A few years back, I was employed in an organisation where one of the sales people was under performing - nothing new here.

As a general rule, I like to get into the field with people as quickly as I can, to see how they operate on a day to day basis; not wanting to see this sales person fail, I gave him three weeks’ notice hoping that would be enough time for him to be able to organise some of his best customers and for him to  feel good about himself.

The first sales call wasn’t great beginning with “Is John here?” receiving a response of “sorry he left eight months ago”.  The second greeting was “jeez, we haven’t seen you for a while” – needless to say it got worse from there.

We had a “chat” and I suggested that a sales training course might be a good idea, following which we planned another day out in the field about a month later. There was no improvement.
With his permission, I snuck him through a personality profiling tool with an external consultant who was vetting prospective employees for the company at that time.  The results came back as a “definitely do not employ in a sales job.”

I haven’t the time to share all the other things I tried to do to help him to see that perhaps sales wasn’t his calling.  At the time, the market was tight for not only good sales people but people across all positions, so I tried to work with him to build a more suitable position within the company.

Notwithstanding the time, effort and money I spent on him, he was sure that I was looking to remove him from the business.  Indignantly, he told me that he had been made redundant six times in his career (he was 55 years old), and that on four of those occasions, the company had employed a replacement three months after letting him go.

My first point is this; businesses are continually challenged by a lack of engagement from their staff (up to 75% of people are not engaged according to a recent study by Gallup); if people are not engaged with themselves, businesses have very little hope.  This person was a good father, husband and citizen but it had been a very long time since he had allowed his heart to speak to his head. He had no idea what he liked nor what he was good at much less what he should have been doing; life is way too short not to know where you fit.

My second point is that we all need to have the courage to tell someone what they are or are not good at. Not because:

• the employee needs to hear it
• the company removes a non-performer or
• you will save some poor future business a problem

BUT

• because we become better managers and leaders for saying it and
• we owe it to ourselves as developers of people.

A senior manager of mine used to say “…..you should always leave someone better than you found them” and if that requires you to share bad news, (in a respectful way) then so be it. General Colin Powell also said that “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off”.

It happens all too often where people don’t have the hard conversations, instead they ship people off to “Special Projects” or similar to become someone else’s problem.

We need to do better by each other in all, and from all, perspectives.

**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators. 

​Whether we realise it or not, most people’s careers are reflections of themselves – their values, strengths, fears, weaknesses, egos; whatever mix of skills and experiences they have been born with and developed has brought them to a point where they are doing what they are now doing.

A recent study by Gallup revealed that 60% of employees are not engaged and 16% are disengaged at work.  That is ¾ of employees, three out of four of your workmates! This is a major challenge not just for business owners and management but the productivity of the whole economy.

I sometimes refer to myself as an ‘amateur psychologist’ (not a particularly good one!) and after speaking to many, many people over the years about their career choices, I think where we choose to work comes down to these three key criteria:

Who you do it for & who with?

• “People join companies and leave managers” which supports the global statistic of 60 – 70%  of employees leaving their jobs because of their relationship with their one up managers.  Relationships are like see-saws and need to work both ways or it is just a matter of time before someone falls off or decides that they don’t want to play anymore.
• Culture within one’s immediate team is also crucial for someone deciding to stay with an organisation; Culture, as defined by Collins & Porras, is “…. the way we do things around here”.  Either people enjoy this or they don’t, they are accepted or they are not, which can become a deciding factor in whether someone stays or goes.
• With 50 odd years of prosperity, hardly an economic downturn (statistically speaking) in the last 25 years leading to a stable workforce and a war for talent, employees have the right and ability to change jobs or careers if they don’t like who they work for or with. If companies wish to grow they’ll need to keep building their teams and retaining corporate memory or mismanagement / toxic cultures will see it walk out the door.

What you do & where?

• The tasks you perform are a combination of your basic skills, interests and maybe (if you are lucky) your passion. If you are good at something you will generally do it well and if you can’t, you won’t.  Work encompasses a great deal of our waking hours so you may as well spend this time doing something you enjoy; Good leadership can make anything fun and likewise poor management can make what sounds like the most amazing experience, ordinary at best and suffocating at worst.
• Additionally, the location of your workplace is another key factor in deciding on where you work. My experience is that if you love what you do, time disappears and if you hate it, 15 minutes can seem like a life time.
• A wise friend of mine once said “…you live where you want to live; you work where you have to work”.

How much you get paid?

• I do not believe that the majority of people make their decision to stay in a business based on money, they will often use that as an excuse when they leave because it is easier than the hard or politically sensitive conversation around toxic personalities or culture. Often it is usually one of the other (above) issues that is present to make them “think” it is about the money and latch onto that as human nature prescribes. I have worked in several businesses over the years where staff have asked to return to their old job realising they had made mistakes. Thankfully the good companies I worked for were practical and broadminded enough to welcome them back so they have continued to prosper; the bad ones… well I left too and they are probably still wondering why they are losing the war for talent…..

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**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators. 

​A few years ago the business I was working in was looking to recruit a new Sales Manager; I asked the General Manager what he was looking for - a Coach or a Rainmaker. He replied that he was looking for both; I suggested to him he needed to decide on one or the other as the skill sets and personality traits required are almost polar opposites.

A Coach seeks to achieve results through their team whereas a Rainmaker is (as defined by Wikipedia) “….a person who brings in new business and wins new accounts almost by magic”.
I have worked with both during my career and at a very basic level my experience is that a Coach is selfless and a Rainmaker is selfish.

Exploring this a little further, a “Coach” is motivated by the achievements of his or her team and working with them bit by bit to improve their performance and results. Their pride and sense of satisfaction comes from when their employees achieve budget, convert a difficult client or close a new deal; their shared satisfaction of achieving what would not have been possible on ones own is where the magic lies.

Conversely, a “Rainmaker” is far more concerned about getting their deal across the line. Guiding and pushing the opportunity through the pipeline (often at the expense of all others) to ensure their deal gets over the line. The Rainmakers strength is their single minded ability to focus on what they want and close the sale.

 I am not saying that one is better than the other but most certainly it is my opinion that companies best be honest with themselves, identify what they really need for their current situation, whatever it is and then ensure that is what they recruit.

There are significant challenges for businesses and individuals who get this wrong. Coaches can struggle to convert their own opportunities and Rainmakers can burn others out of the team by inadvertently making them feel inadequate.

At one point in my career, I worked with a Rainmaker who was desperate to become Sales Manager because he thought he had earned it. After the company rewarded him with the promotion, he struggled to get the team behind him and they subsequently lost three solid performers. Luckily for him he recognised where his skills were and was able to move back into a purely Business Development role but the organisation took some time to recover from the loss of the other team members.

I have also been in companies where they were desperate for short term revenue wins; the company hired a Coach because he came with a good reputation and references but he couldn’t convert quickly enough – his career was disrupted and the company lost more time and money on their next search.

The reality is that whilst most businesses are looking the perfect employee they can’t find them because like unicorns they don’t exist. 

It is imperative that individuals and organisations are honest with themselves about what they are good at and what their team needs at that particular point in time to avoid these costly mistakes. 
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**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators.