trust

Treat Your Boss Well

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Treat your boss well.  It’s always the other way around, isn’t it?

Kevin Spacey had it rough as the sales boss in Glengarry Glen Ross.  Lots of bosses have it rough.

And I’ve yet to see a book on the shelves, or in a training class, or a webinar,  or darn near even a memo with topics like “How to Treat Your Boss Better” or “Strategies to Engage Your Manager” or “Connecting With Supervision: Unleash The Power”

Nope.  It’s all about what the bosses should do for their employees.  How to be a better manager, coach, teacher, helper or leader of people.

I got it already.

We have to turn the tables.  We’re missing chances to make this third of our lives that is work, just a little bit better.

  • Treat your boss as if you know they once “carried the bag” and like you, had some rough sales quotas to hit, impossible project deadlines to meet or tough service issues to handle.  They had those then and unless I’m missing something, still have them today.
  • Treat your boss as if you know they have a hard time sleeping some nights worried about you or your colleagues, or the business, or even the systems.  Truth is, the lack of sleep isn’t always because they were out too late the night before.
  • Treat your boss as if you know that being a leader or a coach of people (and some bosses in this sales business have 20 + direct reports) is one of the toughest jobs anyone could ever do.  Never doubt for a moment it isn’t, because it is.
  • Treat your boss as if just like you, they have a family at home, maybe a sick child, or an ailing parent or a bill they are worried about having to pay because without a doubt, they do.
  • Treat your boss as if you appreciate they are often anxious and worried about what they are saying to you or the team or even what they will say or will do.  They know they are never ever not on stage and that everyone is always watching.
  • Treat your boss as if you know they took their leader job because maybe they get real joy out of helping someone turn “just a job” into a career or to take a team or a business from “just good” to “darn great”.   Leaders yearn for that job satisfaction too.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Open Ended Questions Are Overrated

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It’s like a religion almost.     

Every sales trainer since the turn of the 20th century has proselytized* that open ended questions are the key to sales success.  Those glorious questions like “How do you market your business?”, How would you describe your relationship with your current supplier?” and “How do you differentiate yourself in the market place?” are a constant in any sales training revival session.

The thought is that these types of questions will get your customer to leap to his feet and open up to you about his motivations, beliefs and values.

Except when they don’t.   The reality is that open ended questions are effective when there is already a good degree of trust established.  Open ended questions asked when trust is low can feel intrusive and just too much work to answer.  Both of these feelings by the way, shut down the sales process.

Here’s why it happens.  When you ask,   “I’m curious, how do you market your business?”  The client often thinks “Who the heck are you asking me that?” (The client rarely says this out loud, but rather will insert “brush off” language like “I’m really happy with my current supplier”).   The client could think as well “Gee, that’s complicated and you know what?, I’ve got work to do”.  Both of these reactions are the result of an unbelieving, untrusting audience.   

There’s a better way to get at the same information when trust is low.

Here’s how:  Say “I’m curious, is the business marketed online, offline or both?”   Think psychologically why this makes more sense:

  1. You took the “you” and “your” out of the question.  When trust is low a question about how you do something (especially something important like “marketing”) is a little too personal.  By saying “is the business marketed…” defers to something that, while it may be close to the client’s heart, is an it and not a you. 
  2. You gave options like “marketed online, offline or both?”.   Every Malcolm Gladwell Blink reader knows that options help decisions to be made and ideas to be chosen.   Wide open questions with no options, especially in this harried, rushed world, can stop communication altogether.  If the client has choices of responses, they are more likely to respond.  

 

So here’s the message.  Take your list of open ended questions and ask yourself a closed ended one before you use them. “Does the client/prospect trust me or my company enough to be asking these questions this way?” If the answer is “no” or “I don’t know”, take the “you” out of the question and add options to choose from. 

Till next time,

Go Forth and Grow The Business.

Mark

* Yeah! I can knock this off my “Bucket List” now. I always had a dream to use “proselytize” in a blog!

Josh Beckett Came To My House Saturday

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Mr. Beckett showed up at my house on Saturday.   Josh is a pretty famous major league baseball pitcher and currently plays for the Red Sox.  

My wife had been cleaning all morning in anticipation of his arrival (I told her that it was not a big deal; the house looked fine- but you know how that goes).

I had a busy morning too and was in the backyard when Josh rang the doorbell an hour early.   My wife answered the door and not being much of a baseball fan, she didn’t recognize him even though he was decked out in his baseball jersey that said “RED SOX” on the front and “BECKETT” on his back.  

I came around the front of the house and was surprised that he was wearing a game jersey. Not what I expected.  I was then shocked he had put a ton of weight on and got about a foot shorter since the season started.   I looked a little closer…. and realized……. that it wasn’t Josh Beckett at all, but the cable guy who was scheduled to come about an hour later.

There are a lot of problems with this; not the least of which is that there is an age when a man should stop wearing another man’s name on his back (and that age should be about 14 ).  But there are bigger problems than that; problems that people and companies should fix.   Problems you can get involved in solving.

Problem A):   He scared my wife.  Really scared her.   That is not good.    Who is this guy at the front door in khaki’s and Red Sox Jersey?  She literally told me later “I was freaked out and scared, I had no idea what he wanted and you were way out back”.   (It was only because our dog was barking that I even came around to the front of the house.)

Problem B):   I didn’t trust him the entire time.  About anything.  He was there for an hour adding some cable service and because he chose to wear his Saturday best and he scared my wife, I had a lot of tension and concern watching him work around my house.  If you don’t care how you look, do you care how you work?  

Don’t tell me that his truck should be a giveaway.  His truck was parked behind our two cars and the lettering on the truck if you chose to walk up to it, was tiny, had no colors and no logo.   It doesn’t matter.  If someone comes to your door dressed like he’s ready to go to a tailgate party, you’re not looking at his vehicle for a company or a brand to begin with.

If you serve businesses or are one you’ve known (supposedly) for years about the value of having that logo and that personalization on the clothing because it makes the customers feel at ease and that your company is professional.   So why is it not happening still today?

Uneasiness was the tenor of the day and hence, the entire experience was certainly not professional.

Right or wrong, because of the way he dressed Saturday, I questioned everything about him.   I questioned his ability, his commitment to his company and whether he had any concern at all about me, the customer.   That’s bad news.

And worse now, whenever I see Josh Beckett pitch I’m going to think about the cable guy and wonder if my picture in HD is really as good as it could be.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark