Sales leaders are often approached by sales people with questions like, "I've got a big call tomorrow. What would you do?" When presented with a sales problem or request for advice, most sales managers, who often intuitively know what to do immediately start assigning a course of action, "Do this, this, this and this". But this attempt to rescue the sales team can keep them stuck in a cycle of dependence that limits growth and productivity.
The problem with sales managers that rescue their people is that the sales people don't connect the dots for themselves. They didn't do any of the heavy lifting, and if they run into a roadblock during the call, they won't know how to get out of it because they never analyzed the situation to come up with a solution. Instead they regurgitated what the sales manager envisioned as the solution.
When people come to you for help, have them come to you with a suggestion on how they would solve the problem and look to you to validate how they're going to do it. You could ask, "Out of curiosity, what are two or three things that you would do to solve this problem?" Or you could say, "I'm happy to help you but if you didn't find me today or I wasn't in the office, how would you solve the problem?"
This validation process is advantageous for a few reasons:
- Sales people need to learn to connect the dots for themselves. The sales manager isn't always going to be there to bail them out.
- They should have confidence and conviction in their response. Sales managers often like to rescue because they are perceived as a hero who drives success. Help your sales people think through a situation but allow them to own the solution so they can get that sense of confidence in their own understanding of the sales process.
Sales managers should strive to have their sales people think and do on their own. That doesn't happen by rescuing them or doing the job for them. Rather than trying to fix the problem or assign a course of action for a sales person, explore the situation with them.
When you're validating versus creating a solution, you're moving away from learned helplessness and empowering the sales person to independently analyze and problem solve. With your guidance through validation the sales person will incrementally build confidence and ultimately develop self-sufficiency.
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