What does Barack Obahma, the principle of Cause-Effect and Sales Managers have in common you may well ask?

During the November Presidential campaign, the principle of cause and effect was often employed by Barack Obahma. There’s a great lesson here for any sales manager not just new and aspiring sales managers!

As with most political campaigns, there seems to come a time when one of the opponents begins to criticise professionally and often very personally their fellow opponent. Sometimes it seems with little regard for the feelings of others.

There were times in the recent Presidential campaign when Presidential nominee Barack Obahma was criticised for his inexperience, lack of depth regarding policy detail and his views on foreign affairs to name a few.

Often in these situations, the recipient of the initial verbal attack launches an equal if not more critical response.

The now President Barack Obahma was an exception. Even in the face of recommendations from his campaign team to some heavy criticism, President Obahma stood firm and refused to respond. He did not want to allow himself to get thrown off track or message and be at the effect at what was happening in his environment.

Rather, his chosen response was to focus on his own campaign and “key messages”.

This was all part of a well thought out plan, where the “Effect”, was to win the Presidential campaign.

In order to do this, Obahma and his team researched Presidential campaigns dating back to J. F K’s
campaign and included the speeches of Martin Luther King. The team identified what they believed were the key success factors that ‘Caused’ a Presidential nominee to win the election.
Then they designed their campaign strategy and implemented it. One of the ‘success factors’
identified was ‘Cause and Effect’.

In simple terms;
Focus your efforts and energy on what will ‘cause’ you to get the results you want. Stop yourself from reacting to and being at the ‘effect’ of what is going on around you.

Back then to my original question.

What does President Barack Obahma, the principle of Cause- Effect and Sales Managers have in common?

It can be easy as a Sales Manager to allow yourself to be at the “effect” of others in your peer group,
senior management, your own team, even clients.
For example, at the moment you might find some of your management colleagues having a conversation about how “difficult” times are right now. Maybe even saying, “How hard it’s going to be this year to hit sales quotas and targets”.

A Sales Manager, like any other person, has a choice.

You can either, join your colleagues and allow yourself to be at the ‘effect’ of what is going on globally right now. OR, you can focus your energy on the “cause” and what are the key things you will do and actions you will take to move your business forward.

Managing and Leading a successful Sales Team is an ‘effect’. It has specific causes.

Find a successful Sales Manager and ask them ‘What are the key things they focus on that deliver results?’ Then go and do those same things. If you implement the ‘Cause’, you will ultimately get
the ‘Effect’.

Thinking then about your Sales Representatives, the same ‘Cause, Effect’ principle applies.

Millions of people are involved in the fields of Sales and Sales Management. Sadly, the vast
majority are unaware of the ‘Cause, Effect’ principle. When they are, few truly understand it and even fewer use it.

Now you understand the principle, let me ask you a few questions.

What will it mean for you in terms of how you now generate sales with your team?

What will you do differently?

When will you start?

How will you share this principle with your Sales Team?

To your success

Sharon

How do you manage a sales person, when you haven’t been one yourself? a very interesting question.

By the way. High everyone , I am Sharon the other part of managing sales people. Well I am excited to finally be able to have some time to share a few thoughts and ideas with you.In case you have been wondering, how come our blog posts have been written by Denise so far?, I have been out and about working with  some of our clients and delivering a variety of management and leadership training.

During some of my leadership training recently, some  new sales managers have found themselves managing sales people when they have not been a salesperson themselves. At times, they have experienced a few challenges that initially they believed were

unique to themselves.The reality is though, that the only thing they haven’t experienced is the salesperson’s situation and also understanding the role of the sales person.

Of course, just like many other specialist roles, a salesperson is a unique individual. The highly motivated ones are driven by the chase of the next sale. They are focused and thrive on the challenge of finding a potential customer, building loyal long term relationships, identifying a need for a product, selling their product or service and then closing the sale.
Oh and potentially earn some bonus or commission too.

Occasionally I come across managers who believe sales people are loners. Well it is true that they often work and sell on their own. Sales people are often highly driven by results and what they can achieve.

They can also be quite focused on ‘what is in it for them’. This can be judged by others as ‘being a loner’, or even ‘selfish’.

However remember people are individuals. You will also find many sales people today work as part of a business development team and need to be as good a team player as they are at working on their own. 

Whether you are managing a sales team and have or haven’t done the role of a sales person, if you aspire to be a successful sales manager here are a few things that highly successful
sales managers do.

Have a success focused ‘mindset’

What I mean by this is, believe in yourself and your abilities. In contrast, if you believed that you are at a disadvantage because you haven’t done a sales persons role, these thoughts will affect how you manage your sales people. Ultimately these thoughts will affect your success.I’ll be talking more about ‘Mindset’ over the coming weeks so look out for these blog posts.

Manage your sales people as individuals:

Everyone is special, treat them this way.Sales people are motivated by many things:

Recognition, money, incentives are only a few. Take the time to find out what else, you
may be surprised!

Let your sales people know what you expect from them:

Then let them get on with the job.

Recognise and reward your sales people and team:

For their successes and fortheir efforts. People can work incredibly hard even if the end result isn’t what you wanted. Let them know how much you appreciate their contributions.

Finally, walk your talk.Be prepared to do what you ask your team to do and set the standards in terms of the behaviours you expect.

It’s good that you have considered the impact of having done the sales persons role.
What’s even better is that you have invested your time in reading this post.

I’m not sure when now might be a good time to start practicing the suggestions above. How about now?

Take Care,

Sharon

PS Early next week look out for a post on the difference between training and development!