And regardless of the change, we should always be reflecting on our jobs and
asking ourselves what about this job is giving me energy? And what about this
job is taking my energy away? You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast,
the show that helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll feature sales
leaders sharing their best insights on how to create a sales engine that helps you
fuel repeatable revenue growth, presented by the team at Force Management, a leader
in B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to
the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel club Miller. Today we are going
to talk about some challenges you may be faced with internally in your organization.
John Kaplan joins me for the conversation today. Hi John, Hi Rachel,
how are you good? Good so John? This topic came from some of
the reps in our Ascender and Force Management network. We know that the leadership
you have is credical to your success. But what do you need to do
if there's a change in your leadership? How do you handle it? So
that's what we're talking about today. John. Let's start with the basics.
If you have a leadership change, First you want to know their stance,
so to speak, and you want to make sure you're aligned with that leadership.
Your action steps to make sure you are aligned with the new leadership as
it relates to what you need to do well. I think the first thing
we need to do is just a couple of levels sets. Change is inevitable
and we as humans are hard wired to resist the change. So I would
first ask how do I typically handle change? And I open minded and my
closed minded, and I need to be honest with myself. So this can
help with your response to the change and with your leadership. Listen for the
why or the purpose of the change and see if you can emotionally connect to
it. Leaders should know that when people emotionally connect to a why, the
what and the how are easier. And also you should listen for expected outcomes
before you get caught up in the task to get there. Oh that's good.
Listen for those expected outcomes and understand the why. I mean, how
many times have we been in roles or we're thinking I just don't understand why
I'm doing us right right right? That's an issue and I know some of
you out there listening maybe dealing with this right Now your job seems fine,
you're staying in your current role, but there's a lot of shuffling going around
you. So John, here's my next question. How do you find your
footing or make sure you maintain your focus when teams are getting restructured. Well,
this might sound like really obvious, but the first thing you got to
do is focus on what you can control. And if your assignment is unchanged,
then you already know what to do. You got to deliver it.
Gets your plan, don't get overly caught up in changes that don't affect you.
Then understand that changes, but stay focused on delivering your plan. That's
good. I know it seems obvious, but sometimes when we're in the middle
of it, it's good to hear the bullet point. So here's another common
one, John, as it relates to changing leadership. You have a new
sales leader or a new sales manager come in with. It's somebody whom you're
not familiar with, and they have a new way of doing things. They
want a new way of doing things. They're pushing you to do things you
haven't done before. It maybe for the better. It could be some administrative
things, maybe some things you find cumbersome. What are some tips to adapt
to new sales styles imposed by new leaderships while still making it your own and
keeping your own focus. I think this is a really good question. So,
I mean, the first thing I would do with a new leader over
me would be to reach out to them and get proactive and do that as
soon as possible, And maybe my message would be how can I help you
in your new role? I think this is a really really uncommon way of
thinking about it. When you get a new leader, most of the initial
meetings for that new leader, you know, they're all about what's not working
and what needs to be fixed and why people aren't happy. So what if
you shared with the new leader what you think is working well and what you
like most about your job. Although this is rare, I've really valued people
that have done this for me when I took over new teams. It's a
great way to establish early trust with a new leader, and then down the
road, if there are things that you're being asked to do that are either
you don't understand or are not adding value to you, it's easier to have
that conversation with the new leader because you've already kind of built that trust,
And at the end of the day, every new leader is going to bring
something new to a team, so you might be the person who helps them
figure out how to make sure the team feels like it being done for them
and not to them. Yep, for them and not to them. So
John, next question, what if the changes in leadership are outside a sales
organization, but they still impact you. How can you leverage your own leaders
and managers when there are changes in departments like product or marketing. Well,
I think great companies should have great communication plans, and these communication plans should
have clear connections to what any changes will mean for the individual. But if
it's not clear for you, then you've got to ask. I think at
the end of the day, great companies strive to align around the knowledge and
skills required for sellers to be able to deliver great answers to the four essential
questions that you hear us talking about all the time. What problems do we
solve for our customers, how specifically do we solve them, how do we
solve them differently or better than others? And where have we done it before?
Changes are either helping you get better with these answers or they're not.
Yeah, so I think as we rapture John, for whatever reason you mentioned
to it, you mentioned it earlier. Changes around you are going to happen.
Sometimes they may be drastic enough to make you leave, and that's certainly
valid. There are good reasons for leaving companies. But if that's not your
reality and you are there for the longer haul, you want to stick around,
what's your bottom line for those people? Well, again, change is
inevitable and we as humans are hard wired to resist it. So focus on
understanding the why of the change, and it's going to be easier for you.
The what and the how become easier, and regardless of the change,
we should always be reflecting on our jobs and asking ourselves what about this job
is giving me energy? And what about this job is taking my energy away?
So whether you stay in a job or go to a different job,
you have to understand this about yourself. History has a way of repeating itself.
Lastly, this is a great podcast for leaders to listen to. There
are always changes in organizations and it's your responsibility to help your people understand them,
get out in front of it as best you can. People have a
tendency to evaluate change one of two ways. It's either being dot to me
or for me. Focus on for me for me. All right, that's
it. Thank you, John, You're welcome, and thank you to all
of you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. Before you click off
or click next, be sure to check out our platform as sender. We
have some great things going on there. You can get your deal questions asked
in our community. We're in the middle of a great selling to the c
Suite series. You can watch the replace of those. Be sure to check
it out my dot asender dot com. At Force Management, we're focused on
transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Are proven methodologies, deliver programs that build
company alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the ability to execute
the growth strategy at the point of sale. Our strength is our experience.
The proof is in our results. Let's get started. Visit us at force
management dot com. You've been listening to the Audible Ready podcast. To not
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next time.