Top Sales Manager Blog

The year 1976 was a dangerous time for the Girl Scouts of America. It was the year Frances Hesselbein took over as its president, and it was also the year the Girl Scouts nearly went topsy-turvy into the brink of extinction. Back then nobody knew anything about what was going to happen to this long-standing organization.

The Girl Scouts is an organization that’s been going about its business in a very traditional way for many, many years—recruiting volunteers from all fifty states, teaching them camping and wilderness stuff, first aid, cooking and other handy skills. It’s this traditional way of doing things that almost killed the Girl Scouts before Frances could even warm her seat.

Times were changing. Fewer and fewer girls wanted to become girl scouts, and even less money was coming in from benefactors. Frances knew she needed to change things, or else…

You’re probably wondering, what does this have to do with sales management? The truth is, it has everything to do with sales management.

How did Frances go about motivating thousands of volunteers from all over the country? Your people report to you because they are paid to do it. When you have a bunch of direct reports who volunteer to report to you…you really need to be a great leader.

She knew she was in no position to command anyone to facilitate the change they – the Girl Scouts – desperately needed. So what Frances did, she initiated a different style of management—that is, by influencing as many people as possible to initiate the process of change in themselves, she could use that momentum to leverage herself into achieving the important goals necessary to save the organization.

Her philosophy, like the philosophy of TopSalesManagerBlog, was very clear:

“The more power you give, the more power you get”.

Frances’ genius, and gamble, paid off. She saved the Girl Scouts of America. But the kicker was that she did it not by waving her power in everyone’s faces like a stick, but by sharing it with the people who believed her and the goals she’d set for herself. In the end, the Girl Scouts lived to tell the tale of ‘76.

As a sales manager, do you wield power or do you give it away like Frances Hesselbein?

Sometimes it can be difficult especially with high-priority orders coming down from top brass and your sales team performing poorly as a result of the on-going economic retrenchment. Admit it, it’s easier to succumb to the “You don’t say No to me, I say No to you” type of management style.

The trick is to maintain the mindset of a top-performing sales manager. This breed of sales manager makes it his job to empower others as a way of empowering himself.

Learn from Frances Hesselbein. As a top-performing sales manager, your job is to hire and retain sales people who are capable of making sound decisions out in the field… on their own. Trust me, this type of sales person will be around to back you up for a long time. 

That’s how you motivate with “The Girl Scout Way”.

To learn more about sales manager training, get our free video on the sidebar of this post or by clicking here.

Post a response to this post and tell me how you get the best from your sales consultants by giving away your power.

Filed under: Motivation by ralphburns