Elevate Your People. Elevate Your Sales.

If your organization has a field sales force and you’re responsible for its performance, you should read this.

* Are sales results below where you need them to be, either as a whole or for individual team members?

* Are your managers and other sales leaders part of the challenge you're having?

* Is there something wrong, but you just can't put your finger on it?

If you answered Yes to any of these questions, Culture Sells can help.

Elevate your people. Elevate your sales.

There are countless factors that can hamper, hinder or outright hobble a sales team as they take your company’s message out to prospects and customers. Sometimes a plan looks good on paper but just doesn’t play out that way.

* Do your salespeople believe in the story they have to sell?

* Are they bringing that story to life for their audiences?

* Do they feel supported by the company?

* Are they receiving consistent quality coaching delivered with integrity and good intentions?

* Do they look forward to having their manager out in the field with them?

* Are you hiring the right people into the sales role?

* Do they have access to the information they need to provide enduring value to customers?

If you answered No to any of these questions, Culture Sells can help.

And while this may sound overly sympathetic towards the salesperson, it really isn’t. By working through these issues, and confirming that these core needs are being met, your organization will be better equipped to change out sales talent where and when needed, rather than in a haphazard and reactive manner.

Less negative attrition and a better success rate when hiring. More consistency in the eyes of the customer. Fewer recruiting and training dollars wasted. Improved sales results.

Elevate your people. Elevate your sales.

I’ve been leading sales teams since 1997 and have consistently created a culture in which my team members can thrive and excel. I’ve known where to push and where not to; when to be tough and when to provide support. How to deliver meaningful feedback, whether positive or negative, in a manner that will achieve the desired outcome. Ways to help them package and express their sales messages in a manner that drives prospects and customers to action.

I can help you, your managers and your sales representatives do the same.

Elevate your people. Elevate your sales.

If your sales force isn’t achieving the level of success that you need them to, talk to me. I guarantee that it will be worth your time.

Don’t Neglect to Respect

Today I want to write a little bit about the importance of respect for your people when leading/coaching sales teams. The only way to gain sincere respect is to give the same. I’ve seen far too many situations where this key factor is missing and it is amazing how quickly things can go south when this happens. It’s easy to get caught up in the need to “manage” your team members and have them under scrutiny to ensure compliance with direction, results and process, but in order to effectively lead and gain the trust of your people, you must truly care about them and respect the job they do every day.

So, I’m going to come right out and say it: I am an unabashed fan of salespeople, both reps and managers. But let me make one very important qualification here: not just anyone who calls themselves a salesperson or merely fills a sales-based position. “Sales” can sometimes become a catchall category or a field where people with no true career end up by default, usually in less desirable sales roles/organizations with significant ongoing turnover. This leads to a group of dabblers, transients and others who don’t really have their hearts and souls invested in the art/science of sales. No, I’m talking about the true sales professionals who respect and take pride in their work, who hone and practice their craft at a very high level and aren’t afraid to put in the substantial work required to do that.

Caveat: If you’re a salesperson on my team who isn’t willing to put in the work and do the pushups required to excel in your role, you will definitely hear about it from me!

I think that my sincere respect for the sales representative and manager roles is a result of a few things:

1. I have vivid memories of when I was in the rep role…it was a hard job and it’s getting harder every day (stay tuned for an upcoming article on how the Information Age has changed the way salespeople are viewed). I remember all of the challenges involved in just gaining access to my customers. The myriad moving parts that could trip up my efforts. The deflating impact that hit when my company didn’t live up to the commitments we had made to a customer. I remember that even when I was doing really well and winning awards, and my manager was a friend of mine from whom I learned much, I still had anxiety leading up to our field time together. His presence changed the dynamics of the day, the customer interactions and the overall workflow. None of this is bad, none of it is intentional, it’s just the way human nature works and some of the unavoidable trials of a life in sales.

