Rule #36 Sales Meetings

The region meeting. The area meeting. The national sales meeting.

You’re at work! Get that in your head. For every moment you are

away from home, you are at work at these meetings. You are being

watched and evaluated. Am I trying to make you paranoid? No. But great

salespeople are passed over as leaders because they somehow forget this.

Part of my job entails grooming leaders in our organization through various

activities. Self-awareness means you think about what you are saying,

wearing, who you are with, and who is around.

Is there a bad vibe coming from troublemakers who can’t see the cup as

half full? Quotas too high? Comp plan not what it was? Product issues?

Management failures? Every organization has people who are negative. Be

part of the solution and help your friend see the positive—or stay clear of

those folks. Speak truth to both power and provide the answers when people

ask for your insights into problems and areas of improvement. But

don’t accuse others in your assessment by name unless it’s the prosecutor

asking point-blank. If you are asked for your opinion and your insights,

point out problems and be sure to provide a possible solution that inspires

hope that things can be fixed.

As an aside, let me say a few words about “carrying the water for others.”

It’s a mistake. In my career I got used once. Someone I thought was my

friend took advantage of my loyalty and heart for the company and our

mission. I was foolish, so it was as much my fault as theirs. But he was malicious.

This “friend” saw something in some reports that he thought was

fraudulent on the part of a salesperson in another region. This “friend”

subtly brought the information to my attention, expressed his concerns

about the issue, and expressed his fear that his own inability to address it

due to a lack of relationship with the key players would lead to a big problem

for our company. He also manipulatively stroked my ego, and I fell for

the flattery as he insisted that I was “well-respected” and that I would gain

a hearing if I looked into it. Somebody had to do something! Well I got a

hearing. In the end, however, I was the one who got an earful—from the

vice president, who had oversight in the matter. The incident got ugly

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when my “friend” launched a barrage of allegations about the matter in his

exit interview on his way out of the company, which caused a lot of grief

for the rep in question and the management team involved. A full-scale

investigation ensued. All parties were eventually found innocent.

This “friend” burned all his bridges on his way out—and I got singed, with

a stern warning from upper management to avoid getting involved in a situation

like this going forward.

They were right. If a teammate has a concern, encourage him to take his

concern to the appropriate person. Don’t you feel obligated to get

involved. Biblical wisdom in Matthew 18 basically implores us to address

problems directly or overlook them completely. A relationship is assumed

in the Matthew 18 directive, so if you don’t have one with the offending

party, go to your supervisor. In this case, my “friend” was obligated to go

to his fellow manager of the other region, not to me.

Discussing possible infractions with your fiends is just gossiping and will

only lead to problems. When you share concerns about possible wrongdoing

at work, you take another person’s livelihood into your hands. So be

careful—for everyone’s sake.

From a legal standpoint, you don’t know what lawyers know. But you can

complicate a matter exponentially without intending to if you put in an

email. So pick up the phone when you feel you need to talk to someone.

Course jesting, sexually explicit language, comments about the opposite

sex, and profanity all make you look small, perverse, and desperate.

They also signal business immaturity to anyone who is business mature

in the conversation. National sales meetings should not be an invitation

to relive your college days. That was then; why is this you now? You

are making yourself a liability. Your ability to produce revenues means

the company will tolerate you a little longer. But you are digging your

own grave at the company and leaving yourself exposed to false rumors

and accusations. Next thing you know, you will be defending yourself

to people who know what you’re like, and you will be guilty by association

based on your track record—regardless of what you didn’t do.

And in this court of opinion, that will be enough to at least scuttle your

career.

Meetings also pose the pitfall of losing credibility. Are you trying to convince

everyone you are a good guy with professional attributes? Not after

that conversation in the bar last night! They say character is who you are

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when no one is looking. Why do so many people try to build a reputation

of excellence, hoping no one from the bar last night is remembering?

As a leader in the organization, don’t minimize these things. They play out

eventually, and you will regret overlooking these flaws in your people. Set

the tone. Encourage your people to follow your lead.

If you happen to be lucky enough to have a part in planning a sales meeting,

please take note: The purpose of a sales meeting is to rejuvenate,

invigorate, and motivate. Sales is eating a lot of rejection over the course

of a year. Sales is launching out into a world every day that is too busy to

see you. Sales is not knowing where your next win will come from. Sales is

lonely. And we love it! At the meeting, pick me up. Remind me why this is

the place to be. Give me actionable ideas and tools that will make me successful

tomorrow. Show me how to use them. Give me time to practice

with them. Let me compete with and against my peers in games and contests

designed to improve my sales skills. Get me involved and engaged and

give me a chance to get out of my chair and contribute from the front.

