EPISODE 301: Sales Leaders Sean Brophy and Brian Egenrieder List Ways to Humanize Yourself as a Sales Leader to Help Your Customers and Team Members Achieve More


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[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a replay of the SALES GAME CHANGERS LIVE Webinar sponsored by the Institute for Excellence in Sales and hosted by Fred Diamond on December 8, 2020. It featured sales leaders Brian Egenrieder from SnycDog and Sean Brophy from Alteryx.]

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Learn more about Sean here. Learn more about Brian here.

EPISODE 301: Sales Leaders Sean Brophy and Brian Egenrieder List Ways to Humanize Yourself as a Sales Leader to Help Your Customers and Team Members Achieve More

SEAN’S TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Celebrate micro victories. On a daily basis, it could be hitting your target for calls, your number of connects, or it could be a campaign that just generated some number of responses. In sales it’s too easy for us to look at the scoreboard as the definition of success and I think that now more than ever there’s a lot of things that we can be celebrating and it’s incumbent on us as leaders to acknowledge and to celebrate those things on a daily basis.”

BRIAN’S TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Set realistic goals. We’re back to work in a different way so don’t let COVID or work-from-home and all the changes be your excuse. How can I be better than everybody else that is using this as an excuse? Let it drive you to create that value, create that ability to be able to connect because you’re going to strive to do a little bit better than the people you’re competing against.”

Fred Diamond: We’ve got Brian Egenrieder and you might remember his name, he was a guest on the Sales Game Changers podcast about a year and a half ago. We have Sean Brophy here today from Alteryx, of course Brian from SyncDog. Gentlemen, it’s great to see you today. Sean, let’s get started with you, tell us how you’re doing and tell us a little bit about Alteryx, and tell us how things are going for your business today. It’s December 9th so we’re 9 months into this new world. How are things going? How’s your sales team going? Just get us introduced.

Sean Brophy: I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, thanks for having me on today. Alteryx provides an analytics process automation platform, what we have the ability to do is converge pillars of data science, business intelligence, analytics into a single cohesive platform that allows users of all skill sets to take advantage of an analytic application or platform, make data-driven decisions faster. Current environment, we’re doing well, call it the ‘now norm’ which is trying to figure out how you bring sellers of various skill sets – inside sales and outside sales – into a single environment that sets everybody up for success.

One of the things that we’ve realized is those two cohorts of sellers have the ability to actually learn from one another right now so you have a lot of folks that have historically been inside salespeople giving some of the field sales suggestions, tips, tricks on how to actually run a business from the inside. Vice-versa, you’ve got some of the field sellers that are taking an opportunity to help the inside sales team manage their day, their time and all of the things that go into an environment where you typically work from home which is kind of foreign to most of those folks. That being said, business is going great. We definitely have seen an emergence in organizations popping their head up and interested now that the initial work-from-home shock is something of the past. Moving forward looking at, “How do I wrap my arms around a digital transformation initiative and start positioning myself for success?” We’re doing as good as we can and looking forward to putting 2020 behind us and looking ahead at 2021.

Fred Diamond: After I give Brian a chance to introduce himself and answer the same question, I want to follow up on something you just said. You said that the historically outside sales professionals were learning from the inside and the inside people were learning from the outside. After Brian gets a chance to introduce himself, let’s go to that question. I’m curious what both sides have learned from each other.

Brian, it’s good to see you. Again, you were a guest on the Sales Game Changers podcast when we were doing all of our shows just audio and I went to your office and spent some time with you. Your company was also a finalist for an Institute for Excellence in Sales Sales Excellence Award a couple years ago so it’s good to see you again. I also recalled as we were dialing that you’re also a Penn State guy.

Brian Egenrieder: We are.

Fred Diamond: Happy to have you here on today’s Sales Game Changers podcast. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what SyncDog does and same thing, how are things going for you and your sales efforts right now?

Brian Egenrieder: Thanks for having me again, Fred, it’s always a joy to join these sessions because it’s great hearing from likeminded people and people in similar roles struggling with the same thing. It’s been a very interesting 2020 for SyncDog who, if anybody recalls listening to the last one, we’re all about mobile security – enabling people to do more on mobile devices but making sure the data that they’re accessing, the apps that they’re utilizing are highly secure and you’re not at risk of losing any of that data with people being so remote these days. It’s been really interesting for us because of the rapid dynamic of change in where people are working, how they’re going about their day, how they’re going about working with clients and getting their work done. The beginning of the year was a little slow because I think everybody really panicked and looked at their network desktops, laptops, things like that. Second half in the year we’ve been busier than we ever have been because I think now people are moving out towards the mobile devices because they’re realizing that’s probably where more of the work’s being done than anywhere else. Tie in that with anybody on the federal side of things that’s listening, some BC, MMC mandates that are coming out which ties directly in with some of the encryption of the data on mobile devices.

