Are We Modeling a Reactive or Proactive Culture to our Sellers?

As we advanced in our careers we looked for models to emulate. Sometimes that was our leader and sometimes we thought “I’ll never do that to my team when I’m in charge.”

Now that we are in a leadership role we’re modelling our corporate culture to our sellers who are learning by watching us be reactive or proactive. 

None of us wants to think of themselves as reactive, but the truth is in our behavior. For a quick acid test on proactive versus reactive ask yourself these three questions (you don’t have to share our answers :-) ).

1. Do I consistently ask for clarity or make assumptions based on data or information without context (e.g. being CC’d on an email from a buyer to one of our sellers when we weren’t part of the conversation to that point)?
2. Do I encourage my sellers to proactively pursue the right prospects who are ideal for us or do I beat them into putting any “opportunity” in the funnel? 
3. Do I hold my seller’s self-worth separate from their role performance or do I get my emotional needs met when I’m doing performance or pipeline reviews? 

I doubt you’re on either extreme. One more question to ask yourself, “if I asked each of my sellers to answer these questions what would they say?” (pause for uncomfortable feelings.)

Unlike the opening example where we looked for behavior models to emulate for future roles our sellers are looking to us for the behaviors to make them successful now. If we’re modelling reactive behavior they will imitate that behavior. The knock on effect being poor forecasting, deals magically appearing in our funnel at month or quarter end and sellers telling us that they are “too busy” to prospect because they are reacting. 

If we were coaching your friend who was modelling reactive behavior (because it’s our friends who have problems, not us, right?) small changes would communicate big impact. For example, reactive leaders in my experience don’t have or follow an agenda for a meeting, allow sidebars and tangents and typically let meetings run long. The latter is a huge demotivator for high performing sellers who want to be, y’know, selling instead of sitting in meetings. Coaching our friend to at least start and end meetings on time communicates to their team that they are being proactive in managing time, which also tells their sellers that they are allowed to have their buyers respect their time instead of expecting lightning fast responses at all hours.

Just as cream rises, so do bad smells. When our corporate culture isn’t smelling fresh and invigorating one or more of those three boxes are rotting.

Until next time… go lead.