Make use of adult learning tips and tricks to make the meeting engaging by

changing it up all the time (move rooms, panel discussions, games, workshops,

etc.)

Create an event to help me get to know my peers and their best practices.

Mandatory fun is a good thing—even when not everyone can do it. People

used to ask me if I golfed. “Once a year, when it’s free!” I would say.

(For a while that was true of running, too. A great location in a warm climate

in the middle of January at a fine resort can inspire me to go out and

run!)

Find a way for me to connect with my peers, who share a passion for things

I am most passionate about: politics, religion, and family. “Can’t talk about

those things,” you say? We talk about them plenty. You are just facilitating

activities that give us time to connect at fundamental levels and tap into

the strength of those passions. (FYI: If your conference calls are lifeless and

lack humor and engagement on the part of your team, check your last sales

meeting. People on your team probably don’t know each other well

enough to feel comfortable making jokes, poking fun, and being vulnerable

enough to share their thoughts if you didn’t find ways to help them

connect at the meeting. When was the last meeting?)

Finally, inspire us by showing us ways our jobs are making the world a better

place.

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Many salespeople gather at national sales meetings each year with nagging

questions they hope to answer as part of a decision to stay with the company

or go:

? Is this the place to be?

? Do we have a future?

? Is the company culture changing for the better or worse?

? Do we have the right leaders in place?

? Am I part of a good team or a great team?

? Can I hold on until that next great innovation in the pipeline that

leadership keeps promising will come?

Think carefully about the experience of the meeting. What is the theme of

the meeting? What are the overarching topics we need to focus on when

we leave? Who will make the most impact and be the most remembered?

And why?

Prepare the presenters with final reminders to help them put their best

foot forward. And work with meeting planners who can help avoid logistical

debacles that become legendary stories later.

We salespeople are a fickle, pretentious bunch who will get a sense of how

well we are doing as a company by our assessment of the meeting venue

(city, hotel, accommodations, etc.), the food, and the mandatory fun (golf,

bowling, charitable activities, etc.). These things will all convey to the sales

force “trajectory”: Are we heading in the right direction as a company?

Should I stay or go?

The biggest mistake you can make is not meeting. The opportunity cost is

not making it a great meeting.

Elite execution demands rejuvenation and invigoration on the part of

meeting planners, along with conscientiousness on the part of salespeople

at sales meetings at all times.

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Sales Management

As you are successful, if you handle your success well with your peers, you

will get noticed. I am not writing a separate chapter on sales management,

because my intent is not to tell you how to be a great sales manager. I personally

have not been a great one. I hope to be a great one someday.

My intent, instead, is to lay out some considerations that elite salespeople

should think through with regard to sales management.

If you’re very good at your work, chances are very good someone thinks

you are just the person to lead a team somewhere. If that opportunity

comes with nothing more (training) than a pat on the back, beware. Also,

don’t take a promotion to work for someone who didn’t have a say in you

taking the new position.

Sales management requires training: coaching, administration, knowledge

of employment law, interview skills, etc. It is a different job. When a person

expresses an interest in management, I ask them to consider three

questions:

1. How do you feel about depending upon other people for a paycheck

who are less committed than you?

2. Do you enjoy holding other people accountable?

3. Do you have a management process that can help you diagnose

performance problems?

Sales management without management training is a great way to bruise a

good career and get disillusioned about management opportunities,

thereby limiting your upward mobility in leadership. In my short term as

a sales manager, I did manage to learn that you are responsible to people,

not for people. There is a big difference. In the first instance, you are giving

people clear direction and tools to succeed. In the second instance, you

are stressing out, micromanaging your team, “super repping,” owning

problems that don’t belong to you, holding onto people you should be firing,

and generally failing as a leader.

