance measures demand the best possible service level at the lowest possible cost base. Importantly, interpersonal relationships are far less influential and for many salespeople, this pivot towards a data driven customer decision-making process is a challenge. But for those who are agile enough to stay ahead of this evolution, an opportunity.

13. How do you balance life and work?
The more important something is, the greater the need to plan for it. So if having a balance in life is important, in my experience, you need to make sure your calendar reflects that accordingly. Time with family and friends, to spend on hobbies and simply to relax is always scheduled and within reason protected in my calendar.

14. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Eating out with family and friends, attempting to get fit and riding motorcycles!

About Hyne Timber

Hyne Timber is one of Australia’s largest producers of sawn timber products, a leader in preservative treatments and an iconic supplier to the Australian construction industry. Operating throughout the Eastern Seaboard and exporting timber to a number of global markets, Hyne Timber is a leader in technology implementation, product development and quality control with a world class manufacturing capacity and environmental standards that underpin our unwavering commitment to sustainably grown plantation timber production and supply.

For more information visit https://www.hyne.com.au.

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Jo is a straight talking, values led, results driven leader, coaching her team for high performance through EQ development, accountability and strategy.
Leadership in servitude, both for customers and team alike, is her true north. 

With a richly diverse career spanning start-up to corporate, Jo was a 4 x Awarded entrepreneur by 25, and has worked in National Account Management, Buying, Product Development and as Chief Rainmaker for a Business Accelerator. 

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

My first sales role was for the company I started at 25 in costume jewellery design. As an entrepreneur, I started out doing everything. Without sales, you’re dead in the water. Needless to say, I learnt how to swim pretty quickly!

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

That everyone has a story.

“You never know, what you don’t take the time to know”.

After serving 38,000+ paying customers over 7 years in business, I’m convinced that working in retail is tantamount to a pHD in humanity!

Skills in rapport building, forging connections quickly, with almost anyone, have been lifelong lessons, not just in sales, but in every relationship.

Sales are a type of relationship. They’re beyond a transaction.  Ultimately, it’s your ability to shape someone’s thinking, through asking the right questions; the sharing and incepting of ideas.
Sales are a reflection of your power to influence.
                                                                  

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?
I never set out for a career in sales. But I was always passionate about business; about entrepreneurship in particular. The intersection where imagination meets pragmatism.

I discovered my talent in sales almost by accident. But that’s a story for another time. Essentially, I love people, and I’m endlessly fascinated by consumer psychology. We’d all like to believe we’re rational creatures, deciding by logic but the truth is, we decide with our hearts.

And I stem from a long line of entrepreneurs, brought up on my grandfather’s philosophy, that “people do business with people”. I see myself as a lifelong student of the mastery of human connection, empathy and influence.                                

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?
My approach to sales is a little contrarian and unorthodox.
I don’t believe the customer is always right, as not everyone is the right customer. 

“I don’t believe getting to ‘yes’ is the be all and end all”.

If you had to pigeonhole me, I am a Challenger salesperson. I believe the fastest way to YES, is through NO and I actively seek out my prospects’ objections.

I’m also big on selection criteria. My prospect and I mutually assess one another, ensuring there’s a solid partnership and values synergy. I don’t want to do business with just anyone. It has to be a right-fit. 

My top 3 values are: connection, growth and authenticity.
                                                                 

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?
1. empathy
2. powerful listening and insightful questions
3. a willingness to serve.
                                                                  

6. What did/do you love about sales?
I love meeting new people; the privilege of meeting them where they’re at, through curiosity and empathy, and then reverse engineering a solution to realise their ambition, or solve their problem.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?
There’s genuinely nothing I dislike about sales.

There are some approaches to sales management, however, that I’m not a fan of :

• Carrots and sticks as ‘motivators’. We’re not donkeys.
• Nonsensical KPIs. 
• Sales processes that aren’t customer centric.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.
I once met a client, the eve before her surgery to remove malignant tumours. She was dreading the months ahead in hospital. So she  asked to set her up with several design projects to pass the time and distract her from the pain.
It was the most meaningful sale as I knew we were contributing to her mental wellbeing, and that her finished projects would create tangible joy.

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?
Glen Carlson, from Dent Global and KPI taught me, “people will only pay for value they can SEE and RECOGNISE”.                                   

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?
To never, ever take anything personally. Rejection and objections are not to be feared. They are the ticket to the game. It means your sale is on the right track and is just beginning.

And to spend at least 85% asking questions and listening.
The trusty adage of “we have two ears and one mouth.
Use them in that order, and ratio.”                                                              

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

• Empathy; a genuine interest and care for the humans on your team. Take the time to understand their external interests and talents, and see how you can leverage that in their role. 
• Imagination and enthusiasm – people want to follow people on exciting missions. How you show up every day, is critical. Your team takes their cues from your energy; it’s contagious in fact!
• Pride – if you’re a values led organisation, then imparting the nobility of the profession should be a cinch, and it’s imperative. If you’re confident what you’re selling makes a positive impact in people’s lives, then you’re not a salesperson, you’re an evangelist.
                                                                    

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

• Psychological safety for your team; permission to bring their authentic selves to work.   
• Empower them through autonomy. Build upon their confidence and skillset so it’s exciting and liberating, not daunting and overwhelming.
• Invest in developing their EQ through coaching.
                                                                    

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?
It’s changed dramatically with a focus on VALUE and content marketing has been a big proponent in the scramble to cut through the noise. Messaging and comms has become far more sophisticated, and more personalised with powerful CRMs. Sales feels more like humans talking to humans. 

I believe empathy is finally getting the focus it deserves. It’s the heart of all things sales. As it’s at the heart of all healthy relationships; mutual value exchanges.

As companies hone their focus on values and purpose, sales are going to become less transactional and the power balance is going to shift to more of a partnership ethos. 

Microniching, thought leadership, influencers are also all major themes on a J-curve.
                    

14. How do you balance life and work?
By putting proverbial compression pants on work! Work will expand to whatever size you afford it, so I’m firm on my boundaries. When I ran my own show, I was working 110 hours a week. I learnt the hard way that burnout is long and expensive. For me now, being a high performer is not just about work, it’s about having a rich, full life where I invest in myself. If I am healthy and balanced, then I can be in flow, bring my A-game everyday and support my team.

15. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
I train 3-4 times per week in boxing and weightlifting. That for me is my meditation. I also paint portraits, love to cook and am a big fan of Blinkist, the app that allows me to ‘read’ several books a day, mostly on leadership, high performance and personal development.

About True

True is a full service advertising agency, best known for growing companies by creating and amplifying their brand stories. They use their bespoke methodology to solve the communication problems worth solving.

True believe that businesses should be a force for good in the world and that belief has been the catalyst for their alignment with the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Their latest quest is #1millionhoursofpower, where every transaction with clients and key milestones within the business result in providing renewable energy to communities in need. Their goal is 1 million hours in the next 12 months.

Ultimately, True exist to help companies craft and amplify their business narratives to the right people with the right intent at the right time, so they can grow and do more good in the world. Paying it forward because that’s how they roll. 

For more information, visit www.truesydney.com.au

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Leaders build and protect the culture of their team. Culture is made up of what your company is on the inside. It is critical that what you are on the inside is different than what is outside.

Outside vs. Inside

Outside

Outside, your people are bombarded daily with negative messages. The news and their social feeds are predominantly negative. Your people are continually barraged with news stories designed to create fear, angst, and unrest. The talk of recessions persist years after a recession ended. Stories of loss open every newscast, regardless of medium.

Your people are told that they’re not good enough, that they are somehow broken. They are told that they can’t be more, do more, have more, or contribute more. They are messaged by marketers in ways that drive them to feel as if they are inadequate and incomplete.

Inside

You have to have a message that inoculates the people you lead from negativity. Your message has to be optimistic and future-oriented. Inside has to be a place where people feel safer than they feel on the outside. Hope, promise, and possibility needs to live inside your four walls.

Inside, you must have a message to contradict and counteract these infections. A leader sees something in the individuals they lead that they don’t see in themselves, and makes it visible. They see something in a team that the team doesn’t see and brings it to light. A leader sees something in a company that the organization can’t yet see, not only making it visible, but making it possible.