2. I also clearly remember my early days as a manager. Suddenly being the “third wheel” at the party and trying to determine my role and where I could bring value. Being a field sales manager isn’t easy and, unfortunately, many people who end up in that role really should not be doing that job. The skills and abilities that make a top rep don’t always translate into making a top manager. There are so many additional/different skills required, emotional intelligence being one of the most important. How do you teach without taking over the call? When should you take over the call in order to do the right thing by the customer/company? What are the best techniques for providing meaningful feedback without leaving your team member feeling wounded and betrayed? What kind of tone and culture do you want to establish for your team? How do you stay true to the company direction you're receiving from above while remaining committed to the team members who depend on you? And so much more…

3. But mostly, I believe that my tremendous respect for those who are in sales stems from growing up with a father who was a Super Salesman, and unconsciously witnessing firsthand how it’s supposed to be done. My dad sold industrial equipment, Caterpillar forklifts to be exact, for 40+ years and he was like the New York Yankees of sales. He won the top awards virtually every year – no one else even came close. Steadily spectacular with an endless stream of repeat business based on the legacy of quality and commitment he built with his customers. He understood the basic blocking and tackling of sales without formal training and he put in the after-hours time to prepare, organize and plan as diligently as top-flight athletes who never leave the gym and religiously watch game and scouting film in order to be ready for the next battle.

So, don't forget to honor the work your team members are doing out there every day, reps and managers alike, and respect what they do as you would have them respect your position and responsibilities. You'll be amazed at the positive impact this has on your team members, and on you!

That’s where I’ll end for this article, but check back next week for more about ways you can raise your game, increase your sales and improve your ability to develop and motivate your salespeople. Thanks for reading!

Take Your Time, Do It Right - Part 1

My goal, my mission in founding Culture Sells is to unify sales representatives, sales managers and home office partners in order to foster greater synergy and create environments where sales teams can thrive and excel. To that end, this series of articles will focus on the roles and responsibilities of these three groups, because each has an obligation to the others to execute their part to the best of their ability and in a spirit of genuine collaboration.

This article will concentrate on what the customer-facing, field-based salesperson is expected to bring to the table as part of this collaborative triad.

In my last article, Don't Neglect to Respect, I wrote about how much I respect the sales representative and manager roles and how important it is that they respect each other. I talked a bit about my dad, the Super Salesman, and how he instinctively knew how to go about the “blocking and tackling” of sales, using skills that are still relevant today and that transcend products, services, markets and industries. 

And while the methods, modalities and media have evolved, and in many ways accelerated the communication process, time still needs to be taken to maximize your effectiveness during customer interactions.

Take Your Time (Do It Right)

So, back in 1980, when I was rocking out at my prom to this recently released hit from the SOS Band, I never thought that I’d be referencing it in an article about sales on a social media site dedicated to business networking on something called the internet…whaaatt?? But, although I think the actual song lyrics are about something other than selling, the title certainly fits today’s topic perfectly, and you could make a case that closing a sale is a pretty satisfying feeling too.

So, from the formidable list of all the components and factors that go into an effective selling process, I’d like to cover off on four core areas where taking your time in advance will help you to do it right when the pressure is on. Since these are fairly meaty topics, I will discuss the first two in this article and the other two in my next.

• Organization

• Preparation

• Product Knowledge

• Account Management and Development

Organization: Part of my definition for a quality sales interaction is that it should be an organized conversation that leads to a logical conclusion. In order to organize the conversation, you need to organize yourself. I have been on countless calls where reps spent the majority of the meeting bent over in their chair digging for some critical piece of evidence in their briefcase because they weren’t organized. Customers have looked at me like, “Are they coming back?”, and sometimes I haven’t been sure of how to answer! I know I have it in here somewhere. I thought I had it. I'll have to bring it next time. None of those lines are going to instill the level of confidence that we want our customers to have in us and our companies.

My dad’s organization skills were unparalleled – in fact, I kid around and tell people that I was raised Orthodox OCD but am now Reformed. Back in those days, records were all kept in hard copy. He had scores of large binders with the detailed specifications of every forklift model that Caterpillar offered, as well as each allied manufacturer his company represented, and every other attachment or other option available. There were volumes of books with pricing, availability, used forklift inventory and rental fleet information. These all had to be maintained and updated manually as new pages and sections were sent out to the field. My dad kept these databases impeccably current so that he always had the correct information for himself, his peers, and, most importantly, his customers.

Today, we get a multitude of updates automatically sent to our computers and other devices. Emails with attachments, zip files, share rooms, etc. That’s great in some ways, but this onslaught of information creates a scenario where it just bounces off of us or blows right by. We’re not forced to go through the actual content, mentally process it, and then file it away both in our minds and in our records, as we were with the manual process. So much information comes at us that we become oversaturated.

Slow down. Take a look at what you’re downloading, uploading, updating, whatever, and think about how it fits in with what you’re trying to accomplish in certain accounts. Just “skimming” emails and other important information from your company may speed things up, but you will most likely miss some important details that are relevant to your daily goals. Digging in a little deeper will help you to have strategic touchstones when you are in conversations and negotiations and drastically increase the value you bring to your prospects and customers.

Preparation: Preparation for your sales calls, presentations, meetings, trade shows, etc. is every bit as critical as making the actual calls. Athletes don’t play without practicing, musicians don’t play without rehearsing; the list of analogies could go on and on. And yet, many times, we as salespeople think we can just roll into our week, our day or any individual call and just do whatever comes to mind. I cringe when a rep tells me that the plan for the call is to “have a talk” or “check in on things” or “drop something off”. Is that enough? The short answer: No.

We all know how precious and scarce time with a customer is, so why waste it? Why waste a single interaction when your goal is to get them from No to Go with as much expedience as possible? What if you get an extended amount of time to interact with one of the key decision makers at the account? Do you have enough to say? Or will it be like when the girl or guy you had a crush on back in school walks up unexpectedly and says hi. Will the words be there? Will the right words be there? Are you prepared?

Even the most improvisational jazz performance begins and ends with the core of a song, a score, a chord progression. Then, the players weave in and out of that structure and each other, pushing the limits of what fits and what doesn’t, what sounds good and what falls flat, before finding their way home to meet up at the end of the song. That’s your sales call. Know your opening lines, your attention grabbers, the tone you want to set for the call and what you want to accomplish by the end, and then be prepared to craft the message as the situation dictates once things start rolling.

Like all great salespeople, my dad engaged in methodical preparation for sales calls, proposal development and pricing negotiations. He would work every component and every angle and play out how the conversations would flow. He would practice the word sets he was going to use to drive his points home. He kept track of how much each customer liked to haggle and tweaked his starting price to accommodate the quid pro quo he knew would ensue.

You need to know your core information cold, know exactly what you hope to accomplish with that visit. Best case, worst case and everything in between. Then, as the conversation ebbs and flows and objections pop up, interruptions pop in and other surprises pop around, you’ll know where you need to get back to by the end of your allotted time with your audience. In keeping with the counter forces of nature, the more you want your selling to appear effortless, the more you need to practice, prepare and plan it out.

It's like the old comedic question, “Do you know how long it took for me to look this natural?”

I encourage each of you to set your personal performance bar high and hold yourselves to lofty standards. Don’t take the easy way out by making average and uninspired sales calls. Make them powerful, make them memorable and make yourself the best salesperson you can be – it will not go unnoticed by your customers and management and you will gain a new level of satisfaction from your chosen career. 

We’ve all heard of (and experienced) call hesitancy, that feeling you get before you go into an account where you’re not sure if it’s worth your time to make the call or if it will make a difference. If you can find the discipline to follow some of the approaches described in this article, you will experience call certainty. You will be eager to make your calls because you’ll have everything locked down and planned out and you’ll know the outcome will be positive and worthwhile.

Take Your Time, Do It Right - Part 2

For those of you who haven't read any of my previous pieces, my mission when founding Culture Sells was to unify sales representatives, sales managers and home office partners in order to foster greater synergy and create environments where sales teams can thrive and excel.

Today’s topic is Part 2 of Take Your Time, Do It Right, where I cover off on some key skills and behaviors that all sales representatives are expected to bring to the table as part of their commitment to their organization, their customers and most importantly, their chosen profession.

