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4: Leaders: how being lazy can make you more effective · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sales leaders, be honest, does the idea of being more effective and do less work sound appealing?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it does.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Michael Bunga Steinier, in his book The Coaching Habit, has the question that does both.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bite-Size Sales Podcast, where we believe that sales is the most important team in a B2B company, that complacency is the enemy, and taking bite-sized steps each day to get better at your craft is the best way to improve results.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and I'm using my 26 years of experience in B2B sales to bring you small, actionable ideas every day to help you get better.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sales leaders, we've all had this situation where someone brings us a problem and we end up working on it either together or even for the person that brought it up in the first place.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've had situations where I've gone into full problem-solving mode only for the rep to actually rain me back by saying something like, Look, I just wanted your opinion or I wanted to vent, or even I just wanted you to know that I was working on this in case it came up.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the dangers of being a servant leader is that you can cross the line and become a slave for your reps.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Being a servant leader is such a popular thing these days, but I think there may be some dangers if we take it too far.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you do stuff for them, you become a hero knocking down obstacles, and you feel so valuable afterwards, but also for you it can be exhausting and stressful.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it happens again and again, it can snowball, and the effects it has on you will only get worse.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Bunga Stanier talks about a better way in his book, The Coaching Habit, by using the simple question, how can I help?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So from the book.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: First, you're forcing your colleague to make a direct and clear request.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: That may be useful to him.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: He may not be entirely sure why he started this conversation with you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, he knows he wants something, but until you ask the question, he didn't know that he wasn't exactly clear on what he wanted.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Unless he was, in which case the question is useful for you, because now you can decide whether you want to honor the request.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Second, and possibly even more valuably, it stops you from thinking that you know how best to help and leaping into action.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the classic rescuer behavior.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Too much of your day is spent doing things you think people want you to do.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're completely off base, but that's not the worst of it because that gets sorted out relatively quickly.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: More dangerous is when you're only slightly wrong.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you find yourself kind of doing what they want, but not enough so it's really useful.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And not so wrong that someone tells you to stop.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The more direct version of how can I help is what do you want from me.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It strips the conversation down to understanding the essential exchange.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now what should we do about that?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But be careful.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can likely guess that how what do you want from me lands will depend in no small part on the tone of voice in which it's asked.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in persecutive mode, it might come across as aggressive, in victim mode as whiny, and in rescuer mode as smothering.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: A way to soften this question, as with all questions, is to use the phrase out of curiosity.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: What that does is shift the question from perhaps coming across as an inquisition to being a more noble inquiry.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Other phrases that can have a similar softening effect on the question being asked are just so I know, or to help me understand better, or even to make sure that I'm clear.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So this is really powerful.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to what the author was saying there, this simple question can really open up an understanding that wasn't there before.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It will stop you from doing unnecessary actions, it will stop you from making assumptions about what's needed from you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: It makes for a less stressful environment, and also for your rep helps them be empowered and more confident in what they're doing.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if this resonates with you, my ask is when you are listening to one of your reps talking about an issue, instead of jumping into full problem-solving mode with them, simply ask them out of curiosity, what help do you want from me?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with anyone you think would get value.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Co-workers, teammates, your boss, your head of sales, even that guy you worked with two companies ago who could probably do some help.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, just overshare it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the few times it's cool to do that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Your podcast app will have a share button.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Please click it and share it wide and far.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get the book mentioned in this episode for free, simply go to bitesizesales.com forward slash free book.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you sign up on that page for unstoppable.do, we'll send you your book on us.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Unstoppable gives you habit-forming action notes on great sales books such as Spin Selling, Never Split the Difference, New Sales Simplify, The Challenger Sale, and many more.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: In there you get the best ideas from these books, all organized in a straightforward and easy to implement way and designed for you to take action and transform your results.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: All at the equivalent of three cups of coffee per month.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Start now and get your free book by going to bite sizesales.com forward slash free book.