It has to better inside your company than it is outside. You have to create greater certainty and greater psychological safety. You have to create a sense of community and belonging that no longer exists in neighbourhoods. You have to help enable a sense of meaning and purpose that some of your people won’t bring with them, and many won’t find outside.

No one knows if Drucker really said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If he didn’t, I believe he would support the statement—and its ramifications for leaders.

A Culture That Is Safe for Constructive Conflict

Even though they can make some people uncomfortable, disagreements and arguments are a critical part of business. Without disagreements and arguments you get groupthink, and you end up with mediocrity. When you have constructive conflict and disagree about what is right, you get a chance to explore new ideas, even ideas that make some people uncomfortable.

But constructive conflict needs to be done in a way that is safe and beneficial to the organization. “Safe” means it can’t harm the individuals that make up the organisation.

Handling Conflict

Assume good intentions: When someone disagrees with the way something is being done and engages with others around that issue, it is imperative that you assume that person has good intentions. By assuming they have good intentions, you can shift your focus to the value of the idea, instead of evaluating the individual who is brave enough to bring up the idea.

Don’t blame people for mistakes, problems, or challenges: A personal review is something different from constructive conflict, even though it might include some constructive conflict. When you blame the individual for the mistakes, the challenges, or the problems your business is experiencing, you cause people to operate from a place of fear. If you have to operate from fear, you are going to avoid constructive conflict because the repercussions are likely bad for you. Blaming people keeps organizations from solving their deepest problems, and it keeps them from growing.

Focus on generating new ideas, withholding a judgment about any idea: When you do have constructive conflict, it’s easy to dismiss another person’s ideas without giving them a fair hearing. You can very quickly get to all the reasons that something can’t or shouldn’t be done. But this isn’t how you solve problems. You solve problems when you generate new ideas and explore them before you choose one.

The healthiest cultures invite arguments and disagreements. A culture that is strong can withstand the idea of change. There are no sacred cows that must be protected. And every issue is seen as an opportunity to grow, not something to be avoided because egos are too fragile or feelings too easily hurt. Constructive conflict is necessary, and it’s incredibly valuable when done well.

Leaders Communicate the Culture

I was speaking at a conference when the CEO of the company leaned over and whispered in my ear. He said, “I am giving the same speech I’ve given the last two years. The stories are different. The examples are different, too. But it’s the same message.”

The CEO wondered whether he was wrong in doing so, and asked me what I thought. I told him, “Your message was right three years ago. It was right last year. And it’s right this year. As soon as you change your message, your people are going to be confused about who they are and where they are going. You aren’t delivering change. You’re doubling down.”

Great Leaders Relentlessly Communicate Their Message

Mission: Great leaders relentlessly communicate their company’s mission. Those who never speak of “mission,” never capture the hearts and minds of the people they have the honor to lead. Great leaders aren’t afraid to communicate about the difference their organization is making, and they remind their teams of that mission with a steady stream of examples.

Vision: Great leaders also take every opportunity to remind the people they lead where they are going, how they are going to get there, and who they are going to become. They communicate this vision, knowing that they win converts slowly and over time.

Values: A leader leads through her values. What is important to her is important to her organization. What she ignores, they will also ignore. Great leaders draw a line in the sand separating “who we are” from “who we will never be.” I know one leader who refuses to make money from his vendors, money his competitors take. I know another who never stops talking about caring. Their companies live those values.

Who We Are: Effective leaders talk about their competition. They explain to the people they lead how they are different from their competitors, why they do things different, and why it matters. By talking about these things, they help the people they lead understand their place in the world.

As a leader, it is impossible to over- communicate in any of these areas. It is possible to cause people to lose their enthusiasm if you don’t bring these ideas to life with stories, anecdotes, and examples of people getting things right. Your culture is based on actions, but it is also built on words – your words and the vision you create for your people.

A Leader’s Legacy

A leader’s legacy is easily visible. That legacy is the leaders that she has built while she had the responsibility to lead. You can’t be a leader if no one is following you. But the measure of your success as a leader isn’t the raw number of people you lead. Success isn’t measured by what you’ve accomplished with and through the people you have the honor to lead. If you produce outstanding results for your company as a leader and leave it unprepared for the future, you have failed as a leader.

