Engaged…

I was exchanging emails with one of my clients the other day.  He’s new to selling our type of applications and has taken me up on my offer of sales enablement.  As he was sharing a few examples of his prospecting campaigns he became a little self-conscious.  He said he didn’t want me to think he was just trying to stand out as a “class favorite” when he related he was incorporating my suggestions – and they were actually working - LOL! 

I paused to tell him not to worry about being my class favorite – I said I thought he is engaged, and I LOVE ENGAGEMENT!  Anyone I work with who is engaged is definitely a class favorite. 

For some reason, this email exchange reminded me of an encounter I had many years ago when I was a Sales Director for the Major Accounts segment of ADP’s Employer Services.  I worked under Marty Birk, Division Vice President of Sales, for a time.  Marty had the reputation of being one nasty son-of-a-bitch (please pardon the profanity).  Many Sales Managers and Sales Directors felt the wrath of Marty’s temperament during their “ops reviews”, especially if their teams were below quota.  Some swore Marty actually enjoyed eviscerating managers and directors. 

During this era, ADP’s sales culture was known as being … well … let’s just say “demanding”.  The gladiator culture finally reached a point where ADP executives implemented a leadership training program to “take the edges off”.  Management as Quality Leaders ™ (aka MQL) was an intensive, one-week, training course mandatory for every leader and manager at every level in the organization.  Including Marty. 

I don’t think the training did much for Marty though.  When he was about to launch into one of his infamous tirades, he issued this advanced warning, “Coming out of MQL now…”  And then he’d blast the person who had crossed one of his lines. 

Although I was in the room during many of these outbursts, I was never the target of a Marty Birk blast.  Thankfully, my salespeople were among the best in the country and they ensured my team lived up to Marty’s tough standards.  Instead, I saw a completely different side of Marty Birk – and I very much enjoyed his coaching.  Dare I say, I may have even been one of Marty’s “class favorites”. 

He was going through my sales team, person by person, during an ops review once and I will always remember how he tested my commitment to my people’s commitment to getting the job done.  If he thought I wavered even the slightest bit when he was drilling down on the performance and skill of my reps, he would look me right in the eye and ask, “Gary, if you were going into a selling war and your very job depended on it… would you take this person with you?”  

Not so thinly veiled, it was Marty’s way of telling me that even though we were way above our quota, things can change and when they did at ADP, people lost their jobs no matter what their past performances might have been.  A classic, “what have you done for me lately” culture. 

Well, fast-forward to today’s modern era and I continue to believe that commitment and engagement are critical factors to sales success.  When I have a client who shows me engagement – I will match their commitment and go into a selling war with him or her.  Thanks Marty! 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.