No more finger-pointing

I’m preparing to train a lead dev team this Friday and connected with their manager today to learn more about his needs and what he suggested I delliver to his team. This group has already been through my TeleSmart 10 program and they are on the refresher schedule which means more adhoc-type training to get this pumped up. It’s usually about me saying a lot of what their manager has been saying but somehow they hear it differently because it comes from me.

He tells me his team is bored, morale is low, lead quality is sluggish, and they are clearly burning out. They are not hitting their 65 outbound call metrics and it’s only going to get worst this year with increased expectations and more leads being dumped into their funnel. But that’s why the timing is perfect for a sales trainer to come in an pump them up. Gee, my favorite thing to do, can’t wait.

“Let’s back up” I suggest.  “I understand you want your teams to make their 65 outbound calls but you also want long, meaningful and deep qualifying conversations with prospects?”

“You got it, you can review that with them on Friday.” He was convinced I would make this happen on Friday.

 ”What are you doing to keep them from being burned out?” I heard complete silence. Did I hit a nerve?  He finally responded and shared in confidence that he was burning out himself but it’s the nature of his job and his role and his team and the expectations. 

“What can you do to re-energize this group?” I asked him and listened to some brilliant, insightful and inspiring ideas.

Sometimes we just need someone to give us permission to think big thoughts and to encourage us to move away from the tried and true. Selling in a 2.0 world means exactly that. There’s no more finger pointinig, you must take responsibility and make it happen for yourself and your teams.