We’re in this almost perfect storm which – I hate to say taking advantage of a bad situation, but that’s what security is. It’s always when bad things happen, suddenly we become more prevalent. It’s been a very interesting year, as Sean was alluding to but it’s funny because I was going to say almost the exact same thing. That dynamic around both inside and outside teaching each other and learning how to adapt to this new world, it has been interesting. I’m a career outside sales guy and then I was moved into management now in the CRO role at SyncDog but you’ve got to go back to you roots, you’ve got to go back to the basics of the smile and dial and just continuous outreach, putting in the reminders and following up. As we all know, people are not picking up phones anymore, you’ve got to come to them with information and things that are going to help them and you have to do it several times before they’ll ever call you back or pick up that phone. You’ve got to be delivering value and that’s the hard part for a lot of people unless you’ve got one of those household names of a company you work for. You’ve got to give people a reason to respond to an email or respond to a call because no one’s picking up anymore and very few people are reading all their email so you’ve got to be creative but most importantly bring that value. It’s a new dynamic for everybody.

Fred Diamond: Sean, back to the original question that we were just talking about. What have your outside people learned from the inside people and what have the inside people learned? One quick thing I want to comment on, everybody’s now an “inside sales rep”, the main difference that we’ve found is that every customer for the most part is also inside as well. Even if you were inside, you could be talking to people at their office, at the factory, at the arena, in the government facility, wherever it might be. Now even though the roads are very crowded for some reason – I don’t know where people are going – most people, even our customers are either shut down in some cases or they’re working remotely as well. Sean, I’m just curious, what are some of the things that your outside people learned from inside and what are some of the things that your inside have learned from outside?

Sean Brophy: Good question. The inside folks teaching the outside sellers, inside salespeople traditionally have a plethora of tools that they might use to manage and run campaigns, they’ve got their cold calling scripts locked and loaded so there’s a variety of things that they historically do and they’ve done well because that’s the world they’ve lived in. What I’ve seen take place on our team is those folks are providing the outside sellers with visibility into how to actually leverage those tools to maximize their time, get in front of more people more frequently and just manage an end-to-end or integrated campaign. Just the utilization of those tools and something as simple as LinkedIn, quite honestly, in the specifics of how to get maximum value out of LinkedIn is an area where the inside team is now helping the outside sellers.

The reverse of that, the outside team, you typically have work-from-home environment so you’re either at home on an airplane or in front of customers so prioritization, time management, the ability to disconnect, those are things that an outside seller has traditionally done well because you’re always on, technically. What I’ve found is that a lot of the inside sellers now moving to a home office which is completely foreign to them struggle in those three categories. Prioritizing your day, making sure that you’re taking breaks for yourself, making sure that the off button is actually something that you utilize, it’s okay to say no to certain things, those are all types of things that an outside salesperson is now helping the inside team grapple with. Just a couple quick things.

Fred Diamond: We have questions coming in from the audience. First question comes in from Joe and Joe is in the DC region. Joe says, “How are you guys coaching your sales professionals right now, particularly your younger sales professionals?” That’s an interesting question, that’s something that’s come up a bunch recently is the whole notion of coaching. Brian, let’s go first with you. First of all, do you see yourself as a sales leader, as a coach? How has your coaching been going since the pandemic kicked in and how are you coaching your people right now? Then same question for you, Sean, after Brian.

Brian Egenrieder: I might turn this over to Sean pretty quickly because we are pretty early stage so I’m currently surrounding myself by pretty senior salespeople, so I don’t have a lot of first/second job type of people on my team currently. What is different here is we are a global company for as small as we are and we’re a good bit of channel focus as well so that’s where a lot of my coaching is. Going back to something that Sean said, it’s educating on how to work that system where literally I had a call at 7:30 yesterday morning and 10:30 at night because I’m working with Southeast Asia, that’s 13 hours ahead right now and there’s only one or two hours of the day that really coincide, 7 and 8 am typically. Those are the difficulties and that’s where a lot of the coaching is, is how to manage your time, do things right, understand how the channel works and how to work with a customer who has customers that are going to be interested in what you’re doing. Then really try to again, evangelize in a way that you’re delivering value, that people understand your differentials in order to want to bring that on board and expand that market. That’s where we are, this might be a little more geared towards Sean.

