“But Mike in sales told me to expect it!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, it doesn’t work that way. It works like this.” 

“Well, that doesn’t solve my problem.” 

“Um, OK.  I’ll tell Mike you don’t want it.”

Ever heard that conversation before? Happens all the time…What is happening?!?! Where is the disconnect?

What’s happening is YOUR sales team is driving the culture that their prospects experience.  And Mike did it by selling something that didn’t exist. 

The prospect is dissatisfied, frustrated, and ready to share their experience with other potential prospects. And that can be a huge problem. 

Why is it so critical that your sales team reinforce your culture and not drive it?

First, they communicate the initial relational message to the outside world.  Few people set the expectations of what you value more than the sales team.  It’s the beginning of the deposits your operations teams will bank on post-closing.  If the message is different, the bank balance goes negative.  The SaaS bowtie of integrations shows this well.

Secondly, the sales team corrects what is true or false about your marketing message.  If marketing is saying that you excel in one feature, but the sales team doesn’t believe it, they are going to steer clients away from the message of their marketing.

Finally, the sales team, like Mike in the conversation above, can require the operations team to solve problems they create.  I’m sure you’ve seen the scenario Mike put his operations through, but we all know that if Mike makes enough noise, the operations team will have to solve the problem Mike created.  Sales driving product.  Happens all the time.

Fewer individuals in your organization can impact the true culture of your business than your sales team. The best way to help the sales team is to know what that true culture is, and speak that into the world.

Imagine if you could start with a true benchmark that isn’t dictated, but actually derived from the values of your team members.  It’s easier to create cohesion, communication, and harmony between teams.  Span the Chasm can help you do just that, and we’d love to help you clarify your culture for success. 

Mergers, mergers, mergers. Every recession sets off a wave of them… 

Companies will be on the ropes and looking to sell, businesses that are in a solid position are gearing up for a buying spree.  

Mergers can be interesting animals.  Some work well together, some sort of struggle along, and some, my friend, can wreak havoc for years.  I’ve been through several and always found that the canary in the coal mine of a merger is the Sales team.  They are the first impacted. They are the first to see the truth. Their success or failure always boils down to one thing… Culture. 

A Better Way to Handle Due Diligence in a Merger

It’s in everyone’s best interest to do some due diligence before deciding on a corporate marriage.  They check the finances, technology systems, and operations, all with a fine-tooth comb, but there is rarely a comprehensive comparison of company cultures.  Everyone puts their best foot forward to show that things will go well after the merger. More often than not, the culture has more subjective than objective data.  Decisions on this take a sort of a “they seem like a good fit,” or “their values printed on the wall of their office look a lot like ours.”  

Cue the wedding bells… 

It’s better to plan for the marriage more than you plan for the wedding.  The due diligence around culture will bear fruit, either good or bad.  Several months into the merger, the canaries (your new sales team) start reacting.  Turnover, pipeline issues, disconnects around your ideal client profile, adoption of CRM systems. 

Imagine if you could see the impacts of a “culture merger” before the wedding?  How many months of headache, lost opportunity, restructuring, and executive infighting could be avoided if you just had some objective data on a historically subjective culture decision? 

Creating a Culture Map

Span the Chasm has built a unique process of creating a “Culture Map” for mergers and acquisitions that can solve these problems.  We map the values of each side of the merger, giving you the following insights: 

1. Inform the risks for a go/no go decision (is this the right merger at all)
2. How to structure the deal to respond to likely behaviors of the executive team
3. Who is going to champion the newly formed company
4. Who might create roadblocks to the progress post-merger
5. Does the new sales team sell in similar ways and how to bring cohesion quickly

Culture is the undercurrent moving your business, so it’s better to know where it’s heading before you decide on a destination. Connect with us at Span the Chasm before your purchase to find out where your culture is flowing, and how to ride that current to success. 

“You can’t use that sales demo…” He said. 

“Why?” I asked. 

“Because it doesn’t work like that.”  

“Really?!? Why not?”

“None of the products work like that on the back end. It’s all a mess.” 

“So you’re saying when a client does X, they don’t get the Y solution from us?” 

“They do, but…” 

“So, what you’re saying is that you either don’t have confidence in what we sell or you have a different expectation of how smoothly the process should run on the back end?”

“Yes, both.” 

“Ah. So what do you say to others about the work you do here?”

“Uh…..” 

When your culture speaks, it always speaks the truth. The more it speaks, the more it creates your Macrobrand – The experience your clients, prospects, and community receive through the collective voices of your departments and employees. 

It’s a megaphone of your corporate culture, and it’s always turned on. 

The question is, do you know what truth it’s speaking, especially when change is being forced upon your teams?  How do you get a handle on it?  

We have some ideas…

Culture Mapping Your Macrobrand

1. Clarity – Imagine what it would feel like in your business if you could have all of your team speaking clearly as to what your culture brings to the table. The reduced confusion, conflict, and miscommunications alone are worth the effort. Think of your team this way:
   Finding clarity in what is happening tends to work best when you start with the Collective Values, as it has the biggest impact on the others.  Mapping the values of your organization is a specialty of the Span the Chasm Talent Management Team. https://spanthechasm.com/talent-management/
    
2. Authenticity – Be honest with what the data tells you.  Naming the employee’s values is the start of creating the language of your culture, but you have to be honest with the results.  Don’t insist you’re a cooperative organization when you are full of self-sufficient people.  Your company got to this place through being self-sufficient, your clients have grown to expect the experience, just own it. Lean into your adaptability by keeping implementation processes simple and flexible.  Rigid processes speak counter-culturally to innovative ones. With that said, the last process is to build cohesion between departments.
    
3. Cohesion – bringing the language of your culture into every aspect of your business.  I mean all of it. Marketing, Branding, Sales, Implementation, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations.  All of it. Span the Chasm can help you cross the departmental silos that can clog the gears of effective change. By infusing the true cultural language from the top, it will create clarity of a Macrobrand that your clients, prospects, and employees will respond to and believe in.
    

We would love to have a conversation about ways you can understand and impact your culture.  Reach out to us on our website or any of our social channels.  Let’s help you create clarity for lasting positive change.

Every executive team develops a definition of their culture, or stated culture, often found in the “About Us” page on their website. Often they are on the wall of the office you used to go to daily (remember those days?).

It’s a definitive statement of what the organization stands for.  It seems helpful, but does it mean anything?

I can’t tell you how many times I get laughed at when working with a sales team, and I bring up what the company stands for.  Then they deliver all the reasons the company has failed to live up to those standards regularly.  Does it mean that the company doesn’t care about anything? Not at all.  It just means that their stated culture (what they put on the wall) doesn’t line up with their true culture (what they take action around). 

Enduring Values

I’ll give you an example; here’s a company’s top three stated “Enduring Values”:

1. Integrity – We take the high road by practicing the highest ethical standards and honoring our commitments. We take personal responsibility for our actions.
2. Quality – We strive for first-time quality and continuous improvement in all that we do to meet or exceed the standards of excellence stakeholders expect of us.
3. Safety – We value human life and well-being above all else and take action accordingly. When it comes to safety, there are no competing priorities.

Now, when I tell you it’s Boeing, check your first gut reaction. It seems a bit hollow.  Truth is, they have been upholding those values with every plane until the 737Max. It was true, but somehow the culture drifted towards a new true culture.  No one noticed. Until everyone did.   

Now their CEO is doing damage control and reinforcing these values down the chain of command, the impact of allowing their culture to drift off course (mainly by compensating and rewarding authority to those who placed cost-cutting at the expense of these values) has had a devastating impact on the public opinion of their brand.  This creates headwinds for sales for years to come. 

