“Your Fired!” It’s a phrase that we go to great lengths never to hear. How safe is your job in sales? According to Simon Sinek in his bestselling book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t“, good managers make their employees feel safe. In other words, their teams feel free to do their jobs, speak honestly, and ask for help
when they struggle.
Accord to Sinek, managers need to create a “Circle of Safety” for their teams. In such an environment, underperformance is not met with reprimand but instead with true concern for the employee’s struggles. Imagine if, when your sales numbers are waning, your boss calls and says “It looks like you might be having a rough time. How can I help?” When delivered in earnest, this message engenders trust. Your manager is on your side wanting to help you. Instead, most of us get a variation on “Why aren’t you selling more?” or “Why are you making me look bad?” Just in case you are wondering, a “How can I help” followed by a “Why aren’t you selling more” is not a genuine offer of safety.
Here are some of my favorite safety-killing sales manager statements:
“My expectation is…”, “The company’s expectation is…”
You name the sales metric. It doesn’t matter. Sales people need to know how to complete the task, why they are doing it, and what will happen if they don’t. Their managers need the courage to elaborate. Sometimes the difference between realistic and unrealistic request is an explanation of how it will be accomplished within the framework of a sales person’s busy day. An explanation reassures the employee, “I respect you, your time, and what you want to accomplish.”
The second component is “why”. Does accomplishing this task help me sell more product and make my job more secure? Or, does it simply benefit my manager or someone higher up the chain? Fear and tension arise when salespeople are continually asked to do things that serve them no direct benefit. These tasks, however small, add up and siphon away their time to do what is ultimately asked of them-to sell. Therefore sales people appreciate knowing the consequences of not doing something, especially if it results in lower sales.
“I can’t protect you if…”
The very phrase, “I can’t protect you” implies that you, the sales person, already have no protection. Consider the reprimand, “If you continue to turn your expense report in a day late, I can’t protect you from what might happen.” Conditional protection is not protection. Would you say to your child, “If you don’t get good grades, I cannot protect you from sexual predators?”
Should making a mistake on a company report, like in the movie Office Space, result in a career-altering reprimand? The proper response would be to ask the employee why they are struggling, listen to their answer, and ask how they can help. Why should reps be asked to do anything that takes away from their selling time with no return on investment?
He or She “left the company.”
When an employee leaves your company, are you given an explanation? I didn’t think so. I know corporate HR execs and attorneys will emphasize employee privacy and corporate liability as the reason for this secrecy. Not being a legal expert, I do know that laws can be interpreted in many ways and even changed once in a while.
Regardless of how restricted companies truly are in sharing the circumstances around people leaving the company, we cannot deny the consequences. From a sales person’s perspective, having someone leave your company draws immediate concern. Did she find a better job? Am I wasting my time staying here? How bad were his sales numbers? Could this happen to me? Hiding any information from employees only serves to make it appear more important. Can you fault sales people for wondering what happened to John or teammates?
“We need to talk about your numbers.”
Safe? I’ve worked for managers that would tell you that the purpose of a sales quota is to prevent you from feeling safe at all. Whether or not sales people require aggressive sales quotas is a discussion for another day. The fact remains, they have them. Is there any way to avoid this reality? Not in sales! Again, think about what the effect is on you. Do you spend more time covering yourself vs. doing actual selling? All of us need food to survive, can you imagine someone consistently reminding you of this? The problem is not that we are being asked to do something challenging. Rather, it’s that management looks at sales people as investments and not people. The minute our revenue outlook goes south, they look to offload us for a better bet.
To be fair, our managers may also feel a distinct lack of safety in their roles. Sadly, our profession has, for years, built itself into a perform or die culture. Think back to the best leaders that you’ve worked with in the past. Chances are, they made you feel secure enough to take a risk and try something new. After all, don’t we grow by taking chances and risking failure?
Before you dismiss the idea of safety as idealistic, nonproductive nonsense, check out the examples in Sinek’s book. He cites several examples of companies who are treat their employees like they’re more important than the revenue they generate and make handsome money doing it. To dive deeper into the concept of safety and leadership, be sure to check out the book on Amazon.
Sincerely,
Meaning2work