We recently sat down with Casey Jacox and Jon Hunter to learn how to remove fear from the workplace based on their 50 years of combined sales leadership experience. To create a healthy sales culture, you need to take away the fear in the work environment and allow employees to be themselves.
Too many leaders get caught up in sales projections, goals, and increasing production that they forget to connect with their team on a personal level. Casey and Jon shared how to create a healthy sales culture by taking away the fear in the work environment and allowing employees to be themselves.
Negative Impacts of FEAR
An individual is most creative and productive when they can be themselves. As leaders, we will limit our organization’s potential if employees are in constant fear of making a mistake or being fired. Create a culture that is easy to work with internally and externally by doing the little things to build personal connections with clients and your team.
The Science of Production
When the brain faces a fight or flight situation, cortisol levels increase. Many managers unintentionally create an environment where employees are over-stressed because they fear consequences. A thriving sales culture is built on increasing endorphins and lowering levels of cortisol.
Successful leaders publish metrics that let people know where they stand but don’t beat them up. We must praise in public and coach in private to create a productive sales environment.
Allow Your Team to Be Vulnerable
Removing the fear from the sales culture means employees are comfortable with failure. You want your team to be comfortable enough to say, ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I was wrong,’ or ‘that was a mistake.’ Being vulnerable should be encouraged and is only possible if leadership puts ego aside and leads by example.
American professor Brene Brown famously said ‘you can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability.’
Humility
Personal currency is more valuable than performance currency. A team built on personal relationships that enjoys working together will outperform the organization solely focused on dollars and cents in the long run.
Be Authentic – Don’t ‘Fake It till You Make It’
Authenticity is contagious. Our end goal is to get results and increase productivity. We don’t get there until our team feels like they can be themselves. Leaders should practice authenticity and vulnerability themselves before expecting their team to do so.
Promote Practice
The number one takeaway Casey and Jon left us with is we need to instill a non-fear-based culture where practice is fun. A highly productive team doesn’t practice on clients. They incorporate new ideas and technologies in their process by setting aside time to practice sales techniques, pitching clients, and optimizing internal meetings.
What’s Next?
Casey’s and Jon’s successes are a result of being the types of leaders that make things happen. They have repeatedly created optimal sales cultures by allowing their team to be vulnerable, removing fear from the workplace, and encourage their employees to practice.
To read Casey’s article, Fear or No Fear: How Do You Lead?, you can find here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fear-how-do-you-lead-casey-jacox/
TechServe members can access the full webinar, Removing the FEAR in a Sales Culture, on the Online Learning Center
