What's one thing sales reps should focus on early if they want to successfully transition into management?
Focus on relationships. You need to have strong relationships with your customers, understand your customers’ goals, and really where that customer wants to go in the future.
Also, relationships with the key stakeholders within your organization. You need to have a strong relationship with the functional leaders (and that includes HR, legal, marketing), because as you advance within leadership projects, issues become more complex and you need to make sure that you have a strong operating rhythm with those functional leaders so you can make quick and effective decisions – ultimately, to make sure that you can take care of your customer. And as a manager, taking care of your customer is the number one priority and we need a lead as a manager.
What feedback took you the longest to accept, but ultimately made you a better sales leader?
The feedback that's taken me the longest to accept, and that was early in my career, was rejection. I had a mentor early in my career that gave me some coaching around how I handled rejection, and I'm an extremely competitive individual and rejection was really hard for me early in my career. If I lost out an RFP or I didn't get that promotion that I wanted to get – previously I would look at rejection as no, you can't move forward.
But some of the coaching that I received is that you need to look at rejection as just “not yet”.
And how do you learn from rejection And how can you stay engaged if there was a loss of an RFP, Are there ways you can still stay engaged with that customer and build a relationship so you have an opportunity to go after that business when it comes back out to RFP?
Or if it was the promotion, are you able to take on more responsibilities, take on different roles or different projects within the organization to help elevate you?
And I think ultimately now as I advanced through my career is rejection has been a really good thing is that, you know, some of the roles that didn't get promotions, I didn't get right away.
I've ended up being able to continue to grow and get a position that was better fitted for, better suited for my experience.
How do you help emerging leaders with challenging tasks?
We sit down and have conversations. If it's preparation into a contract review or contract note negotiations, we go through different models and do role-playing to understand what they may face in that conversation with the customer and make sure they're well prepared.
Ultimately, I empower that individual and give them the confidence to go in and have an effective meeting. If it's positive, we'll reward with recognition. If there's opportunity for some additional coaching as we go through and understand what impact it either has with the customer or the organization. Then make sure that next time they go into that meeting, they learn from those conversations and those mistakes. And this will ultimately make a more effective leader.