Your legacy is going to be the quality of the people you led, and that is most easily measured in the quality of the leaders you have helped to build.

The best leaders help others realize their potential. A leader sees something inside some of the people they serve that those people often can’t yet see for themselves. One of the ways they build new leaders is by continually giving these high potentials assignments and responsibilities that stretch them. They push the high potential to take on a little more than he is ready to take on. And each time the high potential grows into his role, the leader pushes him into something that once again tests his boundaries.

Great Leaders Share These Traits

A Compelling, Inspiring Purpose and Vision:

If you are going to lead, you are going to have to create followers. So, where are you taking us? Why should we want to go there, and more still, why should I want to go there? A leader provides a clear, compelling vision that inspires others to act. Without that vision, you aren’t a leader; you’re an administrator.

A Burning Desire to Win:

For my money, I want a leader who loves a good fight. I want someone with a fire in their belly and an insatiable desire to win. A leader knows that her organization is competing, maybe against direct competitors, maybe for attention, maybe for donations. A leader can’t be someone who is okay with the losing; they have to hate losing, learn from it, and go back and compete again.

An Unshakeable Optimism:

No one wants to follow a pessimist. No one wants a leader who believes all is lost. That isn’t something a leader can be. A leader can’t be the person who is full of fear and loathing when it comes to the future. Optimism is what allows you to act. A leader recognizes negatives as a burning platform and makes the decisions to move the organization she leads into a better future.

Impatience and a Sense of Urgency:

Leaders know they are playing against a clock. They never believe they have enough time. A number of U.S. Presidents (maybe all of them) have had calendars with the days they have remaining. They know that whatever they are going to get done has to be done now—if not sooner. They have to be impatient for results and lead their organization with a sense of urgency.

An Extraordinary Emotional Intelligence:

There are countless stories about great leaders who were nasty, foul, and completely lacking in emotional intelligence. They are exceptional, not so much as leaders, but in that they are the exception. Great leaders have very high emotional intelligence. They can work a room. They rely on their powers of persuasion and not their formal authority because they know persuasion is more effective. A leader is in the “people business,” and that means they need an extraordinary emotional intelligence.

A Desire to Help Others Grow:

A poor leader from a dominator hierarchy looks at their people as a means to an end. A great leader looks at their people as the end. They focus a good part of their time and attention on helping the people they lead grow and develop. A leader builds future leaders. They pull people up. They nurture people and teach others to do the same. A great leader knows that their legacy is how the organization performs after they are gone.

Great leaders know that they are building a leadership factory. They build leaders who in turn work to build new leaders. They pass on to the leaders they are building all that they have learned, their vision, their mission, and their values. These new leaders do the same, building the next generation of leaders behind them. Creating leaders propels the whole organization forward and helps the organization to reach its full potential–along with all of those within it.

Did you miss?

Part 1- The Do’s & Dont’s?

Part 2 – The Non-negotiables and Accountability

Part 3 – Managing People

The post An Expert Guide To Sales Leadership (Part 4) – Protecting Culture & Legacy appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Joining Commvault in 2020, as Regional Vice President of Partner and Alliances, Dino is responsible for managing the company’s partner program, strategy, and execution, across Asia Pacific and Japan.

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

I’ve always been in the IT industry. I started as a programmer writing code in a room for eight hours a day, back before smoking in enclosed spaces was regulated. After two years I moved into my first pre-sales role as a Sales Engineer. Here, sales reps would bring me into meetings as the ‘technical person’, but because they were technical sales, I always tended to be the person talking the most.

One day I said to myself, ‘Hey, I could do this sales role without the rep’. Funnily enough, not long after, the sales lead was out sick for week and I was brought in to look after the account — during this time, I closed the deal! This is probably the biggest deal I’ve ever closed in my sales career, and it wasn’t even me as the salesperson so I didn’t get the commission! It was my first real taste of what could be, so from here I went from pre-sales into a full sales role carrying a quota.

2. It was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

During my pre-sales days, I experienced so many different personalities and it soon became clear that the most successful salespeople were empathetic with their customers. These reps were  good listeners, who also put themselves in the shoes of their customer to understand what their needs were from both a business and personal perspective. In understanding the customer in a holistic way and establishing a rapport, it became clear that these relationships opened up other opportunities with the customer.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?

