Unbound Growth Blog

A while ago, I volunteered for a local event put on by Envision Maine, a non profit organization dedicated to promoting the next economy. The event that I attended was titled “Educating Tomorrow’s Innovators and Entrepreneurs.”

From this event, I have been mulling over these thoughts on where the gaps for business growth were. I call them the three scary facts.

I am sure that these aren’t just true for the state of Maine, but on a much larger global scale as well....

So what are these scary facts?

Last week I presented brand new data on sales managers and their impact on their salespeople. If you were one of the sales managers and executives with growing teams that were there- thank you for your questions, the conversations in the hallways after, and the multitude of messages saying it was one of the best sessions all week.

For those of you who missed out, this post is for you.

I have been a New England Patriots fan ever since I can remember. (If you are currently an “anyone but the Pats fan,” I wish you luck.)

My earliest childhood memories were watching the games with my family, and no matter what, cheering for the Pats. To say they were the underdog in those early years is an understatement.

When they made it to the ‘85 Super Bowl, it was a bigger than Christmas, and at 9 years old Christmas was still a big deal. When they lost, I cried on the way home sitting on the hub in the middle of my uncle’s truck. No one spoke, except for the random, “F’ing Pats”.

This is my favorite question, just like an annoying four-year-old. And since the popularity of Simon Sinek's book “Start with Why” it seems to be the thing on everybody's mind.

A few months ago I had beers and wings with Mark Roberge after he spoke at the Boston Enterprise Sales meetup. When I shared with him what I was doing with clients and the results we were getting he said, “You’re like a sales therapist!”

I cringed a little because I am not a psychologist and from the conversations I was having with VP of Sales and growing start-up founders, that was too fluffy and intrinsic for them. When I shared that with Mark he said something like, “If I were a VP of Sales and could make that kind of investment to get that kind of return, it would be a no-brainer.”

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been holding our Live Sales Labs every week. We don't normally do them that often, but with lots of people scrambling to close end of year deals- it seemed like a good way to help.

Yesterday was the beginning of 4Q16 (the beginning of the end), and I got up early to make sure I had time for plenty of coffee, yoga and reflection before I started the day with 90 minutes of back to back coaching calls at 8am. It`s not very often that every one of those calls are around the same issue, but yesterday and into today was one of those times.

How many headlines a day do you read about "hitting your quota"? Jeez!- it's not about hitting your quota is it? Aren't your goals bigger than your quota? No? Hmmm, maybe that’s why you can’t hit your quota?

Should salespeople take notes during sales calls? People are different.  They learn differently and they consume information differently. I've heard it both ways, "If you are writing notes, you can't also be listening," and on the flipside, some people would be lost without them. So is there a right and a wrong way?  

How do you know if coaching will be worth it?

My husband and I were watching the Women's Olympic Trials when he commented "Wow, what they can do is amazing. How do they make it look so easy?!" To which I replied, "They live and breathe this- day in and day out, for years. Just to get to this moment. That is the amazing part." Almost as if on cue, the program showed interviews with the moms of those who tried out. One mom said, "She has given up so much for this. Friends, prom, you name it. I am so proud of her."