How do you create a thriving team culture from scratch? You talk about others behind their back! Wait, WHAT!?!?!?
No, not talking behind their back the way most people do. Here is the challenge for the week- in every interaction with your team members, share one success story from someone else with the intention to encourage, excite, and teach. We know how powerful testimonials are for your customers. Have you stopped to think about how powerful they are for your team members?
Whatever you talk about, you duplicate. If you talk about challenges, frustrations, etc, you will normalize and therefore duplicate challenges and frustrations. However, if you talk about successes and wins, you will normalize and duplicate successes and wins. Your teammates will believe that success is normal, and their actions will be impacted. They will actually do the stuff. And when they do the stuff, they will achieve success. It’s a cycle of success. And you can create this out of thin air when you put some intention behind it.
When you share success stories, it’s not just about the result. If you only highlight the result this can backfire for two reasons. First, it will encourage people to pursue the results, as opposed to the action items that got them the results. Second, people will start comparing their results and this could cause them to “compare and despair,” as Karen my leadership coach calls it. You must explain the process by which the result occurred.
Sharing the process + share the results + you can do that too = encouragement and confidence
There are 4 keys to doing well with these promotional skills
- Pursue and log all success stories. Reach out to people individually and ask them how things are going and what their wins are from the past week. You may be getting these in your coaching calls. Keep a log handy. Ask questions to get the full picture of what happened. So let’s say your team member sold a $300 package. Don’t stop there. Successful companies know this truth- you spend more time reverse engineering success, not failure. This is how you know how to keep repeating success. Highlight the behavior you want to duplicate. Behavior is more controllable than results.
- The structure of how you explain the success stories matters. X person got Y result. Here is how he/she did it. You can do that too! If a no sale preceded a sale, include that in the story. Include the person’s emotions at first if this is relevant. And always use the word ANOTHER when giving their results. Karen sold a kit. Karen sold another kit. Both are true. The latter is more exciting and encouragement. Your team member will think, “another kit? Man, I need to get out there!”
- Use multiple delivery systems. Tell people in your coaching calls. This is why you will want to keep a log. Are you coaching on the close? You will want a success story from someone who practiced the close and made a sale on the next appointment. Coaching on referral? You will want a success story from someone who practiced and got them. Shoot a quick text (individually, group texts are bad form) sharing multiple success stories from a great day. X sold Y, A sold B, C sold D. OMG our team is killing it since the last team meeting. You can do it too! Facebook live in your group for your team is an excellent way to spread success each day and get engagement in the group. They won’t know who you are recognizing and will start to look for themselves. Make these quick.
- Consistency is key! Commit to sharing one story per day. Yes, this means reaching out to your team. If you have a tiny team or a team of you and one person, reach out to friends in the business and use their success stories. Use old ones from your past, or the past of team members. Just share one each time! It’s also helpful to let your team know ahead of this initiative that you will be doing this. “Hey guys, I want to share the success more to keep us encouraged. Does it encourage you when you hear success stories of others? Cool! I’m going to make a commitment to do more of this so I can encourage you more. Keep a look out and feel free to text me every success story you have so I can share the love!”
Here are some examples:
- In a coaching session: Let’s go ahead and practice this referral approach. A couple of weeks ago, I was practicing with Iris West. She was super nervous because she wasn’t so sure people would give her the phone numbers. We practiced back and forth a few times until she was confident. Well, on her next appointment, she got 3 referrals. If she can do it, you can do it too. Let’s go ahead and practice.
- In a Facebook Live so this is a real one I just got today: Hey guys, Kate listened to our last team training 4x so she could really learn how to better do her 1-on-1s, and on her next 1-on-1 she got the biggest order she has ever had in her career. Great job Kate! Way to be committed to learning new things and then putting it in action. I’m going to go live again tomorrow with another success story so make sure you text me or FB message me and I might be able to highlight you!
Here is what will start happening:
- What you talk about will be repeated.
- People will assume positive gossip so they will create success stories so you will talk about them behind their back also!
- People will recognize each other on the side.
So here is your action item for the week– share one success story per day with your team for the next week. It might take longer than that to get traction, but it might not.
Are you sitting there thinking, that would be great, if only I had a team. Well then come to the next recruiting workshop! January 14th, Saturday morning from 9-12 PST. It’s live, it’s $27. Last month at the closing workshop we had 12 people on live and it was awesome. 🙂 Sign up at emergesalestraining.com/recruiting.