What to do when you're jealous of your high-performing coworker.

Published: Wed, 01/12/22

January 12, 2022

Welcome back. Since we’re a week into 2022, most of us have already broken our New Year’s resolutions. But we’re not here to judge, we’re here to give you a sales newsletter you’ll actually want to read (should we trademark this?). In this week’s edition of The Quota, we’ll cover the once-massively-popular world of NLP, find out how many salespeople’s parents worked in sales, and give some advice to an AE who can’t handle his friend’s success. Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

The percentage of sales calls that end without an attempt to close the sale.

Source: Spotio

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week

While no one at The Quota (except possibly Emily) is young or cool enough to be on TikTok, a bunch of people who are tagged us in a TikTok video that was reposted on LinkedIn, and, well, we gotta give the people what they want! User @nicolasnsales shows us the right way to slide into the New Year – watch the chilly video here.
An RV salesman from Arkansas recently pleaded guilty to tax evasion, and admitted that he lied to IRS agents. Joshua Wood instructed his employer not to withhold income taxes from his paycheck, then failed to file tax returns from 2014 through 2016. During those years, Wood earned more than $378,000 selling cars and RVs. When questioned by IRS agents, Wood falsely claimed to have been shot down and wounded on a Navy mission, causing him to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and falsely stated that a CPA had prepared tax returns on his behalf. You can read the full story here.
A sales director for a now-defunct veterinary drug manufacturer was recently sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in a racehorse doping scandal. Michael Keagley, Jr., the former Director of Sales for Kentucky-based MediVet Equine sold a drug called SGF-1000 and other products to trainers and veterinarians, knowing that there was no medical prescription for them and that they hadn’t been approved by the FDA. You can read the full story here.

FEATURE

Neuro-linguistic Programming -- A Pseudoscience That Can Actually Help You (a bit) In Sales

In between scrolling LinkedIn and hitting refresh on our email browsers at least four-hundred times a day, salespeople are always looking for a competitive edge -- something we can implement to increase our performance, especially if that something doesn’t require thousands of hours of additional training or expensive subscription fees.

Well, if you came of age in the 1970’s, you would’ve thought you’d found your solution in NLP, which stands for Neuro-linguistic programming, an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy developed in California, which promised to allow anyone to “model” the skills of exceptional people, and to cure phobias, depression, and even the common cold, and which was marketed as leadership training to business leaders across the globe, including to hundreds of thousands of salespeople who were swept up in NLP’s promise of being able to master your own behavior, as well as to influence the behavior of others.

The backstory

In the 1970’s, two men from California, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, developed NLP as a form of therapy, using language as the springboard for helping people deal with their problems.

Around that time, there was a new movement brewing, which focused on the untapped potential of all human beings (basically the early days of the personal development industry). Bandler and Grinder saw an opportunity, and began claiming that in addition to being a therapeutic method, NLP was also a study of communication.

They began marketing it as a business tool, claiming that, "if any human being can do anything, so can you." After 150 students paid $1,000 each for a ten-day workshop in Santa Cruz, California, Bandler and Grinder gave up academic writing and started selling books from seminar transcripts, such as Frogs into Princes, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and quickly made them rich.

Between the books, the seminars, and all of the other media associated with NLP, Bandler and Grinder were making money hand over fist. But, like in many business partnerships, they soon started feuding over dollars, and began a decades-long legal fight over the rights to NLP, with lawsuits that started in 1980, and continued through to 2000. Hilariously enough, none of their NLP teachings could help them work out a resolution without having to go through the courts.

Putting it to the test

As NLP gained in popularity in the early 1980’s, it attracted attention in counseling research and clinical psychology. But, when put to the test in controlled trials and studies, NLP failed to live up to the claims made by its advocates.

Surveys in the academic community have shown NLP to be widely discredited among scientists, and it's now considered a pseudoscience, that is, a practice which claims to be based on science without the evidence to back it up.

But it’s not all useless

That being said, there are a few teachings in NLP that salespeople can benefit from, some of which are still used in modern sales training.

Mirroring

This is probably the most familiar NLP technique. Mirroring is when you (subtly) match and reflect the prospect’s body language, mannerisms, and words. Doing this can help put a prospect at ease and help with building rapport and trust.

Body Language

While not as applicable in today’s Zoom-heavy world, body language still plays an important role in making prospects feel comfortable. Overly imposing or overly relaxed body language can be a distraction, and will interfere with efforts to build a connection. Focus on open, but non-threatening body language.

