Sales Management Archives

Bias As Usual: Errors in Sample Size

In the articles to follow, we’ll explore cognitive biases. These are the mental shortcuts we all occasionally use to make sense of the flood of information we face everyday. First up: Sample Size.

Imagine, for a moment, you are the lowest performer on a sales team. Complete fiction, I know. Now imagine that, for some reason, you enjoy wearing wearing khakis and polos to work while the rest of your team all wear suits. Is it fair to conclude that your lack of formality (and taste?) is the reason for your lower sales results?

Not so fast! Before we go explaining how formal clothing enhances credibility, there’s something more important to consider. Sample size. Exactly how many people are on your sales team?

According to Sociology expert, Daniel Kahneman, small sample sizes lend themselves to extreme results. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, he and a group of experts questioned the belief that certain small towns have high disease rates due to toxic waste.

The result? The small sample size of residents in each town made extremely high or low disease prevalence more likely. This doesn’t, of course, prove industrial pollution to be harmless. It instead invalidates the data as proof that toxic waste was the cause of disease. Perhaps, if the towns studied were larger, the researchers’ conclusion may have been different.

Therefore, we in sales should be cautious about the quick interpretations we make of both success and failure. For example, it may neither be fair or helpful to compare the results of one sales rep with several medium-sized accounts to another who manages one or two large, make or break clients.

Ultimately, if we want to make better decisions, we must gather enough information and only then draw our conclusions.

Chris Pawar

Meaning2work.com

Your Worst Sales Manager – A Survival Guide

Think about the worst sales manager you’ve ever had. What about them irked you the most? Did he compare you unfairly with others? Was no accomplishment ever good enough? Did she monitor your every move, never allowing you to ever feel in control?

Relax. Put that person out of your mind. You’ve had worse.

Our worst manager is probably still with us.

Indeed, that jerk that we slaved under years ago may be gone. But someone more ruthless may have stepped in to take her place. It’s the one person with the ability to always slip past our defenses – ourselves.

Our problem is not in handling poor managers, but in being one.

Think about it. Managers grow frustrated with employees who can’t take criticism. And, we employees despise being crticized unfairly. Yet, as evil as this atrocity is, we freely commit it on ourselves. We search far and wide for managers who don’t micromanage but ironically expect our days to go perfectly to plan. We hate when the boss plays favorites while, at the same time, we put others on a pedestal as somehow better than we could ever achieve.

Doesn’t criticism make us better?

No, improvement does. That doesn’t mean all criticism is bad. When it originates from and is delivered with respect and care, criticism can be life-saving. The problem is in the packaging. When used correctly, criticism is a fire that can forge us like steel. Shame, on the other hand, is a gas can to be thrown on that fire, only more dangerous. If we allow it, shame triggers our internal tyrant to take over and magnify any criticism to harmful and unproductive levels.

Self-criticism: we don’t wear it well.

Your worst managers (the external ones) may have also been critical of themselves. Does that make their actions any easier to take? Humility and self-acceptance, can free our minds to focus on others. Conversley, what good are we doing anyone else when we down ourselves? We may even risk becoming someone else’s worst boss.

Don’t criticize, Accept.

Upon admitting we have a problem with negative self-talk, we can start the challenging process of accepting ourselves and others. Psychologiy pioneers like Albert Ellis and David Burns have done some life-changing work in this area. Anyone who lacks the patience to read their books should subscribe to this blog where I often summarize their findings.

Accepting yourself, regardless of faults and mistakes, will make you both a happier and better person. And yes, this will help you be a better salesperson as well. We may indeed still be our own worst sales manager. Now, at last, we can do something about it.

Sincerely,

Meaning2work.com

Outsiders Change Companies, the Rest of Us do What We’re Told

“When I’m in charge, things will be different.”

We’ve all thought it at some point. Either we forget or ignore the truth: it takes a hefty dose of conformity to obtain power within most sales organizations. This diminishes anyone’s ability to enact change, unless they get to the top of the pyramid. By then, few understand the challenges of the front line. In your last sales meeting, did the sales managers question policy or promote it? Yes, there are people paid to offer innovative ideas. They’re called consultants.

Even the noblest among us, when setting out to cure a company’s ills, can become infected. The status quo is the conscious choice of your current leadership. Chances are, they’re not inviting you to question it.

Instead, try changing what’s in your power to change: yourself. Want your boss to be less critical? Be less critical of yourself. Want to have more money? Spend less of it. Want to help others?

You get the idea.

