Management & Leadership

It’s a pretty good bet that, if you created a list of well-intentioned “resolutions” on December 31, one or more of the things you put on your list has already slipped more than you’d like to admit. Why? Here’s one answer. You may have resolved… you may even have talked to others about that “resolution”… but you didn’t commit.

In the business community, we are always searching for slight edges. We always try to get more business–by earning it. We always want our clients to buy additional products and services from us, and we always want them to become advocates on our behalf over the long term. Those are all things we want. And there’s nothing wrong with being part of an organization that wants them.

If you’re a sales leader, and your team is producing, I really do believe that’s because of your ability to do what an air traffic controller does. You’re just like the skilled professional with the headset on, monitoring the screen, taking in all the relevant information, and ensuring that all the takeoffs, all the landings, and all the decisions in between proceed according to plan. 

This week we welcome Martine Kalaw, author of The ABCs of Diversity: A Manager's Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the New Workplace. Tap into your organization’s full potential through understanding and strategic implementation of the best DEI Practices.

 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.”

In this episode, we sit down with Jennifer Smith, CEO and founder of Scribe, an automatic process documentation software. We discuss how people should go beyond simply looking at revenue when tracking sales success and instead focus on three levels.

As an entrepreneur we have a lot of tasks to complete that are necessary to run and grow our business. We tend to avoid these tasks until we can’t put them off any longer and leave us mentally drained when we finally get through them.

Getting prospects to buy from your organization is a matter of the beliefs you hold, the judgments you make and actions (or inactions), you take as leader as your team will take their behavioral queues from you.

The key to keeping our funnel full is our sellers maintaining their credibility with their buyers throughout their sales cycle. This is a delicate balance because trust in sellers is low, so if our seller steps offside from the buyer’s perspective at any time, our seller’s credibility is shattered. That doesn’t mean that they won’t close the sale, but they’ll have to work a lot harder (and longer) to get that opportunity across the finish line.

This article’s title is intended as the highest possible compliment. If you’re a sales leader, and your team is producing, I really do believe that’s because of your ability to do what an air traffic controller does.