What really struck me about sales was the dynamic nature of the role. My time as a Sales Engineer helped me realise that developing quick rapport with customers was one of my core strengths and something I enjoyed.

The aspects you’d expect, like making a lot of money and solving customer’s challenges, came after. I was based in Sydney, working across the CBD and regions state-wide, which challenged me to adopt different approaches for each customer. To diversify and create new relationships, I had to actively apply critical thinking, new strategies and understand the market.

Sales is anything but stagnant, and I thrive with the interpersonal relationships — had I know this sooner, I likely wouldn’t have become a programmer!

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?

Three values that underpin my approach to sales are:

• Accountability: It’s the number one tenet I uphold in everything I do, and I expect it from my team as well
• Be well-prepared: From a customer meeting to a quarterly business review and even an internal planning session, I’ve learnt the hard way that you can’t be prepared enough
• Empathy: Being empathetic to your customers but also to the team you manage as a sales leader

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?

Integrity, accountability and transparency. These factors are all important in establishing credibility with customers as ultimately, they want to do business with people that they trust.

Holistically, sales success is often determined by the numbers — and yes, this is important — but customer is more important. A customer will always remember the things that you do for them, and these may not necessarily relate to back to meeting your quota.

Back in the 90’s, I had a customer who was in trouble with their network — it was down, and they needed help to get it back up. It was the Australian Olympic Committee when they were preparing for the 2000 Olympics and I knew they didn’t have any budget for this project, so I corralled another technical-minded person and we went out to help them get back up and running. It was a weekend job, it wasn’t an easy fix and we didn’t charge the customer, but we were happy to do it.

We didn’t hear from them for about three months, but down the track they came back remembering this moment. They valued the effort that we went to and our trust went through the roof — all because we put the customer first before our quota, before the numbers. Ultimately, if you put your customers at the forefront and look after them, everything else will fall into place.

6. What did/do you love about sales?

Frankly, I sold myself short when I became a programmer — I thought I was an introvert, but boy, was I wrong! I love how you build friendships through your relationships with customers, in fact, I still talk to my former client from AOC to this day.

I love that you get to meet customers, understand their business and personal needs, then take on the challenge of coming up with a value position that helps them achieve their business goals and grow their career. Sales has taken me across continents, from working in California to speaking at conferences across the Asia Pacific, so it really is borderless.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?

I dislike when the business and customer aren’t aligned, meaning we can’t put the customer first. I’ve worked at an organisation where our business as a vendor was like ‘putting a square peg through a round hole’ — what we were trying to sell wasn’t aligned to what customers wanted or needed, and we were trying to force the sale.

This is an interesting example, as the company wasn’t always like that — this change was driven by a revenue number, and to hit the sales targets they changed their approach and put the customer last. Fortunately, this changed the next quarter, as the business realised it was impacting their customer retention.

The takeaway is that not putting the customer first can have a long-term negative effect on your organisation.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.

Back to the late 90’s when I was a SE and went out to take care of an account while the sales rep was out sick for a week, I really had to dive right in and fill the sales person’s shoes.

I worked probably 10 hours a day trying to close the deal as the customer had a hard deadline that we needed to meet. This deal had been in the works for six months, so the hours of work that’d been invested were weighing heavy on my shoulders. I closed the AUD$2.5 million deal, which at that time and for an organisation of that size was a big deal.

What’s so memorable about this experience isn’t the commission — which went to the sales rep — it’s that it gave me a real taste of what sales was like. I was exposed to the CEO, CIO and procurement to negotiate, and I had to learn on the job as there was no one to show me how to talk too these people, but I was able to. This was a real pivot point in my career that showed me there was more than just pre-sales — there was a bigger opportunity out there, plus a bigger commission check.

I have to say, the sales rep was very generous when he came back from sick leave. We celebrated the success and told the whole world about it, including giving me kudos in front of our organisation. He celebrated the success with the people who deserved it, which showed me the importance of revelling in the wins and providing the accolades to everyone involved.

And yes, he took the team out and I don’t think it was just dinner either. He bought a watch for me too because he realised he was making a commission while I wasn’t and thought, “Okay, this guy deserves it.”