These skills and behaviors are what I consider core selling competencies and I refer to them as the “blocking and tackling” of sales. These are universal skills and fall outside of the actual sales process or sales model, which may differ from person to person, company to company and industry to industry. In Part 1 of this article, I covered off on Organization and Preparation. Today, I’ll discuss the other two competencies that were introduced in Part 1, Product Knowledge and Account Management and Development.

Product Knowledge: It may sound obvious to even say this (or write it), but Product Knowledge is critical to achieving and sustaining success in sales. Your customer may know more than you about the entire spectrum of their business, but no one should know more than you when it comes to the specific area where your product or service is involved. I don’t know about you, but I experience a feeling of calm come over me when I’m talking to a salesperson who is clearly knowledgeable yet has the ability to teach me without coming across as condescending, pedantic or excessively in love with themselves.

Your goal is to provide Depth versus Breadth. You are a Specialist, not a Generalist.

You need to be the subject matter expert and the customer needs to know it. Not in an overly egotistical way – but in a way that inspires confidence and comfort. Think of a surgeon who’s discussing with you the plan for a major procedure you’re considering. You don’t need to know about every step and every technicality that’s involved. You just want to know that the person you’re trusting with your health is appropriately confident, highly skilled and can relate to your concerns, fears and needs. When your customers ask you detailed questions about the specifics of your offering, comfort them with proven, incontrovertible facts and figures, not by “thinking so”, not by being “pretty sure”, not by just spewing out something that you heard a colleague or competitor say somewhere along the line.

Be accurate. Be sure. Be brilliant!

There will most definitely be times when you have to get clarification or confirmation on certain details and we’ve all heard the axiom about how it’s better to say “I don’t know” than to disseminate misinformation. That’s very true…to a point. But if you have to reach for a lifeline too often, your credibility and the value you provide begin to wane, especially given the amount of information a customer now can access on their own.

When does “I don’t know” from a rep turn into “I don’t need you” from a customer?

Know your product, Know your market, your competitors, your customer’s business, their competition. This is how you can separate yourself from the pack.

Another way to distinguish yourself from your competition is to make your audience think. Challenge your customers’ assumptions, but only if you can back up your point of view, and be sure you’re prepared for the debate that will follow. Tell them something they don’t already know if you really want to grab their attention and make a positive difference for them and their business. Think of the comparison between a boring, predictable conversation at a party versus having a chat with someone you find to be genuinely thought-provoking.

Interestingly, data shows that brand/product/company loyalty is driven as much by how you sell as what you sell. Customers aren’t looking for a friend when they have an important decision to make regarding a large purchase. They need a guide, a trusted advisor, a consigliere. And the close and enduring business relationship, on which we sometimes mistakenly place all of our focus, is actually the offshoot of this benevolent expertise and counsel, rather than the main act itself.

Again, as in previous articles, I’ll harken back to my upbringing and what I witnessed with my dad, the Super Salesman. His product knowledge was off the charts, for his brand and for the numerous competitors he had. He was a former mechanic who had been recruited over to sales, so he really understood the inner workings of the equipment and could translate that knowledge into benefits his customers could grasp and align with. He was the person everyone called when there was a tricky or obscure question to be answered or a unique application for which a machine needed to be designed, or spec’d. You may not have the hands-on expertise that he did, but you can get it. Be curious. Talk to the support teams and others involved with your offering so that you can understand things from a more global standpoint and share those insights with your customers.

Are you seen as “the authority” when it comes to knowing your product and market?

Account Management and Development: I sometimes hear Account Management and Account Development discussed as separate entities. However, in my opinion, these two descriptions go hand in hand rather than functioning independently, and a truly holistic approach is best when approaching your accounts.

We’ve talked about the sales ecosystem from the seller side, the Holy Trinity of sales representative, sales manager and home office partners who are all integral to the selling process. But there’s also a buying ecosystem on the customer side. This ecosystem is comprised of all the decision makers for a particular deal, as well as everyone with whom you’ll interact along the way. It can be multi-layered, multi-leveled and it provides a multitude of opportunities to succeed or fail.

I sometimes picture the total account matrix as a tightly-woven grid of infra-red sensor beams (you know, like in the Mission Impossible movies) which must be navigated with extreme caution along the way to success. And since you have to make it past gatekeepers and other challenges at every level, a video game mindset can be an asset for the tasks of gaining access and infiltrating the account. Keep trying until you figure it out, but you only get a finite number of lives in each game.

