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In many of the interviews I’ve done over the years here at AG, I always find myself looking for the best way to encapsulate the setting we try to create for the teleprospecting team. As I’ve mentioned on many occasions, we do everything that we can to make sure our reps don’t feel like a number. Bottom line is that our product is our people. If we’re not empowering them, then our product will undoubtedly suffer. This is a message I try my best to convey to potential candidates during the interview process.
The terms I’ve used to describe our encouraging work environment has opened me up to a little ribbing from my colleagues over the years. Examples such as “The world is your oyster here at AG” or “Cold calling is what you make it” are statements I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve uttered during an occasional interview. Though these statements may appear to be a bit high on the cheese scale, it’s important for us to convey how much we want each employee to own what they are doing. In the unforgiving cold calling trenches, the drone like approach will eat you alive. As much as we want our folks to incorporate the AG philosophies into their calling effort, it’s equally important that they bring their own spin to their calls as well. If this doesn’t happen, cold calling burnout will inevitably rear its ugly head.
Another interesting approach that really resonated with me, comes from a recent blog post from Matt Bertuzzi, is allowing the inside sales reps build their own performance dashboards. Rather than forcing them to only focus on the reports and metrics that YOU feel will make them successful, have them take a stab at it. Think of it as another way of keeping them engaged while also providing you the reports THEY feel are most important in tracking THEIR success. Definitely a great tip I plan on working on with my team.
So what are you doing to keep your team engaged? Do you think your reps feel that they have the autonomy to “run their own business”?