I was having a conversation with a salesperson, who was in the midst of their year end self-evaluation. They were sharing that one of the questions/sections was about long term career goals.
In our coaching conversations they’ve shared that they want to own their own business. Specifics, timeframe, and everything is in their plan. We’ve even mapped the success factors for their current job that they’ll need expertise and mastery in for a successful business.
Yet that isn’t what they’re putting in their self-evaluation. When I asked why: “I can’t tell them that, if I do I’ll never be in line for new accounts, good leads, or training opportunities like this coaching.”
WHAT?
I’m going to put this bluntly:
If your team doesn’t trust you enough
to share their ACTUAL career goals with you,
you’ve failed as a leader.
Yes you have loyalty to your organization, that loyalty don’t end with you – that is where it begins. You have to focus on building trust within your team in order for each salesperson and front line sales manager to feel a sense of loyalty to the whole.
You know trust is built a little at a time – we talk about that in relationship to prospects becoming customers in sales all the time. As the leader you need to build trust with everyone on your team the same way.
Keeping a confidence, telling someone when you have to go to HR before you do, taking action when you say you will, as well as doing nothing yourself when you give someone on your team the go ahead on a project.
Keep it up by giving credit to people on your team for their ideas, being sure to praise in public and correct in private, ask questions instead of making assumptions. Perhaps most importantly – apologize when necessary.
In order to build trust you’re going to have to put in EFFORT, it may be the most important effort you will ever spend.