The fact is, your culture is under stress, so it’s vital to understand where/when your team might be drifting off course. You have the opportunity to get a hold of how close your stated culture is from your true culture right now.  Gain insight into how to correct course and find the true north of your culture.  How do you do it?  

How to Tackle Realignment

First, recognize your culture is simply the collection of beliefs your people bring to the organization and established behaviors they implement to reflect it. So, your culture is designed through hiring and promotion. The higher someone goes in an organization, the stronger their values influence the culture (by the way, our talent management team can map that for you). 

Secondly, ask… A simple, honest conversation with your team can give you a great barometer for how close your stated culture applies to reality.  And relax, if you find they are way off, it doesn’t mean you have something wrong with your culture, you may just have a messaging problem.  Try this, “Hey, do you think these values reflect what we stand for?  Why or why not?” and then, “What do you feel that we do stand for?” If you would like some real data on what your team values, we can help – visit our Talent Management page here!

Lastly, reach out to your clients.  What do they value about you?  Why did they buy?  Allow them to help you find your true culture.  After all, you exist to serve them.  

At Span the Chasm, knowing your true culture is critical to building successful sales execution strategies.  We want to help you know which way to direct your future.  

While your audio may not come through in this new world of Zoom, your true culture always will. It’s best to know it, own it, and let it lead you ahead. 

What are the Cultural Impacts of a “Work from Home Sales Strategy” on Your Sales Team?

Working from home to an extreme extrovert can be truly challenging. Video calls are nice, but the lack of face to face interaction can be a hard thing to give up.  The struggle is real.

Sales teams are full of extroversion. And sales teams under stress start to act a little differently than one at equilibrium. More importantly, what a sales team tells the world about you, is really the stated culture. Your prospects believe the stated culture they will experience when they decide to buy. So, under this type of stress, is there a culture change happening in your sales team?

We’ve all seen it, the salesperson who starts to buckle under the stress of underperformance. What happens?  Prices decrease, the standard offering expands to sweeten deals, prospect pipeline tends to fray the edges of your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). 

The Psychology of Your Sales Team

As specialists in psychometric assessments for sales teams, Span the Chasm has mapped sales teams’ core personalities and capabilities in ways that inform how they will tend to react under stress.  And there is no time like the present to see this occurring.  

Extroverts under stress will return to a core state of behavior, unshackling the “behavioral adaptations” they constructed to minimize or maximize a core state.  For example, a salesperson who tends to respond dramatically to good and bad things can put a damper on it to avoid workplace or sales situations.  But under stress, that same person loses some of their ability to keep the lid on things, making them more likely to need more management, reinforcement, and support through a sales or work relationship.  Conflicts flare, patience with clients diminish, sales suffer.   

Your culture just changed… Clients are no longer getting the same experience as when you were at equilibrium. 

How do you recognize if this is happening with your stay-at-home sales force?   

1. Increased requests for exceptions to be made to standard sales.
2. More often you have to step in to settle issues between the sales and the rest of the organization.
3. The pipeline begins to fill with non-optimal clients. 
4. Salespeople become either more or less demanding on your time (where it’s no longer normal for each one). 

Sales Leaders, What Can You Do?

Your solution is simple – effectively engage with each member of the sales team. Connect with them one on one.  Give them an environment to unwind their thoughts. Encourage them to stick with the basics and focus on fewer things, smaller, more manageable goals to build momentum.  (Span the Chasm can help you with our program of FOWM – Focus on What Matters). 

Last thing, there is a plus side to the extroversion. According to Psychology Today, extroverts fair better in periods of rapid change.  So the likelihood of the impacts on your cultural expression to the marketplace might settle back faster than you may expect.  Doing nothing and assuming you will get back to normal is actually more dangerous.  So take action, hold the ground with your team, and you will forge a great sales team while they are all at home.   

Span the Chasm is here to help you or your sales managers manage talent through change.  Feel free to connect with us and we’ll show you how we get through trying times with the attitude of a champion!