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?

The customer relationship is everything, so being empathetic, understanding the customer’s needs and putting them first is essential for any salesperson. I learnt the importance of transparency early on — always being open and honest with the customer about what you can and can’t do and setting realistic expectations.

I’ve always approached sales by getting to know my customers on a personal level and building genuine, authentic relationships, which reinforce that you’re not just in it for the revenue. At our core, we’re all human and we often relate to hobbies and personal passions outside of the office as opposed to our day-to-day work.

I look after Asia Pacific and Japan, so how I approach this varies per country. Australia’s a sports-mad nation, so I always make an effort to understand what sport and team the customer follows. I’m a rugby coach and referee in my spare time, so this comes easily! I have a note on my phone where I jot this down, and my customers are always surprised when I bring up recent news about their team or what’s happening in the sport itself. In Japan, it’s all about the saké, while karaoke is big in Korea and China, so our dinners always include something extra! I always try to give the Korean & Chinese songs a crack and make a fool of myself, but I think my customers like me more for this! – a willingness to understand and assimilate into their culture.

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

To always put the customer first, before the number. It’s easy to get wrapped up by the revenue targets and your potential commission, so that it consumes your life. But, this can have consequences for long term customer relationships. If I’d known this from the beginning, it would have helped me a great deal.

If I were  to give any advice to a new salesperson, it would be to live, breathe and die by the customer. When you’re focused on the customer, everything else will fall into place.

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

There are a few key traits I believe are essential for sales leaders:

• Empathy, not just for your customers, but also your team
• Passion and belief in what you do and the goals you’re targeting
• Being highly engaged – if you’re not, how can you expect it from your team or customers

Goal alignment is also critical, and there are nice parallels to my rugby union coaching here, as there’s a lot of strategy involved. I was a rugby coach before I was a sales leader, and the mentoring aspects are quite similar. Before we go into a match, we’re talking about what our goal is and breaking down the strategy to achieve this. I also speak to each individual about how their role on will help to reach this goal, which fosters that ‘one team’ mentality. I use a similar approach with my sales team for meeting our quarterly targets — we talk through the strategy together, and make sure each team member understands how their role contributes to the overall success of the team and the business.

One area many leaders can overlook is celebrating the successes, but taking the time to revel in the wins, acknowledge each individual who contributed and share the accolades with everyone in your organisation is critical for a high-performing team.

At Commvault, we love to celebrate the successes. With COVID, we haven’t been able to get people together, but we still share accolades on Zoom and email with the wider team. We’ve also sent t baskets to team members as a thank you of their hard work and effort to hit some big targets. I do miss the in-person celebrations and my team is full of extraverts, so we’re itching to get back out there when it’s safe to do so.

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

Like with rugby coaching, it’s all about having a plan and communicating with each individual what their role is to help the team reach the overarching goal.

One thing I’m excited to implement at Commvault is a social justice program where our teams can work with a local organisation like Habitat for Humanity or a soup kitchen to achieve a shared goal outside of work. Everyone is human, and there’s an innate part within us where we want to do good and help. Initiatives like this are priceless for building culture within a team as they bring out the best in people, while bringing everyone closer together.

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?

The last 10 years has seen drastic and rapid advancement for the data market, fast-tracked by the pandemic this year. Data volumes are growing exponentially, and with 5G underway, data will grow at even faster speeds.

For businesses, if the right data management approach is not taken, we will have a big problem. Public awareness and spotlighting of data privacy have grown dramatically with data breaches making headlines and data privacy becoming a hot topic across the world.

The pressure is on for businesses to map out a clear data architecture for access, management, privacy and security. Particularly with remote work trends, mandating the use of devices that are secure and cloud-based systems where data management discipline can be applied will be high on the agenda for businesses.

There will be an increased focus on analytics as we recognise the value of our data and focus on abstraction in IT. Data analytics will increasingly support intelligent decision making, and strengthen compliance stances within organisations. In the coming years, expect more businesses to make analytics a priority as we customers realise new data opportunities and the possibilities enabled by AI and ML.