The expression, “be nice to the people you meet on the way up…” is certainly a cliché. But, like so many annoying clichés, it holds a large dose of truth, which is why it became a cliché in the first place. For this discussion we can modify the expression to, “be nice to the people you meet on the way in…” since, as salespeople, we have to sell our way into and out of the offices/accounts we visit. And there are many things not visible to the naked eye that come into play when doing this, so beware. You are “on” as soon as you walk into that account, or sooner. Maybe the person who just stole your parking spot outside is one of the key decision makers for the deal. Or, maybe they’re a relative or close friend of a decision maker. Be kind, friendly and professional with everyone you meet in and around your accounts.

You’ll need to tailor your content for each type of audience that you meet along the way. In order to do this, you need to understand their role in the organization and/or in the purchasing decision. Don’t get highly technical with someone who has more of an administrative role. Don’t go too highbrow with someone whose interests are more basic. Find something about your offering that will appeal specifically to them and make them want to be a part of the solution. What’s their WIIFM?

As the solutions we sell become more complex or more disruptive, the number of people involved in the decision also increases, which makes developing an account properly even more of a survival skill.

Looking back, my dad was making the “total office call” before that was a movement, a concept or even a buzzword. Everyone in the account was his customer: from the receptionist to the executive assistant, from the loading dock foreman to the purchasing agent to the C-suite. And in the Mom and Pop businesses that were his customers, he was practically part of the family (insert your favorite “New Yorker with an Italian surname/Mafia” joke here). He knew his clients’ children’s names, birthdays and interests. Hell, he didn’t even know that about me, my brother or my sister! And there was rarely a time when we went out to dinner or to a movie without him running into a customer of his. Even the ones to whom he hadn’t sold anything in years greeted him like they had just spoken yesterday. They recalled him as an integral part of the wise buying decision they had made. He remembered what kind of equipment he had sold them, right down to the minor details, and he could describe the particulars of their business needs to a T. And this was before we had CRM systems to track and house all of this information. He brought passion to his work with his customers and they felt that commitment.

Do you know your customers inside and out? Do you make them feel valued?

Take time to raise your game. Take time to get organized. Take time to do the prep work. Take time to learn all you can about what you offer your clients and everyone else within their company. Doing so will make your calls more inspiring for your customers, and you may find yourself more inspired as well!

Managing to Lead

This one is for all of you out there who have been entrusted to lead a sales team. Regardless of your industry, your pay grade or the way your position is viewed in your organization, there is no doubting the tremendous responsibility that comes with this leadership position, both within your company and, more importantly, for the people who report to you.

There are countless articles, lectures, slogans and quotes that cover the differences between just managing and actually leading, so I won’t delve into that exact angle. Instead, I want to focus on what I see as some of the true obligations of the sales leadership role and the many different hats you need to wear to truly support your team members.

Of course, there are the requisite company duties of any first line or middle manager. Tracking performance indicators, staying within whatever compliance framework is relevant to your industry, spending time in the field with your people and managing their activity/performance, overseeing expenses and other budget items and all of the other operational and administrative tasks that are non-negotiable. These must be done, but they can be undertaken in a variety of ways.

Do you find yourself playing the “gotcha” game and pouncing on any errors, transgressions or mild infractions you find? Do your reps walk (and talk) on eggshells when they’re with you? Does your presence in their passenger seat give them flashbacks to when they took their road test, such that every time you make a comment or jot down some notes they die a little inside because they know the content isn’t likely to be positive? It’s easy to get caught up in that mindset since the majority of sales managers are spread thin, overworked, highly scrutinized and buried in administrative/busy work.

I once heard a statistic that most field sales reps feel worse after spending time with their manager than they did beforehand and that troubles me deeply. And we all know the old saying that states you should never join or leave a company because of your direct supervisor, while in reality that’s what most of us do on a regular basis.

What are we doing to these people?!?

So, here are a few things that, in my opinion, are of critical importance as you define your style as a team leader. Most of them don’t show up in any job description, nor will they usually be covered in your performance review with whomever you report to. But if you want to build genuine trust, enduring loyalty, mutual respect and an overall positive culture on your team, make sure that you’re filling these roles in your daily interactions with your people.

CHEERLEADER: There’s an abundance of negativity in the world and critics are everywhere, both in our overall society and in Corporate America. Push back against this destructive flow and bring a spirit of sincere positivity to your leadership efforts. Make sure that your people know you believe in them and their ability to succeed and that you will work as hard as they do to foster that success.

I’m not talking about going full-on Pollyanna on them, just bring an overall tone of support and confidence to bear. You’ll still be giving them balanced feedback on their performance, because that’s your responsibility to your company and to them, but be sure to end on a positive note and offer/provide the assistance they need to excel. As the old saying goes, “catch your people doing something right”!

PERSONAL TRAINER: Most of us have been to some sort of a group fitness class and many of us have also tried personal trainers, and there’s a big difference. While both approaches provide some value, it’s the direct one on one, tailored style that really accelerates accountability and results.

Your people deserve and need that level of attention from you, even if they won’t admit it. When I schedule field time with my team members, I always ask them if there are one or two things THEY want to work on while we’re together, and I’m a firm believer that we each know our own areas of development better than anyone else. If they are comfortable enough with you to open up and share their needs you’re more than halfway there; if you can then help them improve in those areas, you’ve moved the relationship to a whole new level.

It can even be something relatively simple. One time a gentleman on my team said that what he really needed help with was understanding the incentive compensation program that was in place that year. It was a legitimate question because one, an IC plan can’t fully motivate people if they don’t understand it, and two, our plan for that time period was way more complex than is ideal. Multiple products, multiple weightings for each call point, sliding scales against moving averages, blah, blah, blah.

We spent 30 minutes or so over coffee reviewing things and he walked away with a clear vision of what he needed to do to maximize his earnings and his resulting level of appreciation was profound.

STUDENT: This may seem somewhat paradoxical at first but bear with me.

Most people like to be an authority on something, to know things that others may not and to be able to share that knowledge. It makes them feel good about themselves and they enjoy teaching people. This is particularly true for salespeople since we are all educators and problem solvers by nature. In light of this, ask honestly curious questions when out with your people. The questions can be about their current territory, customers or business, but be sure those don’t come across as interrogative. Even better, ask them about previous positions they’ve been in or things they did in school if they are early in their career. The questions can even be about things they do concurrently with their position on your team, either in their community, as a hobby or as a side business venture.

Let them feel like the expert when you can – it will bolster their confidence, fortify your mutually beneficial relationship with them and you may even learn a few things along the way. Most likely, you’ll also find some ways to tie that knowledge and those experiences in with your current team, individual and company objectives, which will add to the positive outcomes.

CONFIDANT/SHRINK/BARTENDER: Let’s be honest, sometimes you just need to bitch, moan and get things off your chest. This especially applies for field salespeople who many times operate in a solitary state due to the nature of their position. Company directives, procedural and policy changes, decisions that impact their dealings with their customers all come at them over time. And aside from muttering under their breath or complaining to their loved ones, they have no direct and personal outlet for the frustrations that can result from all of those things that are out of their control.

That’s where you come in.

Will you have all of the answers? No.

Will you be able to change whatever’s causing the annoyance? Most likely not.

But you can advance your connection with your people just by being a sounding board or an ear for them to bend.

I remember a time when one of my people picked me up at the hotel and for the first 15 minutes of the ride to our first call she went on a rant. Some of it was legitimate, some of it was irrelevant, some of it was downright incoherent. She fumed, I listened. And when she was done she looked at me and almost laughed at herself a little. I smiled and said, “All done now?”. She said she felt better and we went about having a productive day. Now, to be clear, these should be isolated occurrences since usually we want our people to object rationally and try to identify potential solutions to the issues they bring up. But every once in a while, let them blow off steam without fear of judgment or repercussions. 

So, in conclusion, while you don't have the option to neglect the core company responsibilities that require you to select, inspect, detect, dissect, direct and correct when managing your team, be sure to make the time and effort to connect with each individual by trying some of the approaches mentioned above.