I have been very fortunate to befriend several amazing “people managers”

and serve under a few truly great leaders. But I have been around long

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enough to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In his book Succeeding (John T. Reed, 2003), John T. Reed states his

“Reed’s Law”:

No one can be more honest than their boss. If you are, you will

soon encounter a situation where your boss has done something

you must protest. And when you do, you’re history. One corollary

to that rule is that if no one can be more honest than his

boss, no one can be more honest than anyone above him in the

organization’s chain of command. Your level of integrity is limited

to the lowest level of integrity above you. That’s because if

you cannot be more honest than your boss, he cannot be more

honest than his boss, and so on.

As a manager you will be obligated to toe the line and represent upper

management to your team—whether you agree with the decision or strategy

as a dutiful soldier following orders in a consistent chain of command—

lest you discourage the troops and inhibit execution of the plan.

Take this advice to heart and choose your promotional opportunities carefully

with good counsel from trusted advisors who are higher up the ladder

than you.

Above all, your obligation as a manager is to find the silver lining. That

really is what leaders at all levels do for us. No matter how things look,

how tough things get, or how incoherent or ridiculous the orders, your job

is to carry out the mission and get your team on board.

I often think of the Tom Hanks character, Captain Miller, in the movie

Saving Private Ryan. In a scene entitled “Gripe,” Captain Miller is given

orders to take eight men to go find Private James Ryan. Along the way the

men begin to rationalize the mission as a poor use of their time and effort

and decide it is an unjustified risk. After several minutes of griping about

the mission, one of the men voices his opinion, stating, “This entire mission

is a serious misallocation of valuable military resources.”

One of the other men then asks the captain his thoughts: “Captain, what

about you? I mean, don’t you gripe at all?”

The captain’s reply is one of the best encapsulating and defining moments

for any leader down the line in the chain of command: “I don’t gripe to

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you, Reiben. I’m a captain. There’s a chain of command. Gripes go up, not

down. Always up. … I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You

should know that as a ranger.”

Captain Miller is then asked what he would say if he was to gripe up the

ladder to his superior. His reply is even more telling: “Well in that case, I’d

say, ‘This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective,

sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover, I feel heartfelt sorrow for the

mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the

lives of my men’—especially you, Reiben—‘to ease her suffering.’ “

The job of manager/leader is more than helping people hit a number. It is

more than solving business problems. It is bigger than accomplishing measureable

objectives. The job of a manager is to define the way a group of

people under your leadership sees the world. Your job is to make them see

the cup as half full, along with the light at the end of the tunnel, the future

not yet visible, the opportunity forming on the horizon, the respite just

ahead, the payoff, the reward, the harvest in the future from today’s sewing

that will take time, and their ability to do what they have never done.

Casting a vision for the company is the job of the CEO, president, and vice

president. Casting a vision for individuals is the job of the manager.

Can you do that? Can you stay positive no matter what? Above all else, as

manager you must be the optimist. That is what you are getting paid to

do.

I have concluded that the job of sales manager is tricky. There are a myriad

of ways to “step in it” practically, legally, emotionally, culturally, professionally,

and financially, to one’s own ruin. Managers would love to tell

you that they are at their best, in the best frame of mind, and eager to take

your call any time of the day or night. But that is just not possible. In

today’s American climate of entitlement and litigiousness, managing people

is still extremely rewarding but increasingly hazardous. That said, you

should cut your manager some slack. No one—and I mean no one—in

your company deserves the benefit of the doubt from you more than your

sales manager. Especially if they are the one who hired you.

If you have a good manager, serve them well and support their efforts.

Look for ways to take something off their plate that can double as professional

development for you.

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If you have a bad manager, minimize their impact, manage yourself, reach

out to successful peers and other company leaders for insights, and avoid

whining. Don’t let your manager be an excuse for your failure. Many successful

reps are successful in spite of their manager, not because of him or her.

If you have a new manager, be patient, understanding, and available. Look

for ways to build their confidence. Quickly identify their strengths and

find them some quick wins to help them get established. Most importantly,

guard their reputation as much as it depends upon you. They are in over

their heads. It comes with the territory. Get over it and thank God their

problems aren’t your problems.

If they are overconfident, they won’t be for long.

If they are obnoxious, be the bigger man or woman.

If they attempt to micromanage you, either address it or overwhelm them

with more information and minutia than they ask for to make them regret

it and stop.

If they screw up, pick them up. It will be appreciated. If the screwing up

continues, they won’t last long, but your conscience will be clean.

Above all, if they make an honest effort to do the job right, know that it is

very hard and scary at times, and they deserve your respect and praise.

Do all that and you might make a great sales manager one day.