14. How do you balance life and work?

If there’s one thing that’s important to me, it’s making time for my family. I have four boys, all in their teenage years, so it can be a real challenge to spend quality time with each of them. Luckily, we share a love for rugby union and we’re all members of the East Rugby Club where we can enjoy each other’s company while the boys are on the field, and I’m refereeing.

There are games every weekend and trainings twice a week, so incorporating this into my schedule means I have dedicated time outside of work ensure I don’t neglect my relationships with my kids.

15. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

The free time I do have left, I spend with my wife — without her the whole thing would fall to pieces. We’ve been married for 21 years now, and the secret to our success has been enjoying a weekly date night. This standing date night is usually on a Friday or Saturday evening, where we spend two, three hours without the kids, just chatting and we do this without fail.

About Commvault

Commvault is a worldwide leader in delivering data readiness, enabling customers to intelligently manage data with solutions that store, protect, optimize and use data. Commvault software automates mind-numbing IT tasks and makes data work harder for customers— so they can gain invaluable insights for their businesses. Commvault solutions work across cloud and on-premises environments, leveraging the digital tools and procedures already in use. Commvault software, solutions and services are available from the company and through a global ecosystem of trusted partners. Commvault employs more than 2,300 highly-skilled individuals across markets worldwide, is publicly traded on NASDAQ (CVLT), and is headquartered in Tinton Falls, New Jersey in the United States.

For more information visit https://www.commvault.com/

The post Leadership Q&A – Dino Soepono appeared first on Head Of Sales.

As a leader it is your responsibility to manage your people in such a way that you get the most out of them. To do this, you need to understand what people really want, and what they don’t want.

No one wants to be micro-managed. No one wants someone to hover over their shoulder directing their work. Nor do they want their manager nagging them about what they’re doing. Most leaders don’t want to micro-manage their people. Many worry so much about micro-management that they create a culture that lacks accountability.

Most of the time, what one person perceives as micro management is actually macro-management.

Macro Activity and Macro Outcomes

The most important outcomes you need as a leader are macro. They’re high value, strategic outcomes that lead to objectives being met. The failure to achieve these outcomes creates problems for the company, for divisions or departments, and for teams. These outcomes should command people’s time and attention because the effort of the organization must be aligned with the outcomes.

If what you are doing isn’t producing the necessary outcomes, then your leader is going
to ask you to focus your efforts on the activity. If the activity isn’t aligned to big outcomes, a conversation is necessary.

Accountability Counts

Yes, I touched on this topic in Part 2, primarily around leaders holding themselves
accountable. I’m returning to it again because it’s supremely important that leaders hold themselves and their teams accountable. If an outcome isn’t being achieved, something isn’t right. It could be that someone isn’t doing what they need to do. It could also be that they aren’t effective at the actions they need to take. But as a leader, accountability starts and ends with you. That means you have to start by making sure your team knows what is expected of them, understands what needs to be done and why, and has the resources to achieve their goal.

As a leader, you are responsible for the outcomes being achieved, and that means
you are going to need to inspect the results, ask questions, understand challenges, and
remove constraints. Asking questions is not micro-management; it’s macro-management.
Requiring more—or different—activities be taken in the pursuit of your goals isn’t micromanagement either, especially if not enough action is being taken. Much of the time those who complain about being micro-managed aren’t putting forth the effort to produce results, or they’re doing something they prefer doing instead of what they need to do. Correcting this is macro-management.

Great Leaders are Compassionate

I know a great leader who had an employee in trouble. It was rather serious financial trouble, and it jeopardized her family. She wasn’t a top performer. She wasn’t anyone’s favourite. But she was one of his people, and he did what was necessary to help her out of her financial jam.

I know another great leader who helps people who don’t perform well into other roles.
Sometimes those roles are within his company. Other times, he helps them find their way into new companies where they can be successful. He doesn’t throw people out onto the street. He cares about people. You’ve no doubt heard stories like these–or you have made similar decisions yourself. Maybe you’ve done what you believed to be right, even when it wasn’t popular, and even when you have stood alone.

Compassion isn’t walking a mile in someone’s shoes. Compassion isn’t the mental process of understanding intellectually what another person is going through. Compassion is feeling in your heart what the other person feels in their heart.

Think compassion is weakness? Think compassion means that you don’t have to make
the hard decisions? Compassion is an indication of your strength. It’s an indication that you are strong enough to do something to help.