To Thine Own Self Be True

In my opinion, one of the biggest pitfalls of sharing insights, best practices and advice while in the role of a subject matter expert (either real or imagined) is to give the impression that you’ve achieved perfection. Even worse is to claim that you’ve always been flawless and without misstep, which we all know is pretty much impossible.

So, in the interest of laying that potential perception immediately to rest, in this post I will talk about a couple of the most egregious errors I’ve made during my time leading teams and what I’ve learned from them.

Of course, if you don’t want to read this article, you can just talk to my wife, my kids or any of my friends for a more comprehensive list of my feeble foibles and epic failings.

Let me preface the following information by confessing to you that what makes these blunders so tragic is that I didn’t listen to my natural instincts and instead allowed myself to be bullied into dealing with serious personnel issues (aka, people’s lives) the way my superiors wanted me to.

Failure of Fortitude #1: This first example took place right out of the blocks when I became a sales leader with a HUGE healthcare company.

A family company. A company that markets baby shampoo. A company that holds its world-famous Credo up to the world as the symbol of their impeccable virtue.

I had just moved from Long Island, where I had spent my entire life, to Denver in order to lead a sales team throughout the Midwest. Due to a territory realignment, I inherited a team of six reps, three from one previous district, three from another previous district and a couple of vacancies that I needed to fill. None of these reps had received very much consistent or ongoing coaching over the couple of years before I arrived due to the previous managers being spread too thin and there being a general lack of oversight regarding field visits.

Before getting started in my new role, I was told by the Head of Sales that one of my newly inherited team members had to go. He had the proverbial target on his back and I was led to believe it was strictly tied to ability and performance. So, I put him towards the top of my list as I headed out to make my first round of ride-alongs with my team.

As soon as this gentleman picked me up at the airport I could tell that there was more to the story than I had been led to believe. He was a really nice guy. The kind of open, honest Midwest guy that I would have imagined coming from New York. His attire was nowhere near what it should have been given that we were going to be calling on a large university-based medical center that day, but I figured maybe that’s how it was done around there. (Bear in mind that the film My Cousin Vinny had come out only a few years before this and it kept popping into my head as I stood there in my grey, pin-striped, double-breasted suit and wingtip shoes!) To top it off, as we parked at our first stop, he pulled a plug of chew out of his mouth, tossed it, wiped his hand on his sock and we set off.

Despite his shabby exterior, I observed that this rep had really strong relationships in his accounts, and he had excellent clinical knowledge. His numbers weren’t great and his selling skills could have been better, but others had worse and were not as squarely in the cross-hairs of senior leadership. I started to wonder what the deal was.

I gradually learned that this rep had “over-imbibed” at a sales meeting a while before I took over, which had put him in eternal disfavor. Turns out that by the time I got there he was a recovering alcoholic (sober for several months) who had a number of other issues affecting him and his family. He needed support, not a performance plan, an up-his-ass manager and imminent disciplinary action.

This rep and I spent a lot of tension-filled time together during my time with that team. Even when his numbers were solid I was being pressured to lean on him in the interests of moving him out of the organization. He couldn’t understand why and frankly, I had trouble holding the company line because my humanity kept getting in the way. If only I had known the whole story from the start, I could have done so much better by him and balanced the needs of the employee and the company much more effectively.

Before I moved into my next position, we had a heart to heart talk and he finally saw that he needed to go somewhere else and re-create himself since he was never going to outlive his past at our current company. He did so and, as I understand it, ended up doing well and finding far more satisfaction.

Ironically, in this same district I had a rep who had been anointed “highly developmental” at some point and was therefore immune from repercussions despite massive gaps in his performance. He shirked just about every administrative task and other deadline and was eventually escorted by security out of a company meeting due to falsification of records and running a side business during company working hours.

Moral of the Story: Never get too attached to initial opinions if there is evidence that supports revisiting them.

Failure of Fortitude #2: Same company, different district and still within my first couple of years of becoming a manager. Definitely before I learned what a leader really was.