Active listening

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that listening is one of the most important skills a salesperson can have. NLP encourages active listening -- that is, being attentive to what your prospects are saying, then reflecting it back to them in a compelling, but comforting way.

Expressing positivity

Back when NLP was first taking off, toxic positivity wasn’t even a thing. Even so, sales reps need to remain upbeat and enthusiastic, and use positive language where possible. Keeping your prospect in high spirits is always better than the alternative, and that’s one of the things that NLP got absolutely right.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Facebook -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Salespeople make up which percentage of the total U.S. population?

A. 8.8%
B. 15.1%
C. 1.3%
D. 4.3%

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“This might not be a Sales Fail per se, but it happened when I was working in sales. I had an inside sales job in my early 20’s. It was basically a call center with about twenty to thirty of us, mostly guys, sitting in an open office. There was a lot of ball-busting, but generally, most of us got along pretty well.

There was this one guy who worked with us, and it was his first sales job, but he was an absolute pathological liar. He would tell these grandiose stories about how his family owned manufacturing plants in Italy, and how he was descended from royalty (seriously). He would lie about little things too. For instance, he had a Movado watch, which was just a regular Movado (I was into watches back then), but when he showed it to me, he said it was a limited edition and one of only twenty-five released in the states. He was a nice guy overall, but there was definitely something going on with him.

Anyway, one night we were working pretty late, but we were kind of just sitting around and bullshitting instead of working. It was me, the guy who was a pathological liar, and another guy who sat near us all sitting at our desks talking. The one who was a liar started telling us this elaborate story about how he was a majority owner in a commercial real estate business in New Jersey (mind you, we were basically entry-level inside sales reps at this time) and how they were looking to purchase a skyscraper in Manhattan.

So I sent a message to the other guy who was part of the conversation through the company chat, and said something like “Man, this guy is so full of shit.” Well, as you can guess, I accidentally sent it to the pathological liar, who saw it pop up on his screen. His face turned super red and he looked at me, so I tried to play it off and say that I was talking about a prospect that I’d been chasing. I’m not sure if he bought it but he didn’t give me a hard time or anything. After that, I don’t remember him telling me any other stories, even though he was still nice to me. We’re still friends on Facebook – I think he does actually own a small jewelry business now.”

Anonymous, 36 New Jersey

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram Poll -- January 2022

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I’m an Account Executive for a tech company in Colorado. I’ve worked here for almost five years, and have seen the sales team grow from twenty reps to over four hundred.

About eight months ago, my friend from college moved out here from Oregon. He’s in sales too, so before he moved, he asked me if I could get him an interview, and I agreed. He ended up getting an offer, and accepted the position, and has been an AE like me ever since, though he isn’t directly on my team.

Here is my problem (and, for the record, I do understand that it’s really petty on my part): he’s absolutely killing it here, and has been ever since he started. I, on the other hand, have only been hitting my quota occasionally, and am struggling to even break into the upper half of all reps.

The problem is that I’m really jealous of my friend, and it’s making me secretly hate him. He’s a good guy, but for some reason, I can’t get over the fact that I got him the job and now he’s making it look easy while I come in and grind it out day after day. I even find myself being rude to him, and have turned him down to hang out a few times because I’m afraid all I’m gonna think about is how much better he is than me.

What should I do? Should I put myself out of my misery and just find another job?

Jealous in Colorado

Dear Jealous,

First things first: jealousy is a normal human emotion. It’s okay to feel jealous from time to time. If it wasn’t for jealousy, some of our greatest businesses and creative works probably wouldn’t exist. As they say: “Chips on shoulders put chips in pockets.”

That being said, there’s a point where jealousy can cross the line into unhealthy territory, and it sounds like you might be there. By now, those initial feelings should have worn off, or, at least, you should have accepted the situation.

Our advice is to mention your feelings to your friend. Don’t make it awkward, just say something like: “You know, you’re really killing it. It’s honestly kind of making me jealous.” You might be surprised at how much better you’ll feel when it’s out in the open.

The other thing you could do is try to gain something actionable. Ask your friend what he’s doing that’s working for him. That way, rather than trying to tear him down, you can focus on lifting yourself up. Remember, these are your feelings, so they’re your responsibility. Your friend did absolutely nothing wrong, and quitting is not the answer.

Quiz Answer: D

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

Got a tip or an idea for something you'd like us to cover? Send us a message at [email protected]

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