Take time to talk....

Here’s an observation that might come as a surprise to sales leaders- the gregarious outgoing people you hired to drive sales may actually the loneliest personnel in your business - and you should talk to them.

Let me explain, Sales personnel have always travelled and worked on the hoof, yet in today’s world of complex organisations, matrix reporting lines and fewer office locations (with even fewer desks) the salesperson is often only ever working from home or from their bag, spending days in and out of coffee shops and car parks.

That’s what they signed up for you might think – but there is a problem - without quality face time with an empathetic leader it is easy for sales personnel to slip into unproductive habits and routines. Its a little bit like going to the gym on your own, you go through the motions, get done what you like doing and focus on the bits you feel you are good at. Whereas working with a trainer ensures you achieve a balance, push yourself out from your comfort zone and achieve more which in the end leads to a better outcome.

Yet sales leaders aren’t out with their team, they are typically more deskbound than ever, committed to internal meetings, tied to the CRM system and over reporting on incessant forecast calls. I recently worked with a Sales leader with 10 direct reports all spread nationally. Despite best intentions he was struggling to do more than a weekly all hands call. Consider he had a big geographic area and a drive to reduce travel costs to contend with along with the usual staff holidays and customer meetings. All reduced the possible days when he felt he could organise a meet up.

The truth was he didn’t prioritise his team because his leader didn’t prioritise the team with him. He’d lost the human element of his role and to be fair technology does enable us to (unintentionally) avoid physical meetings with our personnel. We have conference calls, skype chats, video calls and emails. We might post on the intranet, yammer or do anything else to broadcast updates and insights on our businesses. But broadcasting is exactly that, a broadcast message is one to many – with little feedback or discussion. So all these one way messages pile up on the receivers and get filed under ‘important but not urgent’ - I saw a sales head with over 1200 unread emails.

So we have sales leaders thinking they’re in touch, gamely broadcasting messages yet the sales personnel they are supposed to leading are hunched over devices in coffee shops, or home offices filtering what matters to them. They are busy, stressed and unproductive, equating reading email with functional output. The problem is so is everyone else across the organisation and while they are doing that they are not talking to you or anyone else.

I’ve seen this in national and multinational organisations. I have known sales personnel state they have not had a single one to one in the last 6 months and only hear directly from their leaders at deal closing time. That is not good enough on a business or personal level.

A well-structured series of 1-1’s is key for both parties. This is especially important when organisations change reporting lines. But the onus has to be on sales personnel as well. Why not send you leader an outline agenda for your next 30 minute 1-1 and drive the conversation yourself? As a leader you should be filling your diary with at least one week a month dedicated to 1-1’s with your team and peers to stay in touch with personnel and hear what is happening with your customers. You’ll also have a lot more to report upward at your next 1-1 with you leader – assuming you have a 1-1 scheduled.

There is no substitute for not spending face to face time with your people. It’s the human thing to do.