Fred Diamond: Sean, tell us about coaching today and Brian, I want to follow up with you. We actually have a quick question here that comes in from Nicholas and Nicholas asks, “How are you handling global sales?” So let’s move onto that after we get Sean’s answer here about the coaching question.

Sean Brophy: I’ll use coaching and training synonymously. I think it starts with the basics as Brian had just mentioned, I’m a big believer in self-discipline, accountability, goal setting and then routine. I think those key things right now more than ever are critical to a seller’s success because there’s plenty of distractions and there’s plenty opportunities to actually not lift your head up, so if you start thinking about coaching and training from that perspective, that’s a great lead in into some of the specifics. One of the things that’s actually a timely question that we just completed at Alteryx specific in the public sector team was about a 15 week session where we broke down the sale cycle from prospecting all the way through post-sale enablement and adoption.

Then what we ended up doing was a 45 minute session each week led by a sales leader and/or participation from somebody on the sales team. That included both junior and senior sellers so there was an environment that was created which supported learning across the board because when you start thinking about a sale cycle whether you’re a senior seller that can close like no other, you may have a struggle in this new world with prospecting or vice-versa if you’re an inside salesperson that doesn’t get a lot of at-bats and now closing is your gap. What we’ve found is this 15 week session was a way to start filling those gaps, get greater participation from the team.

What I’ll follow that up with is more online video coaching as well, specifically training. One minute video clip on how you debunk this or you how face this type of question, how you position this type of product and then you dive into the weekly one-on-one sessions where it’s peeling the onion back around those specific topics that you didn’t dive into some of the deals as well. I think the culmination of all of those things hopefully creates a rounded individual and creates a cohesive team environment.

Fred Diamond: Brian, a question comes in from Nick, you mentioned global sales. Obviously we’re not traveling, getting on planes, those types of things but how has the pandemic specifically affected your interaction with customers outside of the United States in places like Asia?

Brian Egenrieder: It’s had a tremendous impact because a lot of the various global cultures believe in handshakes, they believe seeing somebody eye-to-eye or looking at them across the table so that’s been rough. I’m one of those guys that was putting 150, 200 thousand miles on a plane each year doing some of these efforts and it’s impacted us negatively. There are several deals that should have been done by now or that it took much longer to close because we’re a US-based company trying to sell in foreign markets and they’re just seeing us in these types of scenarios, a Zoom call at best or a GoToMeeting. That’s been tough but it’s also what has transitioned us mostly to a channel type of a sale in that the resellers and the service providers whom our product just happens to be a natural fit or those types of scenarios are anxious to understand newer technologies and bring new advanced tools into their tool set. Leveraging them, educating them who are much more open to working with US-based companies and then having them be the face-to-face type of scenarios or at least the trusted adviser to their local markets has helped tremendously. That not looking somebody in the eye has had an impact and first couple months I really enjoyed not getting on a plane but I’m missing it now. It’s time to get back and doing this so hopefully there’s a light at the end of that tunnel.

Fred Diamond: We have another question here that comes in from Dina and she’s based up in New York City, she’s been a frequent attendee of our webinars – good to see you, Dina. Her question is, “How about mental health right now and how are you coaching your sales professionals during what’s going to be a challenging time?” That’s interesting, over the 9 months we’ve all gone through a lot, we talked about parents being teachers and then camp counselors and all these types of things but right now we’re in December, we’re going to be going into the dark grey months and most people are at home. Mental health has been coming up on almost every webinar that we’ve done, again, we’re doing a webinar every single day for sales leaders and their teams. Let’s talk about that for a little bit. Sean, I guess you have some younger people on your team who maybe they’re in an apartment by themselves or they’ve been in an apartment with the same two people for the last 9 months or they’re back at their parent’s home in the garage or in the basement. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you’re doing to ensure that people stay as healthy as possible. Sean, why don’t you take it first and then Brian, if you have something to contribute, that’d be great too.

