How To Make Sure You Are Protecting the Locker Room
I am so fortunate to work with an amazing group of sales executives each year in my Sales Leadership Roundtable.
My role is to instruct, but inevitably I come away learning so much from these talented leaders.
At one of our recent quarterly sessions, the discussion led us to the idea of creating a positive environment whenever our sales team gathers together.
Jeff Japhet, one of the Roundtable members, suggested that one of the more important things we can do as managers is to “protect the locker room.”
Jeff owns a homebuilding company in San Antonio, Texas.
As a die-hard San Antonio Spurs fan he knows a thing or two about what a healthy locker room looks like.
The Spurs are a true dynasty in every sense of the word, and any insider will tell you that the performance on the floor begins in the locker room.
This is one of the most cohesive teams in professional sports, not just in the NBA.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area so I’ve watched the Golden State Warriors struggle for the past forty years before finally winning an NBA championship in June.
It’s not that the Warriors haven’t seen any talent in the organization over the past four decades.
The problem was not the talent on the floor but rather the dysfunction in the locker room.
Once they fixed that…look out. NBA Champions.
Sales leaders I work with on a regular basis know that the weekly sales meeting is the equivalent of the locker room environment.
The performance takes place on the sales floor but what happens in the locker room greatly affects that performance.
In fact, I encourage sales leaders to rename their sales meetings, “sales rallies.” Immediately this puts the (appropriate) pressure on the sales leader to provide a better, more positive, more uplifting experience for the sales professionals in attendance.
You might consider establishing some “locker room rules” for your own team in order to construct a healthy and positive environment at your own sales rallies.
Some examples:
• Check your ego at the door
• We have our teammates’ backs – 100% of the time
• Contribute something positive at every meeting
• Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• Make each other better every day
• In this room we perfect our craft
Those are just a few examples but you really should start with a blank slate and craft your own. Your team, your locker room, your rules.
Protect the locker room, my friends. And you will change your sales team’s world.
We’re going to spend more time focusing on the topic of building a high-performance sales culture at my annual Sales Leadership Summit: Level Up 2015.
I hope that you will join us in Chicago on September 10-11 as we take a journey into the future – your future – to define what excellence and success look like when you take your sales culture to the next level.
