Extraordinary Kindness Builds Healthy Sales Teams
“Extraordinary kindness builds trust & respect. Ultimately, it boosts your sales growth efforts.” ~ Danita Bye
As a pre-med student at the University of Sioux Falls, I had an internship with Dr. Bob Larsen, a general surgeon in a suburb of Denver. I shadowed him for 30 days. Whenever he went to the clinic or hospital, even if it was emergency surgery in the middle of the night, I was there. It was an amazing experience for a university student who hadn’t even applied to medical school.
During this time, my interest piqued on the disastrous impact that negative stress has on our bodies and our thoughts. In fact, that was the focus of my senior paper, The Stress Concept. Ironically, it’s still my focus today.
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The building and development of high performance sales teams is closely linked to the presence of healthy sales cultures and people. The OMG Sales Audit is our version of a CAT Scan of a sales force. It direct us where to surgically (and strategically) take action in order to help get our team back on the growth track.
What does this have to do with the E – Extraordinary Kindness, in our RESPECT (react, encourage, sensitivity, politeness, extraordinary kindness, considerate, timeliness) acronym? What does it have to do with mentoring and modeling respect and collaboration for your Millennial salesperson or leader?
EXTRAORDINARY KINDNESS is the fifth action step to help you develop Respecting Others as part of your Relationship Wiring.
I recently reconnected with Dr Larsen, who is now retired and living in Seattle. I realize that he modeled extraordinary kindness for me 35 years ago. Because of that, he still has a powerful impact on the work I do every day.
Here are the 3 most important things he did that modeled extraordinary kindness. They still impact my coaching and mentoring focus in the complex world of sales and leadership:
Dr Larsen was an expert in building relationships and leveraging relationship capital. He shared his wisdom, experience, and skills freely and loved mentoring students.What can you do? To better target your coaching efforts and effectiveness, consider a Sales Evaluation, which is a part of the entire Sales Audit. This assessment provides a snapshot into the way your emerging sales leader thinks. In sales and leadership, right thinking leads to right behaviors which lead to right results. The primary purpose of the Sales Evaluation is to provide additional insights with which to increase sales and improve leadership. This is a benefit for you, your up-and-coming sales leader and your business.
After surgery and before seeing patients, we would have lunch and play board games together. Plus, Dr. Larsen was always curious about what I was observing and learning.What can you do? Invite your developing sales leader for coffee or lunch. Break away from the formal office coaching sessions. The relaxed atmosphere will encourage them to share their thoughts more freely. By showing genuine interest and asking open-ended questions, you can
- learn more about the issues that might be stalling their sales results;
- boost the trust and respect quotient of your business relationship; and
- teach your Millennial business leader how to show extraordinary kindness to others.
3. Serve from the heart
Dr. Larsen still has a heart of service and he currently serves on a key committee at the retirement community where he is involved in projects to raise money to help others.
What can you do? One of the few positive labels dished out to Millennials is that many of them feel being part of “something more than just business” is a non-negotiable to be engaged at work. A serving heart embodies our Relationship Wiring and by sharing stories of your own, you can encourage your up-and-coming sales leader to leverage his or her strengths and the strengths of others to show extraordinary kindness to colleagues, clients and peers.
These are the attributes that I admired when I worked with Dr Larsen as a university student and it’s the qualities that I admire today that make him a great leader and mentor and a high impact person in the world. Use your experience and wisdom to show extraordinary kindness to your Millennial sales leader to build trust, respect and boost your business growth.
In the next post, I’ll tell you how being considerate, the sixth word in our acronym, RESPECT, can help your up-and-coming business leader to nurture respectful relationships with others.
Leadership lesson: Extraordinary kindness builds trust, respect and ultimately boosts your sales growth efforts.
Leadership question: How can you model extraordinary kindness to your Millennial Sales leader?
© Copyright Danita Bye, 2017
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