Being compassionate doesn’t mean that you aren’t tough as nails when it comes to protecting your culture. It doesn’t mean that you don’t expect your people to perform. And it doesn’t mean that you ever allow anyone to walk all over you, abuse your generosity, or take advantage of you.

Compassion means you are a living example of what it means to lead, what it means to care, and what it means to serve. Your people won’t do what you say, but they will be who you are. If you lack compassion when it comes to the human things, so will the people you have the honour to lead. People are going to remember what
you do to help others. Are you strong enough to be compassionate?

Compassion Does Not Mean Being Too Empathetic

Some leaders believe that they always need to be patient and empathetic. There is no doubt that as a default approach, this is a pretty good choice. But it isn’t always the right approach. Sometimes, to make your point felt, you need to be impatient and demanding. Serious issues may need a serious, unrelenting response.

Empathy and patience can sometimes be the wrong response. Being empathetic at the wrong time can cause people to believe that a serious issue isn’t a big deal. It can
lead people to believe that they aren’t really accountable for change when they have a serious behavioural issue or when they aren’t producing results. But worst of all, when it is your only approach, you are a pushover, and you can just as easily lose your moral authority.

Some people and some situations call for patience and empathy. Some call for coaching
and an approach that fosters learning. Sometimes you need to explain yourself
carefully. But other people and situations call for a more self-directed approach.

You Can Also Be Too Self-directed

Some leaders believe that they need to be very self-directed to be effective. Self-directed can come across as self-oriented, selfish, and oblivious to what the other person needs or
the constraints with which they are struggling. I’ve met some leaders who pride themselves on their self-directed approach. And sometimes it is exactly the right approach. This is especially true when the leader is protecting the culture
they’ve built, or when they are dealing with a legal or moral issue. There are some issues that are non-negotiable.

But unless you have the relationship that allows for self-directed communication, every time you are self-directed when it is unnecessary takes a little something out of your moral leadership. When you are unnecessarily direct and short with people–even if it’s because you are short on time and under pressure–you are making a withdrawal from your relationship.

If you’ve ever seen a coach on the sideline during a game, you’ve no doubt seen them grab a player and light them up when they are trying to make a point, rev them up, or change their state. If your approach is always high negative energy, then when you really need to call on that approach, it won’t mean anything. You will have worn out the approach.

When Problems Arise. And there will be problems.

Invariably, in business, things go wrong. People make mistakes. Sometimes they make mistakes even when they have the best of intentions. Other times, they are simply negligent. People also fail to follow directions, sometimes because they misunderstand what was necessary, and sometimes because, mistakenly, they think they know better.

Focusing on People Is the Problem

It’s easy for a leader to focus their attention on the person who made the mistake, failed, lost the client, or generally botched things up. That leader can blame the person for what went wrong by yelling at them, by embarrassing them, by threatening them, or by somehow penalising the individual. This choice is often made by a leader who believes that people are the problem. The leaders of this variety are eternally plagued with people problems.

When people don’t feel a sense of psychological safety, they don’t do their best work. They also don’t stay long.

Focus on the Problem, Improve People

Another leader, a more enlightened leader perhaps, would focus on the problem instead of the person. Instead of focusing on trying to discover “what’s wrong” with the person, they focus on the mistake, using it as an opportunity to teach the person how they made the mistake, why it is important, and how to do something different when faced with the same scenario in the future.

Instead of focusing on the failure, the enlightened leader works on recovering from
the failure. They allow the person to help with the recovery, teaching them how to do better in the future, and how to recover the next time they fail, something that is almost a certainty.

Instead of threatening, embarrassing, or punishing the person who botched things up,
they help them un-botch things. By working with people to solve problems, the enlightened leader solves the problem and builds their people at the same time. They get problems solved, and they get better people. They also create a culture of psychological safety.

If you believe that people are your problem, that belief is your problem.

Coming soon:

Part 4 – Protecting Culture & Legacy

Did you miss?

Part 1 – The Do’s & Dont’s?

Part 2 – The Non-negotiables and Accountability

The post An Expert Guide To Sales Leadership (Part 3) – Managing People appeared first on Head Of Sales.