Sean Brophy: I’ve seen this on my team as well which is what we thought was going to be something potentially short-lived has turned out to be a lot longer. Those virtual happy hours everybody came on strong and now they’ve weaned off a little bit and people are looking for new and creative ways to get in front of one another and/or their customers. With my team, constant check-in. Whether you’re front line, second line leader, I think constant check-in is paramount. You lead to the individual and historically what that meant was training, coaching and all of that. What I found is that at the individual level now it’s being a little bit more empathetic and trying to understand what makes either somebody tick a certain way or where and how anxiety is manifested. I think that requires more of a personal connection so the recommendation from a sales leader perspective is actually taking the time to get to know your team, what causes anxiety or what are they into?

One of the things that I’m a big believer in is permission to say no and permission to shut down and that doesn’t necessarily mean if your hours are 8 to 5 or 9 to 5, that means it’s like a 30 minute break mid-day to do what you need to do, maybe later on in the day as well. I’ve got two kids at home so down side of being a fifth grade math teacher right now is I also get to have lunch with them. I make it a point as often as I possibly can to get a lunch break and sit down with my kids which has never happened before. Time at the gym, I think going back to what makes people tick and the gym may not be for everybody. I’m a fan of music so that’s a 30 minute session just throwing the headphones and listening to some music and go on a walk.

I think there’s a variety of things that we can be doing, I think it comes with giving your team permission and then also having trust. I think the tendency is for people not to do those things only because their perception is, “If I’m not doing those things, then my sales leader, my manager doesn’t think I’m working.” All of this is predicated on some level of trust and then from there it’s the check-in. That’s what I’ve recommended and what I’ve seen.

Fred Diamond: Brian, Sean just mentioned getting to know your people better and you mentioned you have mostly seasoned people on your team. For people who are listening to today’s webinar or listening as a Sales Game Changers podcast, some people have reached out to us and said, “It’s still hard for me to ask my sales leader for time because I want to be seen that I’m working all the time.” What would be your advice on how maybe someone who’s more junior in their career or even seasoned should be or can be communicating to their sales leadership that maybe something’s going on? They need a day or maybe there’s a reason why that deal didn’t close because of all the added factors that have happened over the last 9 months.

Brian Egenrieder: Sean touched on it really well, it’s trust and empathy, two of the big things I always coach on and lead with. In this case I think trust is the biggest thing and what I try to do as a sales leader is let my team know, “I’m going to run an errand, I’ll be out for the next half an hour, 45 minutes. Unfortunately, my kids are now taking calculus so I’m no longer their math teacher but to that same thing, “I’m going to shut down here for a little bit to do things.” In a sense, it’s the mental break by example so they know it’s okay to come back to me and say those things. To the more junior rep, if you have confidence that you’re putting in the time, that you’re putting in the effort, lead with that. “I just cranked out 15, 20 calls” or whatever the metrics are that are key. “I worked extra hard to do that but I need to go and run this errand or take this break or hit the gym.” I always say that when things go quiet with your team, there’s something wrong. When somebody’s hiding from you, the numbers aren’t in, there’s something personal and things like that so create that open dialogue and understand the reason most  of us are in sales is for that flexibility of schedule.

The successful people are the ones that take advantage of it but also put in the extra time every time they have the chance to do it. If you can start understanding or going that route where you’re confident that you’re putting the effort in, then it’s easy to build trust with the person you’re reporting to and ask for those breaks because they’ll see it too.

Sean Brophy: I’ll add a little bit to that building exactly where Brian was, I’ll use the word vulnerability. As a sales leader, as a sales manager there’s a tendency to be stoic and to show no weakness, building upon the, “I’m taking 30 minutes to go run an errand” or actually being a little transparent in your own struggles, I think that’s needed and it’s actually wanted by the sales team. It humanizes you as a leader and it actually is another way to give permission to your sales folks that, “It’s okay if you’re feeling X, Y, Z because I’m feeling it as well.”

Fred Diamond: We were talking about empathy and for people who listen to our webinars and the Sales Game Changers podcast every day, there’s a number of words that have continued to come up and one was empathy. Empathy comes up all the time, let’s shift the conversation right now to your customer conversations. Not every industry has recovered, Sean, you’re the VP of Public Sector for Alteryx and it’s been a fortuitous marketplace to serve for a whole bunch of reasons. We all did tremendous work getting the government into the cloud real quickly years ahead of schedule and of course the government buying season kicked in three months after the pandemic kicked in which was great for a lot of companies. Let’s talk about the kinds of conversations you’re encouraging your team to have with your customers right now. Should they be empathetic? Should you be getting to know your customers better right now or do you want to get right to business? Brian mentioned before it’s very difficult to get people on the phone. If that’s true, talk a little bit about some of the conversations and how you’re encouraging your team to have them. Sean, why don’t you go first? Then Brian, I’m interested in your thoughts as well.