Sincerely,
Meaning2work.com

Sales Doesn’t Have To Suck – How Therapy Taught Me Why

Ok. You’re in sales. You’re busy. You have a deadline and a quota. You don’t want to be at the bottom of the next sales ranking and you will do whatever it takes not to be there. Am I right?
I get it because I lived these same thoughts every day. When you see one of your peers rising in the sale ranks you wonder why, correct? Have you ever met a sales rep with lackluster numbers who still seems happy? Again, did you wonder why? Here’s a possible explanation: the other rep in question is emotionally healthier than you. That’s right emotionally healthier. It’s often obvious when someone’s physical health differs from you. Emotional health? That’s something you feel for yourself.
Although I’ve started this discussion in terms of having an emotional edge over another rep, competition is not what emotional health is about. That’s a good thing. It’s not about being better than someone else. Instead, it’s about being a better version of yourself. When I started therapy a few years ago, my goal was to gain control of my anxiety in order to be a better sales person, father, and husband. What I came to realize was that my job was actually the reason I needed the therapy. Not vice versa! This forced me over a period of time, to seriously rethink my priorities. As a result, I came to three realizations:
Realization One: Traditional sales management uses fear and extrinsic rewards in a way that’s potentially detrimental to your health.
There is a reason you don’t like disappointing your boss. It makes you afraid. That fear causes the hormone cortisol to course through your body. It’s the same chemical that helped our ancestors sense danger approaching them on the African plains. The problem is that our bodies weren’t designed for us to feel fear all the time. According to Simon Sinek in his book, “Leaders Eat Last”, having excess cortisol elevates our blood pressure, impairs our cognitive ability, and decreases our immunity from diseases. Of course, let’s not forget the accompanying psychological effect of anxiety.
When we get exstrinsic rewards, which includes anything from commission checks, to pats on the back, to even the ‘ding” of our phones telling us we have a new text, our bodies release dopamine. It’s the “ahh” feeling of getting something done or accomplishing a goal. It’s what drives you to make your sales goal and win that extra commission kicker.
What’s wrong with this? Did you ever notice that the high from achieving anything never lasts? It’s because the effect of dopamine is always temporary. Therefore, people can literally become addicted to it. Have difficulty putting your phone down? That’s because every new message gives you a small hit of dopamine. Like cortisol, this brain chemical may have been essential to our evolution but in an age of abundance like today, less of it is definitely more.
Realization Two: Despite the negative influence of sales management, you and I are responsible for inflicting the negative effects of our jobs on ourselves.
“Wait a minute, it’s my fault now?”, you say. Yes, but we all have a valid reason for making the mistake. In his book, “Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better“, world renowned psychologist Albert Ellis, coined two important terms. Conditional Self Acceptance (CSA) and Universal Self Acceptance (USA). All of us, according to Dr. Ellis, use one of these two methodologies to create our self-image. Your boss. Your coworkers. Even authors of sales literature. They all tell you to measure your self-worth in dollars. The premise has been for years, the more you sell, the happier you will be. Almost every sales book is based on this premise and no one dares to question it. Given what science now knows about dopamine, long-lasting happiness as a result of sales success is a lie. Selling more of anything will never make you happier in any long term sense.
Still, don’t we need to sell more so we can buy more things? Unfortunately, bigger houses and nicer cars commit us to making more money long after the dopamine high of their purchase wears off. Dan Pink, in his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” emphasizes the importance of Type I or intrinsic motivation over Type X motivation which is based on anything external.
Before we can realize our own Type I, internal motivations we need to rid ourselves of the external ones. This involves adopting USA vs. CSA. Unconditional Self Acceptance means treating yourself much like your pets do. No, not just as a life-giving source of food, but as a good person no matter what you accomplish. Yes. It’s a touchy-feely concept, but to reap it’s rewards, you will need to get over that. Dr. Ellis mandates that you adopt a new attitude about yourself. Regardless if you screw up a sales call or a sales quarter, you accept what happens and move on.
Therefore, USA opens you up to Type I motivation and CSA locks you into traditional Type X motivation. When you have USA and Type I motivation, your happiness is not based on what you own, what’s on you latest W2, or even what your boss says to you. You accept the futility of being anyone other than yourself and are motivated by a purpose. For example, the reason I started this Blog was to improve the way sales people are managed. I write for the fulfillment of writing and expressing these ideas – not the paycheck.
Realization 3: In a very real way, letting go of the metrics forced on us by our jobs, allows us to actually become happier in general and often more effective at work.
Traditionally, companies have assumed that workers are fundamentally lazy and require carrots and sticks for the motivation. Carrots are the extrinsic rewards like money and accolades. Sticks are the fear tactics such as terminations or reprimands. According to Daniel Pink, in the Industrial Age, most occupations involved simple and repetitive tasks. It made sense to pay a factory worker based on the amount of parts produced because he or she could clearly see how increased effort resulted in increased output. For complex jobs, people required intrinsic rewards. They want the stimulation of learning something new or the gratification of helping someone. Contrary to what many sales books teach, the process to complete a sale with each new customer is unique and cannot be boiled down to a shortlist of repeatable tasks.
Complicated, multi-step jobs like outside sales require creativity. We all have creatitivity within us and the way to unlock it is with the positive emotions that USA allows us to feel. For me, making the change to USA with Type I motivation gave me back all the time I was wasting on worrying. I then proceeded to use that time to think of new ways to do my job. Just think, instead of stressing over doing your job perfectly, you could be selling in newer, more effective ways your management never imagined!
This new mindset obviously requires a leap of faith – in yourself. Of course, fear may have made you work harder in the past, but never at your best. Chasing extrinsic rewards is forcing you to use temporary happiness in the place of long-term fulfillment. My process of learning all this started with a trip to a therapist. If you’re in sales, I suggest you spend the co-pay and do so yourself.
I welcome your comments and suggestions!
Regards,
Meaning2work
Ps. Yes. As a result of therapy, I sell more now than ever, but I also have the sense to know that I can never sell my way to true happiness!
Books Referenced:
“Leaders Eat Last”, by Simon Sinek – to access it on Amazon click here.
“Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better”, by Albert Ellis, PHD., – to access on Amazon click here.
“Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, by Dan Pink – to access on Amazon click here.
#salespsychology
#salesmotivation
#saleseffectivenes
#salesmanagement

