Friday 23 April 2021

By: Nigel Swaby, a fellow of the former Institute of Sales Management that recently merged with the Association of Professional Sales, is a business leader with over 35 years commercial and business development experience across an array of sectors.

When I became managing director of an IT recruitment business, I was keen to find out how much my sales force knew about the sales process. I recall asking a simple question: “How do you spend most of your time?” Some said, writing proposals; others mentioned prospect or client meetings. A few replied that they focused on getting to know their candidates while keeping an eye on the competition. All worthwhile activities, but the answer I was hoping for was more of an admission: “I waste too much time with people who aren’t going to buy.”

It's easy to forget, but unlike other factors, your time is finite.

How often do we hear the phrase: there aren't enough hours in the day? It’s tempting, but we should try not to use this as an excuse. We all get 24 hours a day, and in sales, one of the very best ways to manage your time is in the art, and science, of qualification – making sure your prospect is a good fit for your product or service, so you know who is worth your time and energy, and – in the nicest way – who is not.

With today’s technology, companies can have the best systems for assessing prospects, sales performance, and customer relationships. There is no doubt that social media’s analytical tools can help with marketing efficiency, measuring the return on marketing investment. All great and useful stuff, but let’s not forget the human element in situations where it may not be practical to market your company’s products or services through social media alone; where only face-to-face will suffice. Try selling a multi-million-pound investment-bank trading-platform through Facebook and see how you get on.

For me, the bedrock of successful selling is to qualify, qualify and qualify, throughout the entire sales process, and to do that you need to become something of a sales detective. Your forensic research will give you the edge over the competition and you will invest less time with those who aren’t likely to buy.

I would not wish to insult anyone’s intelligence, or waffle on about basic sales techniques or sales qualification, but my aim is to make you think about your own environment, and the way you, or your company sells. It’s easy to say you have identified a prospective customer, and believe your company has the perfect solution for their needs, but make sure you’ve assessed all the angles, and mined any diamond bits of information. Don’t let your qualifying process be dull and mechanical, because there is a danger you will miss a real gem. Believing that your company’s offering is a neat solution to your prospect’s needs isn’t enough.

Look for the diamond in all areas of qualification. Think of all the dynamics and angles surrounding each qualifying parameter.

Let’s take just one simple example: people. Build up profiles of all the players involved, their backgrounds, likes, dislikes, hobbies and other interests and so forth. Perhaps some key influencer used to work for one of your current clients? Find out more about this person and, if appropriate, ask for a recommendation. What about the key contact, your prospect, do they have a good reputation? Perhaps they are just scouring the marketplace to amass ammunition to beat down the incumbent supplier?

When you are face-to-face with your prospect, immerse yourself in the environment, absorbing all you hear, see and even smell; taste the air!

Always look out for a clue, the angle, ways to hone and refine your questioning. Are you feeling at ease or a little awkward? They will probably be mirroring the way you feel. Notice the body language, body twitching, feet moving. Is your prospect agitated, and where are their eyes directed? What type of personality are you dealing with: the nervous, shy, retiring type, or Mr Ego who lies back in his chair with hands clasped behind the back of his neck?

Adapting your approach to each personality type will enhance your chances of a successful outcome. Become an expert in human behaviour. You’ll invest less time with those that aren’t genuine prospects. The detective work goes on and on.

Of course, this strategy may be overkill if you are selling low-value, high-volume commodity items, but it is crucial for successful selling into high-value major accounts. There’s nothing really intellectual about sales qualification, but it is a thoughtful discipline which must be structured and measured in a systematic way to ensure time is optimised, rather than being relegated down the list of things to do.

Remember, it all comes back to one thing: your time. The better salespeople are at qualifying, the more time they have to focus on legitimate prospects, maximising conversion success rates, ultimately resulting in generating greater profits.

If you’ve found this article thought provoking and of value, then the invested time spent with me writing it and you reading it, has been worthwhile.

One final thought, in UK average-life-expectancy terms, the value of one hour to a 50-year-old, has the equivalent value of two hours to someone who is 20. Time gets more precious year by year. To reiterate, your time is finite. Don’t waste it.

© Nigel Swaby, March 2021.

Nigel Swaby, a fellow of the former Institute of Sales Management that recently merged with the Association of Professional Sales, is a business leader with over 35 years commercial and business development experience across an array of sectors, including film, music, childcare, education, financial systems and software.

Tuesday 9 March 2021

Mark Pawsey MP is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Professional Sales and a former sales leader. He also sits on the influential Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee - a select committee of the House of Commons.

His foreword to a new parliamentary report, published on Tuesday 9 March 2021, calls for action to support the sales profession to boost the UK’s recovery, jobs and skills .

You can read the full report here: Supercharging Sales: Investing in B2B selling for jobs and growth

Mark writes... As a business-to-business salesman I spent years driving the motorways of Britain to talk to clients and understand their needs, and as a B2B manager I helped my sales team to win business and drive prosperity.

So it’s with the benefit of personal experience that I can assure you that the UK wouldn’t function without B2B selling, which is a huge part of the economy. Since I left the profession, the job has only become more demanding - requiring deep product knowledge but always with a high need for customer insight, empathy, communication, collaboration, strategy and critical thinking.

I was a founder member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Professional Sales, and our first inquiry in 2019 looked at why so many SMEs were underperforming at this essential business activity. We highlighted too little B2B sales knowhow and slowness in taking on new technology. Snobbery about selling was another problem, stopping good recruits coming into the profession.

If we fixed these problems the economy would enjoy significant growth in productivity. Here’s what we said in 2019, and every word rings truer today: “Our report identifies a critical shortage of professional salespeople that affects every business, but SMEs in particular. It also highlights a negative attitude in Britain towards selling that is holding the economy back. The government needs to intervene to close the skills gap, and to promote a more business-like attitude towards selling.”

Several months after our report was published, Covid-19 arrived and caused a revolution in the way we sell, on top of a deep recession. So this, our second inquiry, looks at the changes caused by the pandemic, and the lessons we need to learn. Can good, ethical, professional B2B selling help tackle the huge challenges the economy now faces?

Many thanks to the expert contributors from business and academia whose views are quoted throughout. Our findings are that SME owners need to learn to sell in a new way. Many have only started adopting digital technology and are being held back by a lack of business-to-business selling skills. B2B salespeople need to be upskilled, and more need to be trained. We say that the government must intervene to help, as the recession has left many SMEs too weak to do it alone.

If we turn round attitudes, and if we upskill our workforce, then B2B selling will be a major force to power the UK out of recession, creating jobs and building new markets overseas. Let’s get selling!

About the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Professional Sales

The APPG for Professional Sales is supported by the Association of Professional Sales which provides its secretariat and research. The group was founded by APS fellow Stephen Kerr in 2018, when he was MP for Stirling. The APPG is now led by Mark Pawsey, the MP for Rugby, who also sits on the influential Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee - a select committee of the House of Commons.

At the Association of professional Sales, forward-thinking sales leaders can connect, share experiences and gain insight through informal face-to-face and online meetings - a chance to interact with peers locally, nationally and internationally.

The APS brings together individual salespeople, sales leaders and those at the cutting-edge of their organisations. Our community enables members to learn from diverse markets, companies, regions and cultures.

Beyond the benefits of being part of this society of sales leaders, the APS also provides access to a rich range of debate and learning opportunities. We are focused on creating an environment where sales academics and practitioners can meet and grow together.

• Weekly, global round table sessions
• Monthly webinars
• White papers and reviews
• Research
• Catalogue of leadership development content accessible via the APS learning management system
• Informal self-directed networking
• Leadership development including Sales Directors Course, Key Account Management Development and a Masters in Strategic Sales Leadership.
• Access to APS and Cranfield Centre for Sales Excellence

By Fellows For Fellows…

The Association are celebrating the leadership of 2021 initiatives by its fellows, and we are delighted that Darren Bayley, a Founding Fellow of the APS and a long-standing sales leader has agreed to lead the fellowship engagement programme for 2021/22.

”I am looking forward to working with the APS leadership team to further enhance fellow and member engagement during the coming year. My aim is to be able to unlock the power of the APS professional network to allow all APS fellows to benefit from the insight, development opportunities and fellowship associated with being part of the APS sales community.

As Sales Director for Straumann UK & Ireland, an experienced Chartered Professional (CMI and CIM) and Section Manager for the International Team for Implantology (the largest international academic organization in implant dentistry and related tissue regeneration), Darren has already begun work on an action plan to increase engagement with the senior membership of the Association and looks forward to sharing this soon.