Sean Brophy: I used “humanize” in the last topic and I think that is front and center for this as well along with empathetic and the same tone that we’ve been talking about. I think the opportunity to be a human first is a great opportunity for anybody that’s selling right now. As Brian mentioned earlier, our customers are getting inundated with phone calls and emails, they’re struggling with the same things that we’re struggling with. We’re in a high-tech space so we’re already set up for an at-home environment, they struggled for a while just even getting to that point so understanding some of the struggles that they’re going through and putting yourself in their shoes being empathetic is certainly top of mind and I think it’s okay to actually have a human, non-sales, non-product conversation with your prospects. To your point, Fred, this is a perfect opportunity to actually get to know them better and figure out what makes your customer tick as well.

Going back to the earlier point that Brian made as well is value is top of mind. If I can be empathetic, if I can humanize the process and I can actually add value, that’s a triple threat. Those are the things that I’m seeing take hold within our sales team.

Fred Diamond: Brian, how about you? Conversations with customers right now. How are you directing your team? How are they telling you the conversations are going and how are you looking to shift them if need be?

Brian Egenrieder: I think we hit it pretty well, the key is to have a genuine interest in knowing. I always say empathy can’t be faked or it’s very difficult to fake it so you’ve got to want to know how your customers are doing and you start with how the business is, then you ask how they’re doing personally and you humanize it. I think Sean put a great label on it but you have to have the interest in really knowing. Knowing is going to open doors for you because when you’re hearing some of the struggles, that’s where adding value is easier to do, when you understand where their pain points are both as a company and individuals, you can start saying, “Let me help here.”

Maybe they’re in financial struggles and you can give them a couple extra months of a license or whatever your buying metrics and pricing metrics allow you to do. When you open your ears and listen to what they’re asking for, if you’re able to help them you’re going to form a tighter bond, you’re going to create a tighter customer and it’s going to ultimately help you down the road. The key to all this is have a very short-term focus on understanding and a very long-term focus on solving and somehow combining the two to create an environment where you’re building that trust with the customer and you’re going to form a tighter bond.

Fred Diamond: We have a question here from Marty, “How have you guys changed as sales leaders?” Again, you’re both seasoned sales leaders, you’ve been leading teams, leading organizations for decades right now. You probably had your processes prior to March 15th and then of course everything changed. Talk a little bit about how you’ve changed for the better or other things that you’ve had to do to be a more effective sales leader during this challenging time. Brian, why don’t you go first and then Sean? How have you both changed as sales leaders over the last 9 months?

Brian Egenrieder: I’m not going to the drycleaner nearly as much, that’s a good one [laughs]. It’s funny how a lot of that has changed. For me, it’s getting back to my inside sales roots where I started my career and I always tell everybody that I ever mentor into going to sales is start with inside sales, it’s the hardest aspect of the job. It’s pulling yourself back and trying to figure out how to connect, how to add value, how to engage with somebody over the phone and email which I’m assuming everybody’s seeing what we’re seeing where there’s this lack of interest in reading emails and picking up the phone. Our jobs are getting exponentially harder just by the nature of technology and then you throw COVID on top of it. It’s migrated me much more towards the marketing and the PR and the blogs, all that type of stuff that as a CRO fall under my realm as well. We’re putting a much heavier emphasis on just delivering content, putting stuff out there, having SyncDog become a thought leader in all this and then we deliver that as reps and a team. It’s really changed that dynamic a good bit but it’s a hat that I always wore but didn’t have expertise in. It’s really helped me develop it as I’ve been forced to move into that.

Fred Diamond: Sean, how about you? How have you changed as a sales leader over the last couple of months?

