Creating Fans
This is part 2 of a 2 part post on transforming from a strategy of avoiding burned bridges to creating fans.
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Now that we’ve covered the tactical side of avoiding burned relationships in part 1, let’s take a look at how we as SEs can take it to the next level.
One of the more recent advancements in our culture around performance is the realization that studying and learning from failure is not the way to achieve high performance. It is a focus on high performance itself that is key. For the economists out there, the concept is very similar to that of comparative advantagein trade. One of the best treatments of the subject was done by one of my favorite business authors Marcus Buckingham in his book Now, Discover Your Strengths
In order to do that, we need to move from the mindset of not just avoiding common pitfalls, but how do we strengthen relationships and actually create fans out of difficult situations. This is the crux of part 2.
To accomplish this goal, there is a fairly straightforward scaffolding we use to guide our action:
- Focus on what you can control
- Determine how you want to react to difficult scenarios and events outside your control
- Use these decisions to grow your span of control
Focus on what you can control
Many SEs (and people in general) focus on a lot of things they have no (or very little) control over. This includes product direction, marketing strategies, rep pairings, etc. When I was a junior SE I made the constant mistake of putting too much of my time into influencing product direction. What I should have been doing was not focusing on how I could change my surroundings to match my sales situations, but maximizing my effectiveness with my customers given my set of circumstances. Once I realized (with help from a rep or two) that we didn’t have to chase every opportunity, we could instead put the full force of our effort behind opportunities where we had better alignment with the customer. I was less stressful and was able to deliver a level of service to my customers that was unmatched by the competition. This level of focus allowed us to generate more than twice as many customer references than anyone else in our region.
You may also be focusing too much on other people at your company. For example, every once in a while we all get that manager that seems to bring out the worst in you. The manager may even have a critical flaw that lowers his/her level of effectiveness. Rather than focusing on how to avoid them or venting your frustrations to others, you can choose to focus on using your unique strengths to compensate for your manager’s weakness. For example if your manager insists on being involved in every opportunity and constantly asks for reports, account plans, customer data, etc., don’t focus on hiding opportunities to keep them off your back. Instead, focus on providing world class account plans to your manager before being asked. Keep your CRM records updated better than anyone. Provide detailed call records at the end of every day. In other words, be the best communicator on your team. I’ll come back to this example momentarily.
Determine how you want to react to difficult scenarios
What if you have a customer where you know your product would make a fantastic fit and would greatly streamline their operation. All of your attempts to get a hold of a key contact are ignored or returned with “I’m too busy to take on another project right now.” You have a choice to make. You can continue to pound on the customer and request meetings or you can take a different approach. You can put in the time and sacrifice to really empathize with this person to understand his/her plight. You can make a proactive decision to provide more value to this person as an outsider than any of their current vendors. You can research and provide more time-saving recommendations than anyone else, even beyond your product line. I can’t count how many times just giving more effort than the next guy was willing to give got my foot in the door and became the start of good, long-standing relationships.
Moving back to our internal customers, if you get a poor review in a certain area from your manager you have another choice to make. You can flight it, get defensive, and maybe even argue yourself up a notch on your rating. This may make you feel good and you may be thinking you won, but in fact you have lost. Not only will your manager look to more closely to document poor performance (we seem to find what we’re looking for, right?), but you’ve damaged the relationship of your manager and s/he may be less willing to provide you honest feedback. And honest feedback is an essential tool for growth. Rather than fighting criticisms, accept them. Internalize them. Really consider why you are seen this way. Not only will your manager respect you for your professional response, but you can be assured your relationship with them improved and they may be willing to be more open and honest with you.
Use these decisions to grow your span of control
Continuing with our examples, you can use your ability to choose your response to grow your span of control. You can leverage this technique over and over again to build strong references within your account base that you can use to shorten the sales cycle with new customers. Sometimes 2-3 strong local references can negate the need for a customer to perform an evaluation. Talk about leveraging up your game! Not only your customers, but I assure your rep and sales manager will become quite a fan.
You can use this approach with the over-controlling manager. Once you’ve demonstrated that you are the best communicator on the team, you can start speaking with your manager about optimizing the way s/he gets involved in the account planning process with other team members. In this sense you compensating for this weakness and making the team more effective overall. As the feedback your manager receives improves, they should be quite grateful for your efforts, not to mention your teammates.
Finally, you can use this approach directly with other SEs. Rather than see them as your competition, see them as assets. Put in the time to get to know them. When you see an email blast come out with a question, take the time to research it and provide an answer if you don’t know it initially. Offer to share references if your company doesn’t have a system in place. In short, put forth the effort to be an indispensable part of the team. Not only does that help the stock price, it builds your base of contacts so that when you need a favor, people will stop what they’re doing to try to help you.
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So in summary, while the approach seems simple, it is definitely something that you need to practice and continually refine. Results don’t happen overnight but I guarantee you will be amazed at how quickly you notice them. It’s great to avoid the common pitfalls but that just gets you to average. Using this approach is what can help separate you from the pack and take you to a much higher plain of performance.
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Filed under: Growth, Soft Skills
