Creating Value: Success Happens When You Build a Team That Loves Their Work
Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action. ~ Willem Dafoe
Why Trust Is the Heart of Team Building
Among the joys I had throughout my forty-five years within (and withstanding) the computer industry was team building. As I began to land large accounts, it was instrumental to have a knowledgeable team as the inside face of the company, speaking with their peers at those companies that we had turned into customers.
This allowed me to spend time at the customer site; for example, in the mid-1980s, I was at State Farm in Bloomington, IL, three times a week and not back in the office until 2 pm on those days. It was paramount (for me, anyway) not to come back to dozens of customers awaiting my callback.
Calling them back from the car was not an option, as cellular phones were not commercially available until a few years later. On the happy side, the speed limit on I-55 back then was 75 mph, which gave me an extra 40 miles of head start on that two-hour drive back to the office.
Regardless, it was essential to have a team trained in our products and, especially, in the company values, so they could use this knowledge base to speak matter-of-factly to the customer, rather than being note-takers awaiting my return to make callbacks. I was always at my absolute best in front of the customer. On the contrary, back then, I was a caged beast when in the office.
When I was at home base, in addition to taking calls from customers and vendors, I was eagerly training the sales team. This truly was a win-win, as the more they took off my plate, the more I could accomplish on my own.
The key to building a sales team’s success was building trust in one another. It really was no different than when I was coaching kids in Little League or Park District Basketball. Both sports involve trusting your teammate and even adjusting to your teammate.
Learning Leadership Through Coaching and Collaboration
I had a great kid on one of my baseball teams. Not a star in the true sense of the word, but a star, nonetheless. Alex had some physical challenges, and in no time, the rest of the team adjusted how they threw the ball to Alex.
I even had him play first base. On anything hit in the infield, our kids would roll the ball to Alex fast enough to first base to get the out. This had nothing to do with me and everything to do with those other kids adjusting to their teammate. I like to think that life lesson stuck with all of them all these decades later.
Noticeably, the kids on the other team cheered him on as well. That was a big one because kids that age can be tough – even brutal.
Corporate team building is somewhat more challenging, if only due to their ages. These are not five-year-olds; instead, these are twenty-plus-year-olds, somewhat set in their ways. They certainly need to adjust to one another and, most importantly, to trust one another. The stronger the glue, the stronger the hold on the customer.
At its peak in 1984, I had twenty-two customer service reps assigned to my State Farm account. It took a while, happily not too long, for them to all mesh as one cohesive selling machine. They were so impressive that I tried to mimic it wherever I landed; not necessarily with twenty-two CSRs, in some cases, all I needed was one or two. Scratch that, one or two really good ones. It was always dependent on the size and needs of the customers.
And that’s the issue: how do you find a “really good one” during the interview process?
Back forty years ago, we did not have the tools of today – Internet and Google, at least – to do background searches. But there was a lot to be said for face-to-face questions.
This does not mean I did not make mistakes, but that’s how you learn. And that’s how you get better. If the mistake is a personality mistake, it needs to be fixed sooner rather than letting it fester. It sends a statement to the team about their importance to the mission and to each other. None of that “one bad apple” stuff is tolerable.
Training With Purpose: How Great Teams Achieve Success
There is tremendous symmetry in coaching kids in sports and company team building. Both require patience and practice. Unlike the corporate version, sports practice is easy. All you need is the schedule and the gym or park district field assignment.
Corporate training is much more challenging. Just getting everyone in the training room on time is a challenge in itself. It always seemed as if the “most important incoming customer calls” only occurred just as training was scheduled to begin.
This is why I would make the vital training sessions mandatory, with no exceptions, but try to limit them to thirty minutes rather than the usual hour. I made sure the training was essential to both them and me. Most importantly, do the training on something viable to them. For instance, the faster they grasp the topic, the sooner we could start looking at advancement for them.
That could be a new sales role or commission plan based on their sales of what they just learned. Money does more than talk; money yells.
Whether that first-grade baseball team or a corporate sales team, good training is vital; never just training for the sake of training. Make sure that everyone attending the training leaves the room with a hop in their step, knowing more now than when it started.
A good way to gauge your success is to set aside the last five minutes of the scheduled training for questions and answers. I used to ask each attendee individually, “With what you learned over these past thirty minutes, what customer comes to mind, and what is your opening statement?”
Frankly, I wanted everyone to hear each other’s answer, if only to get a feel for the type of company their counterparts were thinking of, as well as to give them additional confidence, if needed. Their hearing other team members having a plan of attack would hopefully inspire them to do the same.
Success happens when everyone assigned to the account is singing from the same hymnal. You will hear about it second-hand, from your happy customer.
***
To learn about this entire journey, pick up a copy of 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙈𝙚: 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 today! Also available now in audiobook format!
100% of all royalties go directly to the
Wounded Warrior Project!