Sean Brophy: I consider myself historically pretty transparent with everybody in my sales organization, I’d say that is probably even more so now. I think transparency allows individuals that might be anxious about any given scenario to maybe calm some of the anxiety. Being overly transparent where you’re able to has been important for me, explaining the why, I know that a lot of times decisions get made and passed down and the why is sometimes missing. In the spirit of calming anxiety and bringing individuals into the fold, the why behind certain decisions and/or direction we’re going I think has helped also calm some of the nerves that we’ve seen. Those are the two big ones for me and the other is trying to really establish a sales community inside the team, things that we’ve done historically but we’re putting an exclamation point on that right now.

Any chance we can get to force a bond between inside sellers, outside sellers, sales leaders is something that we’re absolutely doubling down on. Those will be things that when the current situation dissolves or we get into the ‘new norm’, the ‘now norm’, whatever we want to call it, those will be things that I take with me because I think that they’re critically important. If I was to survey my sales team, I think that they found value in those as well.

Fred Diamond: We like to end every Sales Game Changers podcast with an action item, something that our listeners should do today. I’m just curious, what are your expectations right now for your sales team? I know, Brian, you mentioned most of your sales professionals are a little more senior, Sean, it sounds like you have a mix. Brian, why don’t you go first as we come down towards the end of the webinar? What are your expectations for your sales team right now? We’re doing today’s recording in the beginning of December, what are you expecting from them today?

Brian Egenrieder: To be candid, I think it’s just grind through it and understand that nobody’s happy with the situation, we’re all dealing with these crazy nuances and what’s interesting is what Sean pointed out. Leverage some of the things that we’ve been forced to learn and change and adapt to, create a bigger portfolio or create a bigger value set or tool set of what you can bring to the table once this clears out. My kids are in high school and this whole situation of learning from home is going to prepare them so well for college, I think they’re too young to be forced to learn it but it’s going to help them eventually and I think the same is true in all of our professional lives. We’re being forced to adapt but there are some aspects of this that are going to change us all for the better. Keep your head down, keep up with the grind, learn where you can and take advantage of some of the things you’re being forced to adapt to and learn from and leverage it later.

Fred Diamond: Brian, before I come back to you with your final action, Sean, how about you? What are your expectations? It sounds like you have a more diverse sales organization with junior and senior people. What are your expectations from them?

Sean Brophy: To echo some of the comments that Brian made, I think everybody needs to be a learner, I think that everybody needs to embrace and lean in on having a growth mindset. Coming down a level, I mentioned some of these words earlier which is develop a routine, adhere to some form of self-discipline and set goals for yourself. I think it’s easy to blame the current environment and/or lack of the customer picking up a phone or responding to an email. It’s easy to fall back on those things so as I said, I’m a believer in accountability and goal setting and I think if you do nothing else, hold yourself accountable to those goals and coming up a level, become a learner. What are you doing to hone your craft every single day? Now’s a perfect time to actually double down on some of those things.

Fred Diamond: Brian, final action step. People like to end the webinars with an idea or something actionable they can do today – don’t be broad, be specific- what should our listeners do today after 2 o’clock in the afternoon or wherever they’re listening, our tens of thousands of listeners. Give us an action step to wrap up today.

Brian Egenrieder: Sean stole my thunder a little bit on this one in that I think it is set realistic goals. The world is back to work, we’re back to work in a different way so setting realistic goals is don’t let this become a crutch, don’t let COVID or this work-from-home and all the changes be your excuse. Let it be a motivation of, “How can I be better than everybody else that is using this as an excuse?” Let it drive you to create that value, create that ability to be able to connect because you’re going to strive to do a little bit better than the people you’re competing against. There’s no money in taking second place in what we do for a living so you’ve got to be the best. It’s not just being better, you’ve got to be the best and if you use this as a crutch, you’ll never be the best.

Fred Diamond: Sean, bring us home here. What’s an action step, something our listeners should do now to take their sales career to the next level?

Sean Brophy: I’ve started celebrating micro victories. I think on a daily basis there’s an opportunity to celebrate a micro victory, that doesn’t necessarily need to be a sales win, it could be hitting your target for calls, your number of connects, it could be a campaign that just generated some number of responses, it could be developing a new message, whatever it might be. I think that in sales it’s too easy for us to look at the scoreboard as the definition of success and I think that now more than ever there’s a lot of things that we can be celebrating and it’s incumbent on us as leaders to take an opportunity to acknowledge and to celebrate those things on a daily basis. Again, whatever that might be in your given organization, it’s really easy to do. In a lot of instances, that person that’s having a hard day, an “attaboy” or, “attagirl” at the end of the day is enough to make them come back.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo

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