“As we continue to grow our Association we will seek to further enhance engagement and fellowship within this professional community” adds Bayley.

This will include ensuring APS Fellows benefit from:

• Increased insight into current trends impacting sales professionals.
• Access to a knowledge bank of the most up to date research from sales academics around the world.
• Shared best practice on sales transformation, organizational development and go to market strategies.
• Insights from other segments, markets and countries to support sales leaders look beyond the boundaries of their own industries.

All of these elements combine to support the Associations vision of creating a knowledge-based community for our fellows, thereby helping them create sustainable value and success within their own companies.

The Association also looks to its Fellows to be active in supporting its work with educational establishments promoting sales as a career along with its work with the Government and the All Party Parliamentary Group For Sales where we work to shape policy. All of which contributes to increasing the standing of sales as a profession and recognition of its positive impact on the economy, business, individuals and society.

During the course of this year, we will be reaching out to APS Members and Fellows for their support in helping to further the goals of the APS.

We look forward to working with you.

Thursday 1 October 2020

In this article, the third in a series busting the myths of sales leadership, Andrew Hough, chief executive of the Association of Professional Sales, challenges the common perception that the only purpose of business is profit.

Recently we have seen two remarkable examples of the power of shared purpose.

The death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer generated a spontaneous wave of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Around the world the public rallied, taking to the streets despite the health risk to show their passion for the cause. Conversations about BLM exploded on social media. The movement proved so powerful it gained the attention of the corporate world. Company after company issued press statements, committing to re-examine their own practices. Publishers began to reassess how many black authors they publish. Healthcare employers reconsidered rotas to move Bame staff away from the frontline of the covid crisis. We will have to wait and see how deep-rooted the changes are, but there is little doubt that BLM has shifted how we think.

The early weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK provided an even more extraordinary example of shared purpose in action. Tens of millions of people consented to restrict their movements, even when they passionately wanted to see their family and loved ones. Millions volunteered to help others. Millions donated food. Support groups sprang up unprompted in every community. Fear of the virus, empathy for the victims, desire to do something helpful, plus a call to action by the government, resulted in an outpouring of altruism and a remarkable solidarity in obeying the lockdown, often at high personal cost.

Both the response to Covid-19 and the BLM movement demonstrate classic behaviours triggered by a sense of shared purpose.

Individuals showed:

Now, imagine: what would it be like if employees applied those powerful, positive behaviours at work? A fraction of the energy and sense of purpose poured into the BLM protests and responding to Covid-19 would be enough to galvanise any company’s fortunes. Customers would be delighted, revenues would increase, and at the end of the year shareholders would be looking at a healthier balance sheet.

Profit vs Purpose

Let’s keep in mind those examples of what is possible when people work with a shared purpose. Because when we look at the state of business before Covid-19, that energy and confidence were not much in evidence.

Productivity across Europe had shown very little increase for the past 20 years. The UK economy was one of the worst affected by this stagnation. Concerns about the wellbeing of workers were on the rise. The huge cost to business of days lost through absenteeism was continuing to grow.

 

There was no shortage of people trying to diagnose and fix what was going wrong. There were more leadership consultants, mentors, executive development programmes and MBAs than ever before. But few of the solutions they came up with seemed to make a difference to the way the workforce felt or acted. There was a sense that leadership was in a rut, unable to inspire or offer new direction. In too many sales teams, leadership had nothing to offer to motivate salespeople but the pursuit of their quota and the need to deliver shareholder returns.

The people in sales teams who felt the lowest sense of engagement with work were those in the millennial age group, born between 1981-96. This is the largest group in the workforce, and their efforts should have been the engine driving the business forward. Instead, they felt detached from their organisations and uninspired by the aims of their leaders. They moved jobs frequently.

Yet this is an age group which, as a whole, has a strong streak of idealism. They crave a cause to identify with. Many were, in fact, the very people who took to the streets to protest that Black Lives Matter.

The need for better leadership

It seems a long time ago now, the status quo before the protests, and the pandemic.

The huge disruption caused by Covid-19 has forced businesses to reassess their business models repeatedly. And with a steep rise in cases, and more regional lockdowns, there is uncertainty about what this winter will bring.

