Joe DiDonato | Chief of Staff | Baker Communications
That seems like an odd question to ask a salesperson. Would it surprise you that this competency – Desire for Success in Sales – is the number one determining factor in a seller’s success? And oftentimes this desire for success in sales can be a transient factor, winding its way up and down with significant changes in our lives.
When we least expect it, life can present us with an overwhelming and unexpected challenge. Divorces happen. A home is lost in a flood. The death of a loved one happens. These significant emotional events can leave their mark in many ways, including momentarily or permanently altering the strong desire for success that got a top performer to where they are today.
Mentally, it’s not unusual for someone going through a really challenging situation to begin asking questions. “Why does this job even matter anymore?” “Is this really the career I should pursue?”
Later in this article, I’m going to tell you about a tragic life-changing story that happened to Josie King and her family. It will help you empathize and understand the impact that some events can have on a family. But before I do, let’s talk about this competency in a little more depth.
When we show the results of our proof of concept – BCI’s Tailored Fit Analysis – we often hear, “This is one of my top salespeople. How can she possibly lack the desire for sales success?” When we probe deeper, it turns out that this same person has been really struggling over recent months. And then the next thing we’d hear is, “Well, that explains it.” Actually, it doesn’t – especially when it’s one of your top sellers.
When a top performer lacks desire, most managers wonder, “how can that be?”
It shouldn’t surprise us that this could happen to a top performer. They’re not immune to significant emotional events upending their lives. That’s why this particular competency always presents itself as the number one determining factor in a seller’s success. You won’t find the answer in any of the other competencies. And when it’s in a candidate, you’ll always see the data telling you not to hire. You can train skills, but you can’t easily change a person’s fundamental attributes, motivations, or belief systems.
So how do you approach this complex problem? Let’s assume that you let the data guide you on new hires. What then are your choices when it comes to an existing top performer who’s already a part of your staff? How can you reignite that fire and energy that made them great in the first place?
This is one of the toughest problems a sales manager faces. Making it even tougher, it’s uncomfortable for most sales managers to ‘pry’ into an employee’s personal life if they don’t volunteer it – even when the intention is to help.
So, what should we do? The best suggestion is to schedule a special one-on-one review to go over the results and progress that the person is having. Maybe you provide an agenda that has these elements:
And it’s that last agenda item that should open up the difficult conversation. Unfortunately, if the employee doesn’t volunteer any information, then you are left with few choices. Those choices are to initiate a performance improvement program, ignore the lack of performance and suffer the consequences, or suggest professional counseling if they hint at a personal issue.
Hopefully, it doesn’t have to come to any of those solutions. They all feel more like failures than remedies to many of us. But if the seller does open up in the review, sometimes the ‘grip’ of the problem is loosened just by sharing it. And sometimes even work can be therapeutic, if not at least a distraction from a tough situation they’re facing.
But sometimes, the problem will be too big to get past easily. That was the case for Sorrel and Tony King. This is a short version of the tragedy that’s been gathered from many media sources. To hear the story in Sorrel’s words, go to this link: https://youtu.be/xA22_QEWapo.
On January 30, 2001, Josie King, an 18-month-old little girl was admitted to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for burns.
According to her mom, Sorrel King, Josie had brown eyes and light brown hair and loved to dance. She just learned to jump on a trampoline with her older siblings and to say, “I love you.”
Josie climbed into a bathtub of scalding hot water and suffered first and second-degree burns. She was rushed to the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, MD. After several days in an intensive care unit, Josie started to heal well, and to her parent’s relief, she was transferred to the intermediate care floor, with the expectation that she’d be released in a few days.
That’s when Josie’s mom started to notice that something was going wrong. When Josie saw something to drink, she screamed for it. When Sorrel and a nurse gave her a bath, Josie sucked furiously on a washcloth.
Sorrel asked the nurse to call the doctor and tell him that Josie was very thirsty. Both that nurse and a second nurse Sorrell petitioned for help, assured her that everything was okay. Josie’s mom called back twice during the night and was at Josie’s bedside at 5:00 AM the next morning. By then, Josie was in full crisis.
A nurse had come to administer a narcotic, methadone, and Sorrell said, “The doctor specifically said no narcotics!” The nurse replied, “The orders have been changed,” and proceeded to give Josie the shot. That mistake caused Josie to go into cardiac arrest.
Two days before Josie’s scheduled release, Josie died. Despite Sorrel’s pleas for help, little 18-month-old Josie died of misused narcotics and dehydration.
Anger and a Maryland settlement cap for these kinds of cases compounded the loss. Sorrel and Tony weren’t after the money. Sorrel wanted them to remember Josie, to learn something from her, and to never let this happen again. “I want every hospital in the country to know her name and why she died. I want them all to learn something!” Sorrel said angrily.
Their attorney gave the couple some hard advice. He told them that they’re not going to get any more money by going to trial. He said that Maryland’s settlement cap won’t permit anything larger. He also told them that he understood that the settlement amount was like a slap on the wrist for Johns Hopkins. His advice was why waste years in court, win the case and still end up with the same settlement? He said why not take the settlement money now and do something good with it. He said do something for Josie and make this more than a sad story for the media to cover. He said to take it and create something much more.
It was time for them to decide. It was time to put aside the anger and despair – or better yet, refocus it – and ultimately, they decided to start a foundation. Its mission would be to prevent patients from being harmed or killed by medical errors. They named it after Josie – The Josie King Foundation (www.josieking.org).
So, what happened to these two wonderful people and their careers? Sorrell left her career as President of Sorrel King Sportswear to become President and Co-Founder of the Josie King Foundation (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sorrelking/). She also became an author (Josie’s Story – A Mother’s Inspiring Crusade to Make Medical Care Safe), as well as a speaker about healthcare safety. One of her speeches shocked and inspired 800 healthcare executives at a major healthcare conference into action. These kinds of deaths were no longer just a PowerPoint statistic. It had a face – Josie’s. That speech not only helped her foundation’s mission tremendously, but it also helped launch the 100,000 Lives Campaign[1], where a goal and a deadline for improving healthcare safety was set. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) continues to lead this charge. Their new campaign is the 5 Million Lives Campaign[2] with countries like Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Japan, and others joining the effort.
Tony King (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-king-cfa-4a967261/) Co-founded the Josie King Foundation and is now the Director of Private Wealth at Asset Strategy Consultants in Baltimore. When Josie’s tragedy happened, he was in the middle of what turned out to be a successful 21-year career with Wells Fargo, as Managing Director of Equity Trading for Wells Fargo Securities. He not only made it past the tragedy, but his career also flourished.
So, why am I telling you their story?
Just maybe, it might help one of your sellers know that they can get through even the worst of tragedies. Energy from grief and anger is a very powerful force. If you can help a top performer who’s going through tough times learn how to channel it for good, instead of letting it drive them into the depths and paralysis of depression, maybe a greater good can out of the other end of their struggle. After all, look what harnessing that energy and desire did for Sorrel and Tony King, as well as for the rest of us.
Hopefully, this discussion and story helped you understand why this Desire for Sales Success competency is such a powerful bellwether of success or failure for a salesperson. Can you imagine your own state of mind and focus, if you were confronted by such a tragedy while trying to perform in your job?
If you would like to learn more about using competency data to drive your hiring, training, and coaching efforts, we invite you to watch one of our recent webinars: How to Implement Data-Driven Sales Enablement. View the webinar for free here: https://www.bakercommunications.com/webinars/How-To-Implement-Data-Driven-Sales-Enablement.html.
[1] IHI. 5 Million Lives Campaign. www.IHI.org. December 12, 2006 to December 9, 2008
[2] IHI. 100,000 Lives Campaign. www.IHI.org.
