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61% of salespeople feel underappreciated, let’s make sure that’s not the case in 2022!
From thriving in remote settings to mastering social selling, there’s plenty of ways to put smiles on their faces and ensure people are learning at the speed of change.
Our expert panel discussed the challenges you might encounter in 2022 and how you can harness the latest trends to overcome them.
Jump to:
0:00 Introduction to Liz and Chris.
2:47 The role and impact of hybrid working in sales.
6:45 Social learning and favouritism in a hybrid working world.
11:40 Remote selling and the role of face-to-face meetings in 2022.
16:08 Supporting sales rep happiness and tackling burnout.
23:53 The Great Resignation and its impact on sales.
29:26 Where are sales reps learning and training?
34:20 Final thoughts from Chris and Liz.
After sales stints in; recruitment, IT solutions and car sales, James forged his career in B2B technology, around a decade ago, at Qualifa. James has worked in some incredible start-up and scale-up businesses, led by some hugely inspirational people.
Additionally, he spent five years living and working in San Francisco for a business that scaled to over 200 employees, globally. Today, James is our Head of Sales and your host for this brilliant discussion.
Liz boasts extensive experience working with global sales and sales development teams. She is passionate about lead generation, GTM strategy, and helping people launch their careers in sales. Liz is always looking for new sales trends and best practices, especially given how quickly things are moving these days!
Founder of Sales Psyche, boasting more than 14 years experience in sales and leadership roles and host of the Not Another Sales Podcast, Chris Hatfield is a voice worth listening to in the world of sales! He’s worked with clients like Google, Salesforce, Aircall and Dataiku as a coach and trainer.
Chris is also passionate about wellbeing and qualified as a Mental Health First Aider, as well as speaking openly about the anxiety he suffered when selling and how you can overcome that.
Chris explained that some people naturally gravitate towards being in the office every day as they don’t work well at home, while others might prefer to work at home and lean into their introverted side. You’ve also got all the people between.
Companies who do want people in the office part or full time need to think long and hard about how they inspire them to come in, rather than demanding they do it. If you’re inspiring people to learn from colleagues in person and build an engaging culture, that’ll create a better atmosphere than mandating presence.
Liz supported Chris’ point and suggested we need to create that fear of missing out (FOMO) rather than dictating that they come in. She suggested the idea of anchor days, where you’re not saying that people have to come in, but you’re giving them a good incentive to do so. Whether that’s a lot of colleagues coming in that day or some form of training or happy hour that’ll make it worth their while.
James also asked Liz how you can avoid favouritism towards those who do want to come into the office more often. She explained that you need to consider how you build rapport in remote relationships, like using the full meeting time and any leftover minutes to chat about more personal subjects.
Chris made a great point about this being a moment to reflect on why we’re doing certain activities! For example, we can now see that video is helping us reach more people and speed up the sales process, so that impacts the role of the face to face meeting.
It comes back to that idea of incentivising the process. You might be great in face-to-face meetings, but why should a prospect meet you across a two-hour window when they could just give you 30 minutes on Zoom? You have to consider what’s in it for them and communicate the benefit clearly.
Liz brought the idea of cultural nuance to the table and whether the role of face-to-face meetings is more important or influential in certain regions. While the UK and US might be on a trend for ramping up virtual meetings, it might not be a global phenomenon – so reps working worldwide have to consider that.
Stop being your worst critic and start being your biggest fan! Chris made the great point that while we need the right environment to be content, it often starts with self-recognition. If we’re too focused on external recognition, we become dependent on it and can start chasing the praise. Kindness doesn’t equal complacency, and we need to be better at patting ourselves on the back.
How you talk to yourself sets the tone for every other conversation you have – but external recognition often leaves a fleeting feeling of happiness compared to the lasting joy of self-recognition.
From a manager perspective, we should focus more on the process and not just the outcomes! Chris referenced a study where students were praised for their test results. Half were told they must be really smart, and the other half were told they must have worked really hard. The results showed that resilience, performance and risk-taking improved among those recognised for their process, rather than just the end result.
“What your team needs isn’t what I need”, it seems like such a simple idea, but it’s often forgotten – what works for some doesn’t work for others when it comes to support. Liz followed up on this golden nugget by explaining that, even in remote settings, there are cues that people aren’t happy, and you need to pick up on those to check in meaningfully.
Chris echoed this and talked about the need for supporting individuals and not treating them as a number. It’s all well and good having an open door policy, but not everyone will feel comfortable stepping through it! They might have concerns about the impact on their role and security.
Ultimately, it’s about what you do, not what you say, and how you set the tone for people to be open by sharing what’s going on in your world? Try starting your meeting with that kind of conversation rather than treating it as an add-on.
When we’re working in person and having a bad day, we can grab our work spouse, go for a walk and blow off some steam to get prepared for our next meeting. If you live alone or with people you’re not that close to, you miss out on that release throughout the day.
Liz explained how culture and hiring the right people helps you do that in this hybrid world, which obviously influences whether people are content and want to stick around.
Chris explained that people perhaps have a lack of patience and intent for finding purpose. Once we’re in a role, we can be guilty of seeking instant gratification or progress – why aren’t we already in the next role or nearly there yet!? Sometimes, comparing ourselves to others can cause both that lack of patience and craving for purpose, but that can often lead us down a path of resenting our choice to enter that particular position.
We can’t inorganically create the osmosis we might have gotten from working in the same office every day, but there are ways we can encourage people to speak and create situations where we’re hearing from colleagues.
You don’t have to give people the right answer all the time but a strength is knowing the right resources and people to direct them towards. It’s not just about you knowing how to deliver on X, Y and Z by the end of the quarter, but tapping into the resources you know the company has access to and can help everyone grow.
Chris mentioned something that was music to our ears, and that’s the power of giving people the tools to learn on demand and on the job. Outside of work, if we need to learn something, we turn to Google or YouTube, and we should be aiming for a similar approach within our companies.
Ready to discuss your sales training needs for 2022 and beyond? Speak to James and his friendly sales team by filling out this short demo form.
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