Meanwhile many of the millennial salespeople who felt disengaged from work are now fearful for their jobs. Hundreds of thousands are on furlough. Some have been laid off. The rest are getting used to new ways of working. Wellbeing is at a low ebb, and anxiety and depression are on the rise.

Times of great disturbance call for leadership. It is clear that the kind of leadership on offer will have to change. Addictive leadership, doing things the way that they have always been done, will not do. The simple pursuit of profit will not serve when customers are not buying, and their needs are changing. You cannot motivate salespeople by rewarding them for hitting quota when no one is hitting quota. It is a time for new thinking.

 

The way to a new normal

Sales leaders need to bring their teams together and communicate a sense of shared purpose. If sales leaders could harness a fraction of the energy poured into the BLM protests and the response to Covid-19, then their businesses would come roaring back from the downturn. In 2015, PR firm Burson-Marsteller and IMD Business School found that “strong, well-communicated purpose” can contribute up to a 17% improvement in financial performance.

Any leader who picks up the challenge will be pushing at an open door. Research has repeatedly shown that employees want purpose at work. In a recent survey, 63% of millennials said that the primary purpose of businesses should be “improving society” instead of “generating profit.”

“Millennials don’t just work for a paycheque — they want a purpose,” writes Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup. The polling company’s research paper How Millennials Want to Work and Live reveals that 63% of millennials believe the primary purpose of businesses should be “improving society” instead of “generating profit.”

Having a sense of purpose improves their wellbeing and sense of belonging at work. Purpose-driven employees will not only sell 37% more (Shawn Achor’s research) but have 66% less sick-leave and 51% lower job turnover (Forbes and Gallup), and show 300% more innovation according to Harvard Business Review.

The problem and the solution

So what are the obstacles to businesses changing to become more purposeful? The answer up till now, I regret to say, has been us - the junior and middle managers and directors. We are the ones who failed to understand the message and filter it down throughout the organisation. We are the ones who clung addictively to the past, making financial gain the beginning and end of the way we managed salespeople.

As Dee Hock, the inspirational founder of Visa International, put it:

“Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality.”

 

There is no need for this to continue: indeed, the argument for change has become overwhelming, and it is down to us to do something about it. Business leaders can be the galvanising force for change.

Jeremy Moore, the founder of leadership experts, Zoomcow, told an Association of Professional Sales webinar that if you want to inspire loyalty and engagement, and promote the wellbeing of your team, you need to show them three important qualities: trust, empathy and respect.

These attributes do not merely improve working relationships, they demonstrate how customers too, need to be treated.

Defining purpose

So how can you inspire a sales team, give them purpose and help them identify with their business and be proud to serve it?

Right now, the best place to start is with professionalism and a strong ethic of serving the customer in their hour of need. Acquiring the skills to do the job despite difficult circumstances. Striving to be better, despite the obstacles.

From its founding six years ago the Association of Professional Sales (APS) has consistently spread the message that continuous professional development, qualifications and professionalism are the best way to give salespeople a sense of direction and purpose. The learning that started in lockdown can continue into the future. That will be good not just for individual salespeople, who want to improve their skills and polish their personal brand, but also good for their company, their customers, for wider society and the environment.

 

I’ll finish with the example of Royal Mail, a company that has been a close partner of the APS since its inception. Royal Mail has had plenty of business challenges over the past few years, but has faced them down, and is now enjoying excellent results and performing strongly in its retail markets.

Graham Davis, who as group sales director at Royal Mail oversaw the transformation of the sales team, said that the company used to be frightened of change but ultimately came to welcome it for the opportunities it brought.

First, managers were helped to transform their own leadership by becoming qualified coaches. In the course of two years they tripled the amount of time they spent coaching from 25% to 75%.

“Technology manages. People lead,” said Davis, who is now chairman of the APS board. “You establish values, attitudes, beliefs and customs. You encourage people to challenge themselves inside, and outside, work. At the end, you have a motivated sales team engaged in that vision of the future.”

The changes threw up some inspiring stories. One of Graham’s colleagues in sales was terrified of flying, but she challenged that fear. Six months later she was wing-walking. Graham was stunned: “She was on the wings of a plane – flying! She wouldn’t get on a plane, then she is strapped to the wings of one. Suddenly your team thinks anything is possible.”