On my next team, I took over the District Manager spot after my colleague was promoted to become our Regional Business Director, so I had to deal with some of the baggage that comes with inheriting your boss’ old team.

One of my reps was a woman who was there when it had been my RBD’s team. She wasn’t especially warm or likable but was a strong rep and posted some really nice numbers. I can’t remember if it started during my time as her DM or beforehand, but she ended up having to go out on short-term disability several times due to recurrent cancer (it’s hard for me to even write this without hating myself). Bear in mind that we were selling a supportive care drug into the Oncology space and our pervading mantras were “quality of life” for cancer patients and “it’s all about the patient” in our marketing campaigns.

Despite that, every time this rep had to go out on disability, my RBD got furious. He made it sound like she was “faking” cancer or doing it to get out of a meeting or some other responsibilities. Again, I was pressured to get out in the field with her the second she came back to work and grill her about her numbers, her accounts, everything. I feel like I held my ground more this time around due to my earlier experience, but it was still not acceptable. I should have been more of a champion for her. I should have pushed back. But I wanted to succeed and I bought into some of the BS that was being jammed down my throat.

Several years later, she ended up moving to live near me and her kids went to the same school as mine did. I was mortified and tried to avoid her for a while. But eventually I took a deep breath, slapped myself in the face and walked up to her one day and said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t very nice to you when we worked together and I could have done a much better job”. She agreed and while I don’t believe I was totally forgiven, I did what I could to make amends for my previous ethical shortcomings.

Moral of the Story: Try to avoid doing things you’ll have to apologize for later.

Finally Getting It Right: Later in my career I worked for a company that was launching a novel drug into the Rheumatology space. Our focus was on gout, a disease that it turns out is very prevalent in Pacific Islanders and Hawaii was part of my district. The National Sales Director and the VP of Sales kept telling me they wanted to put a full-time rep in Hawaii, which was usually only done by multi-billion dollar brands. Normally, the Islands were covered out of Los Angeles or San Francisco.

I told them I didn’t think there were enough Rheumatologists in that geography to justify a FTE. Normally, we created a territory when there were 85 or so full-time Rheums in an area and there were only 14 in all of Hawaii, 2 of them part-time. They asked – I said I didn’t recommend it. This took place several times. Eventually, it became clear that we were going to hire someone in Hawaii and I had to comply. So, I used my network to find a great rep, a great guy, and we hired him away from the company he was with since we still had some upside promise at that point in the launch.

Fast forward four months or so and the launch wasn’t going very well. Demand for the drug was far lower than we had anticipated and we were only hitting at about 25% of our forecast (yes, that’s right, 25%). The company culture grew more dysfunctional and toxic by the day. The sales coming out of Hawaii were very low, especially since it’s a very price-sensitive market and our product was priced at a significant premium over conventional therapies.

During one of our Business Review meetings the VP and NSD brought up the fact that sales in Hawaii were low and started to insinuate that it was the rep’s fault. This progressed to the point where they told me I had to put him on a Performance Improvement Plan, a PIP.

This time, though, I knew what strong leadership looked like. I knew the right thing to do by my team member and my internal compass. I said no.

I explained to them that it was ludicrous for us to have taken this person out of another stable, well-paying job and to then dump him this early in the game. It would be different if the rest of the country was killing it and he was a laggard, but that was not the case. I told them that we should give him more time, and if it turned out that they wanted to undo their ill-advised decision to put a full-time rep in Hawaii, they should do it the right way. Treat the rep with dignity – don’t blame it on him. Package him out in a generous way and help him to land on his feet. Why should he suffer because senior leadership didn’t do their due diligence?

Moral of the Story: It’s never too late to get things right.

I guess that during the time between the first and last of these scenarios I “grew a set” and decided that I was no longer going to be an immoral shill for people just because of an org chart.

And that’s why I’m a consultant now. I answer only to myself.

So, my parting thoughts for all of you in any kind of leadership role is to be true to yourself. Be true to your beliefs. To your integrity. To your knowledge of what’s wrong and right. Be the human shield that your people need sometimes and you will sleep well at night and have a legion of grateful colleagues, past and present. And there’s nothing better than that!

Elevate Your People. Elevate Your Sales.