I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who happens to be a sales manager in an industry that’s very, very different than mine.
One of his salesmen joined us. He breezed in, ate and left in a rush. In his time with us, I was moderately impressed.
I asked my friend about the young man’s future.
He said he also had been impressed with the young man during interviews and his references were solid. His sales also had been very impressive, but he’d finally found his one weakness.
The young man came unglued under pressure from a competitor.
99% of the time he was a great employee, but in the crunch time, he was totally worthless and had a bad habit of making everyone around him uncomfortable.
That’s a bad trait to have in a salesman, who depends on the support of the entire organization for his success.
If he starts blaming his support staff for the deeds of a competitor, he’s not going to last long, because his support will slowly go south and so will his sales.
As a salesman, especially, you need to learn to accept the bad as part of the game and wear it’s cloak alone.
The successes are to be shared and celebrated with your supporting cast.
I’ve made it a habit, over the years, to take the blame for my support staff and their shortcomings and to bring them wampum to celebrate our successes.
Donuts, lunch or lattes does wonders for their morale and makes them aware that I value their support.
It might not be fair to take all the blame and share the loot, but it’ll make you famous … if only in your organization.
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