Thursday 4 June 2020

  In this article, the second in a series busting the myths of sales leadership, Andrew Hough, chief executive of the Association of Professional Sales (APS), challenges the common perception that salespeople are simply driven by how much they earn.

Historically, salespeople have been very well paid. The rationale for this has been that they are “coin-operated”, as the joke goes, and that to motivate them you need to give them the chance to earn the material things in life: a flashier watch, a faster car or a luxury break.

As a self-confessed traditionalist in sales, I admit to buying nice watches, expensive cars, and having great holidays. I did what others around me did. Was that wrong? No. It was not hurting anyone. I was simply swept up in the mood of the times.

But there is a danger if we sales leaders persist in doing things the way they were done in our younger days. This is a point I have already raised in the first of my articles on addictive leadership. Times change. Yesterday’s solutions gradually cease to be true or relevant. They become myths that have outlived their usefulness.

So is it still true, if it ever was, that salespeople are mainly interested in money? We act as though they are. Many salespeople are still very well paid, and as they are revenue-generators for their companies, fair enough. Most companies have a different pay structure for salespeople compared to other professionals. Few sellers receive a flat-rate salary; for most, pay and bonuses are linked to the value and volume of deals done. The more they sell, the more they get paid. Like dogs in the yard, salespeople are thrown a few juicy chops and left to get on with their work.

Many are not happy with this state of affairs, as the Association of Professional Sales has been warning for some time. Money is far from being the only motivator, and in some studies is not even the prime one. The APS 2020 Sellers’ Survey showed that financial earnings and reward was only the third-rated concern for sellers.

In our opinion, even that finding may be skewed by the responses of older cohorts of salespeople. Because whether you look at the APS survey or other studies by EY, Deloitte or Gallup, the findings are similar: the millennials who now make up the majority of our sales teams are just as interested in personal development, growth in their careers, and in positive and inspiring experiences in the workplace, as they are in watches, cars or package holidays.

And it’s far from clear whether linking sellers’ rewards solely to the revenue they make for their firms is actually benefiting those firms.

Repeated mis-selling scandals have shown again and again that there are dangers for customers in a system of reward where sellers are paid to sell more, and a risk of reputational damage for the companies involved.

The early weeks of the Covid-19 crisis brought this into sharp focus. Selling went out of the window: nobody wanted to be sold to. Instead the best and brightest sellers reached out to customers on a human level and asked how they were, how their marketplace had changed, what their new challenges were, and what they needed to stay afloat. This didn’t lead to a sale, but it did lead to trust, and trust is 52% of the battle in making a future sale.

These sellers adapted quickly to a different way of working. Without face-to-face meetings their productivity actually went up, because without spending time travelling to their customers, they could arrange more conversations with more clients to find out how they and their businesses were doing.

This behaviour was clearly beneficial to their own company’s chances of emerging strongly from the lockdown. If these sellers had instead kept on making standard sales calls to clients whose organisations were in turmoil, and whose needs were changing rapidly, the likelihood is they would have done more harm than good.

The question for a sales leader is, how do you reward behaviour that is professional and advantageous to your company? You can’t do it on the basis of quotas, targets or revenue.

This is where older sales leaders - and very few sales leaders with significant decision-making scope are under the age of 45 - will need to think differently. The risk is that the era we inhabited when we were young will persuade us to remain tied to assumptions that are no longer valid.

The majority of sales leaders today look at compensation through the same lens they have always used. But applying that vision to sellers fails to reward their creativity, or their ability to build trust.

And that, the Association of Professional Sales would argue, is the issue with the way sales ecosystems are today. Addictive leadership drives towards incentives by fiscal rewards and bonuses, but offers no other reward.

The pernicious practice of over-quota-ing, meanwhile, has weakened the power of financial incentives. Quotas are now manipulated in such a way that less than 70% of sellers make their number - discouraging for anyone, let alone a generation that grew up on computer gaming.

The view of the APS is that sellers want to be fairly rewarded for the revenues they generate on behalf of their employers, and they want a fair and realistic goal by which they are compensated. In addition, millennials and generation Z want other kinds of rewards: help with professional development, and recognition for their achievements. They want rewards in a positive workplace experience, and the sense of contributing to a worthy purpose like increasing the success of their customers. In the APS 2020 sellers survey, the top priority and concern for sellers was “work-life” balance, followed by goal attainment.

So how can sales leaders look at ways to change the reward structure for their sellers? For a start, they should take a look at how other types of professionals in their organisation are developed and recognised professionally, even whilst being paid less.

Here are some of the things young professionals in accountancy, HR, procurement and marketing can expect from work: 

• Recognition of commercial competence through professional accreditation and qualification. This leads them to return to work post experience and travel.
• Purpose through professionalism
• Coaching for self-development against a framework of success and competence.
• Management support in their development journey.

By comparison, salespeople start their careers with no road map of development and qualification, and no external ratification of their knowledge, skill or behaviour.

True, not every seller wants or thinks about personal development, but with life expectancy rising and financial security less certain, the average career will be diverse and long.

Average working lives are 40 years, while the average tenure in a sales role is only 2.7 years, based on LinkedIn data. And it’s shorter for younger sellers. If you then weave in some extended holidays and travel, the average future seller could have up to 15 employers in their working life. Most young sellers do not want this to be a rootless and aimless shuttling from employer to employer, with no sense of progress.

When salespeople look at their peers in finance and accounting, procurement, marketing, engineering and technology, they see that their companies invest in their personal brand, through professional qualifications layered over academic qualifications. Why then would they choose selling as a career? They may fall into the role, but many will then seek to escape it quickly. 

As a sales leader, imagine that your sellers were content to take a longer term view and stay with you as an employer for longer. Imagine you enabled your sellers to embrace a long career where they were rewarded because of their capability as well as their results.

Would they join you ahead of another, more traditional sales employer? Yes. Would they stay longer with you and build deeper and stronger relations with customers? Yes. Would they be more likely to return after having a travel break? Yes. How would that reduce your cost of sale and increase your revenues? I think you know the answer to that.

By offering salespeople recognition via qualification, and by supporting their self development, you treat them as integral to your business, connecting you to your most important resource, your customer. You offer salespeople purpose through professionalism, and show them what that means in terms of customer connection. You offer them purpose through collaboration for customer revenue success.

The idea that all sellers care about is money, is being shown up for the myth it always was. Sellers are not “dogs in the yard”, penned in by a fence to ensure they stay within the boundaries that you seek. By removing their creativity, trapping them in very specific measures of success, manipulating their earnings to fit corporate returns, you are driving the best and brightest young talent away.

Covid-19 has many downsides, but one good thing it has done is to offer us an opportunity to change. Sellers are working from home. Technology makes it much easier for sales managers to listen in on sales calls, monitor progress towards behavioural goals, to offer coaching and support. Upheaval has fuelled a thirst for new knowledge and understanding.

Out of our new working patterns - now likely to remain with us for many months - we have the possibility to change the way we manage and reward salespeople, for the better. So we have a choice as sales leaders in how we progress.

Option one is to do what we have always done. Option two is to start rewarding and motivating our young sellers in a way that may be different for sales, but is very established for other employees.

Which way will you go?

Thursday 28 May 2020

In the first of a new series of articles which challenge the myths of sales leadership, Andrew Hough, chief executive of the Association of Professional Sales (APS), explains why we need to solve today’s problems, not yesterday’s, to build a professional sales force.

Myth 1: As a sales leader, I am equipped to make great decisions.

Winston Churchill once joked that the War Office was always preparing for the last war. It’s no laughing matter, however. Leaders often do prepare to face past problems they already know and understand, rather than the real ones facing them in the present. The result is usually a string of costly mistakes.

In March 2020 we were all plunged into something like a war, a period of maximum disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic. So it is a timely question to ask: are we as sales leaders really meeting the current challenges? Or are we guilty of the syndrome of addictive leadership - staying within the comfort zone of our own past experience, believing the myths of our own leadership, and making mistakes in how we handle the crisis?

Addictive leadership

I’d like to hold my hands up. Since first discussing the concept with Jeremy Moore of Zoomcow, I have been deliberating about addictive leadership with my colleagues across the APS global family. I have concluded that using yesterday’s solutions on today's problems is a syndrome I have often fallen into myself. I’ve always assumed that my 25 years of sales experience qualify me to make executive and strategic decisions on behalf of my sales teams. Well, no. I was and I am wrong.

Why? Because my 25 years of experience don’t qualify me to know what works for a 25-year-old salesperson today. I can make great decisions about what would work for a 25-year-old “me”, always assuming the world has not changed in 25 years. But when it comes to understanding the needs and wishes of sellers in their 20s and 30s, who make up most of today’s sales workforce, I have a lot to learn.

And it is vital sales leaders should try to understand these sellers, if they are to have any hope of engaging and empowering them, and inspiring them to stay in their job.

Sales organisations rely on their young salespeople. We need them to stay long enough in the role to acquire knowledge of their company, their market, and their customer’s current and future needs.

There is no shortcut to this expertise, which is necessary if sellers are to engage their customers and give them a great experience. Then everyone wins. Capable salespeople drive revenues for both their customers’ and their own organisations. Individual sellers also benefit, because by being successful they will feel more engaged and fulfilled. Consequently, sales leaders can relax a little, confident that their sellers will stay longer in role, and thus reduce their organisation’s cost of sale.

Of course, increasing engagement and accelerating revenue and reducing cost are exactly what sales leaders are paid to achieve. So if I’m hoping to make great sales leadership decisions, I have to let go of embedded bias, and get to know how the young seller thinks, and understand what they want from an employer. Only then can I develop insight, and understand the better options I have as a decision-maker.

Millennials are different

By 2025, 75% of sales teams are likely to be either millennials (those born 1981 - 1996, according to the Pew Research Centre definition) or Generation Z (born 1997 - 2012). By comparison, very few sales leaders and managers who make critical decisions are below 45.

Several major pieces of research have looked at the changing profile of the workforce, and how the ambitions and motivation of younger people are different from previous generations. Their results have important messages for how we need to change the way we manage. One such study is by the polling and data company Gallup, in its seminal 2016 report How Millennials Want to Work and Live. Its findings, about past and present fulfilment, are summarised in the table below:

 (source: Gallup)

Millennials don’t feel connected

Gallup reports that less than a third of millennials (29%) feel emotionally and behaviourally connected to their jobs, compared to 32% of Gen X-ers, and 33% of the Baby Boomer generation.

This is a terrible waste, as - more than any other generation - millennials thrive on engagement. In their ideal world, work would be more than a mere job; it would be part of their identity, their self-esteem, their life. So when Gallup reports that 55% of millennials feel disengaged, the highest of any generation, and that 16% say they are actively disengaged in the workplace, that is a sad indictment of the way they are being managed.

It’s a costly mistake, too. This is the age group that should be driving the economy. Staff turnover due to millennial lack of engagement costs the US economy around $30.5 billion annually. Every sales leader wrestles with the problems of churn in their sales teams, and complains of the difficulty of recruiting staff. Other research shows that 50% of sales millennials leave their companies because they are not engaged. When half the sales team are millennials, the current average, then sales leaders are facing the very real prospect that 25% of their staff will leave each year.

It’s a problem that is only going to deepen, if current trends continue, as by 2025 75% of sales teams will be millennials. If half leave, then sales leaders will be facing 37% churn, and recruitment will eclipse every other problem on their desk. The cost to a company of someone leaving a sales team, in terms of lost revenue, and recruiting and onboarding a replacement, is at least equal to their annual target earnings. The cost should also be measured in damage to the customer relationship, because when a seller departs, the customer’s trust in the company reverts to near zero. This damages revenue, as an estimated 52% of the reason people buy is still trust.

Another thing we need to re-examine urgently is the widespread practice of sales leaders setting unrealistically high individual quotas. From a manager’s point of view, the practice makes sense as it allows the department to continue to hit its number even if some of the frontline sales team quit or fall short. The effects on individual sellers are negative, however. Over-quota-ing demotivates sellers. It cuts their chances of hitting their target and shrinks their earnings. It reduces the feelings of success and belonging that research suggests millennials particularly enjoy, and it disengages them more.

Millennials want personal development

We as sales leaders need to find ways to ensure our millennial employees can feel engaged with their work, and one of things the research throws up is their desire to grow in their careers. They have been brought up to believe there is no such thing as a job for life, and are happy to move on if they don’t feel fulfilled and rewarded. Another major study of millennials by Deloitte in 2019 found that 49% would quit their current job if they had the choice - up from 38% two years earlier.