Think BACk: Free Will is a Bitch!

OK. What the heck is BACk? A misspelling? No, it’s an acronym for “Be A Customer”. It’s great to know your product, your competition, and your industry. You may even know quite a bit about your customer and her business, but can you think like her? Can you empathize with what challenges she’s dealing with and anticipate how she may react to you or what you offer? That’s what thinking BACk is all about and when you do so, you begin to realize how silly some of our beliefs and tactics are in the sales profession.
Think BACk to a time when someone forced you to buy something. Come on now! Dig deep! No, that last succulent dessert you just had doesn’t count. The best example I can come up with is insurance. There no mortgages to be found on uninsured homes and driving without car insurance is against the law. Still, in these instances I at least had a choice of what vendor to use. Can you admit that no one forced you to buy the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, or virtually anything else?
Technology has informed customers in ways not possible just 20 years ago. At the same time, the ancient-yet-relevant philosophy of Stoicism has made it’s way into to popular business books. These two seemingly unrelated forces are combining to change the way we, as sales people, should look at our jobs.
Can you remember a time when you needed a salesman to help you buy a computer? Heck, I might have sold you one! Retail computer buyers back in the 80’s and 90’s often didn’t know what they wanted, what they needed, or even where to start. They would slowly wander up to the electronics display, in the department store where I worked, and stare at the price tags. At the time, my goal was to entice them into a conversation about what they needed to do with a computer. Inevitably, I could then display my superior knowledge to them. This would often result in a sale because I had information they didn’t have when they walked in the door. They needed the help of someone like me in order to make a decision. Today, computers are bought online or in stores with minimal, if any intervention needed from a sales person.
Daniel Pink, in his insightful book “To Sell Is Human”, cites the availability of information as creating more of a level playing field between sales people and customers. To this day, most retail workers expect to get blown off when they ask the traditional “May I Help You?” The difference from when I was in retail in the 1990’s is that now, the customer often is not lying. They DON’T need our help.
If you think this change doesn’t apply to B-to-B, think again. Do you find yourself being brought in later and later in the decision-making process? If so, it’s because they don’t perceive a need for your “expertise”. No one wants their time wasted by someone telling them what they already know. Don’t take it personally. It’s just a fact of life! Today, I find myself selling the added-value of what I do for my customers just as much as my product itself. Sure, there are times when they think they don’t need our help and they actually do. That’s why we have jobs. Regardless of who we THINK has the leverage in any sales situation, there is (and some would argue always has been) one person in charge of the customer’s decision process – the customer.
Thinking back to your house, car, or any other major purchase you’ve made, who is ultimately responsible for making your payments? You, of course. The bank doesn’t care how friendly, how knowledgeable, or how sly your sales person was. The choice to buy the house was, and continues to be, on you. In the corporate world, I’ve seen executives lose their jobs over bad choices with vendors. Once, when I sold software, I had an exec blow up in anger over a price negotiation. Yes, I did eventually close the sale, but soon thereafter the exec was working for a new company.
Just as access to information is giving customers the ability to make better decisions, we are realizing the power to decide may have always been theirs alone. The Stoic philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius wrote about the power of choice. All any of us control is our ability to make choices. We choose not only what to do but how to feel. Your customer does the same. At our absolute best, we are merely influencing our customer’s decision. Ryan Holiday has written two excellent books: “The Obstacle is the Way” and “Ego is the Enemy” that very nicely summarize Stoicism into a modern-day context.
Of course, in sales, we take credit for as much good news as possible. The bad news is that when we do this, due to customer free will, we lie to ourselves. The customer made the buying decision – not us. Again, think like a customer, not a sales person. You likely researched the last car you bought by looking at reviews, blue book values, and CarFax reports. In doing so, you essentially sold it to yourself. Ironically, as you pulled out of the parking lot, the sales person probably bragged about how he “closed” you.
When our sales are down, things get a little more complicated. We may cite all the factors out of our control to the boss. All the while, we feel the shame of not seizing control like we were taught in sales training. The good news? Due to customer free will, we are rarely fully responsible for our bad numbers either. Can you improve your craft and therefore your results? Along with all the rest of us, yes! Just don’t expect to ever be able to quantify that improvement ahead of time. Does the perfect sales presentation ever guarantee a sale will be made? Only one person knows the answer. Your customer.
Regards,
Meaning2work