Millennials don’t necessarily define growth by getting a promotion, or nice car. Growth is defined on a personal level, and what that means for each employee is something that sales leaders need routinely to be addressing in ongoing conversations with their younger sellers.

Growth in their career and recognition of their development are big motivators. So here is a question for every sales leader: how do you recognise a seller's growth, and reward it? And the most straightforward answer is through learning and professional development. Rewards can come through gaining a qualification, which may bring a pay rise or a promotion, but just as importantly will enhance the seller’s personal brand.

Pay is not the only motivator for millennials

“For millennials, work must have meaning,” the Gallup study reports. “They want to work for organisations with a mission and purpose.”

A good salary alone won’t keep millennials in a sales team, and they are more likely to quit if they sense that their company lacks principles.

The opposite is also true. 71% of millennials who strongly agree that they know what their organisation stands for say they plan to stay with their company for at least another year.

While sales leaders may not immediately be able to influence their company’s policy on the environment or on social responsibility, they can help their sellers to feel a sense of shared purpose; and again, learning and development is key. It’s an area that has been neglected in sales, compared to other business disciplines like accounting, procurement, human resources and marketing, which all have formal qualification structures and professional career progression.

Several major multinationals have started to pay attention to the fact that well-qualified graduates are reluctant to go into sales, and seek to move out of sales into other departments that they perceive as offering greater chances of personal growth and long-term success.

This flight from sales can be overcome by aligning to recognised sales qualifications, and developing teams to high ethical and professional standards that are on par with those in marketing and finance.

A change in leadership style

Remote managers who shout and micro-managers who interfere do not appeal to millennials. They are looking for managers who act more like coaches than the authoritarian bosses of 25 years ago. More than most, millennials and Generation Z respond to managers who can recognise their value on a personal level, and help them to develop. Just like customers in the same age group, they demand that businesses approach them differently, and adjust the customer experience to meet their needs.

For the sales leader, this is a wake up call to accelerate plans to switch to a culture of coaching for all staff. Millennials and Generation Z thrive with coaching focused on them, so they can develop their strengths and realise their potential. Sales leaders should have a look at their own management style, and make sure it is an enabling one.

An end to annual assessment

The gap between sales leaders in their late 40s or 50s and the millennials and Gen Zs in their sales teams is nowhere so great as in how they communicate. It’s not just that younger sellers are digital natives, it’s that they are always connected. “The way millennials communicate — texting, tweeting, Skype, etc. — is now real-time and continuous,” warns Gallup. “This dramatically affects the workplace because millennials are accustomed to constant communication and feedback.”

A generation used to immediate interaction needs more than an annual, one-off review that is forgotten as quickly as it is done. Millennials don’t want a boss as a disciplinarian telling them what to do, they want a coach who will help them to be a better version of themselves through regular input. Sales leaders should consider replacing the annual review with regular coaching-style assessments.

Conclusion

All of these issues can be addressed, but before that can happen it does need us as sales leaders to address the addictions that we have.

Often these are unconscious-biases based on learned behaviours, reinforced over years. None of them are born of malice: it's just the way we got used to seeing things done when we were at the bottom of the ladder. As a busy sales leader, it can be very hard to find the time to reflect and understand that the situation has changed.

If we as sales leaders want to make better decisions, we need to understand that the “game” is played differently by different players, with different views on loyalty and reward.

And until we stop and deliberate, we will continue to build strategies based on the world as it used to be, not as it is.

The Association of Professional Sales is the leading community for salespeople. We are a not-for-profit organisation, reinvesting in our profession to build standards, trust and education. The APS works with many global brands who have leaders already on this journey, and we would welcome a conversation on how we support you.

Background reading:

How Millennials Want to Work and Live - Gallup 2016 https://enviableworkplace.com/wp-content/uploads/Gallup-How-Millennials-Want-To-Work.pdf 

Top 5 Reasons Why Millennials Are Leaving Their Jobs in Record Numbers Todd M Shannon, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, C.A. Short Company https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-5-reasons-why-millennials-leaving-jobs-record-numbers-shannon

Deloitte’s 2019 millennial and gen z surveyhttps://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/deloitte-2019-millennial-survey.pdf