What if your father didn't want you to work in sales?

Published: Wed, 10/12/22

October 12, 2022

TOGETHER WITH

Good morning! This week is special at The Quota, for two reasons. The first is that it’s our fifty-second issue, which means we’ve been at this for an entire year, so thanks for sticking with us! The second (and related) reason is that this week, The Quota co-founder’s second book is out in stores. To commemorate both events, we’re giving away fifty free copies of the book to the first fifty respondents (link below). Aside from that, it’s business as usual! Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

33 percent of people open emails based on the subject line alone.

Source: SuperOffice

SALES ROUNDUP

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

How is sales expected to change over the next five years? According to a recent report from Gartner, there are seven technology disruptions that are expected to impact sales through 2027. They include Machine Customers (?), Generative AI, Digital Twin of the Customer (!?), AR/VR, Digital Humans (oh boy), Emotion AI, and Multimodality. You can read the report here.
Fans of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul know that one of the best salespeople in television history is fast-talking lawyer Saul Goodman aka Jimmy McGill. But what can the rest of us learn from Goodman’s success? Quite a lot, according to The Recursive, which put together a list of 5 lessons for salespeople from his namesake show. You can read the article here.

FEATURE

Stock_Asso/Shutterstock.com

The Top 2 Reasons Why Salespeople Are “Quiet Quitting”

In a recent Gartner survey of over 900 B2B sellers, 89% reported feeling burned out and 54% were actively seeking a new job. Sellers say they feel disconnected from their companies and from their coworkers, not to mention uncertainty as to whether there is any growth potential in their jobs.

And they feel that their bosses are disconnected from them, too – 67% of participants said that management is both too optimistic and disconnected from the reality of their employees.This burnout is leading sellers all over the country and across every industry to quiet quit, aka mentally check out of their jobs and stop making much of an effort.

So, how can employers quell the quiet quitting?

Motivation consists of two forces: drive and drag. Drive is inspiration to do work, drag is disinclination to work. When a seller is driven, they are engaged, take initiative, and go above and beyond at work. When they are feeling drag, they procrastinate, avoid working at all, and lose focus quickly.

“To motivate sellers in today’s environment, it’s critical to understand drag as well as drive, but the dynamics are complex,” said Colleen Giblin, Principal Researcher at Gartner. “For many sellers, these opposing forces present themselves simultaneously in various aspects of day-to-day work. They are not extremes on a single spectrum.”

Giblin explains that focusing on preventing drag is more important than increasing drive. According to Gartner, 76% of sellers are highly driven towards their work. It’s drag that’s the silent killer. She and her team uncovered two main culprits for the prevalence of drag in the sales industry.

Lack of development opportunities

When sellers can’t envision a long-term career with their current company, they are up to 35% less likely to attain quota and up to 51% more likely to be actively job-seeking. The career ladder in sales up until now has been very traditional – usually workers move up to larger accounts, segments, or goals, then into management.

But this can feel restrictive for employees who want to use a wide range of skills in their work. Listening to workers about what they want their career in sales to look like and helping them work toward those goals increases the chance that they will stay motivated at work and stay with the company longer. In fact, Gartner’s research shows that when sellers feel confident and secure in their career’s upward direction, it has a direct impact on quota attainment.

Feeling like a cog in a machine

56% of sellers expressed feeling like a cog in a machine, and 76% felt sales leadership micromanages how they do their jobs. This is a surefire recipe for people underperforming and looking for new employment. The antidote? Empowering workers to independently problem solve, streamline processes they feel need updating, and use their discretion in tricky situations.
When employers trust people and give them genuine responsibility, salespeople are more likely to be invested in their jobs.

Alright, now 54% percent of you can get back to looking for new jobs and 46% of you can get back to work (or non-work, if you’re quiet-quitting as we speak).

THE ANTI-WORKPLACE WORKPLACE BOOK

Stressed out at work? Thinking about quiet quitting, or quitting loudly?

Before you do, check out I Hope This Email Finds You Never, the book that shows you you’re not alone. To commemorate The Quota’s one year anniversary, we’re giving away fifty free copies to the first fifty respondents who claim their book here.

And if you weren’t able to snag a free one, you can buy a copy of the book here (it costs less than twenty bucks!)

Oh, here’s what you can expect from the book:

I Hope This Email Finds You Never puts aside the motivational screeds, productivity hacks, and pop-science, and focuses instead on those things in the workplace that truly cause us grief—like a coworker eating an apple during a video call—in a lighthearted, entertaining, and (most importantly) cynical way.

From Orientation (The Descent), Workplace Etiquette (No Eye Contact Before 11 AM), Working Remotely (Wink Wink), Coworkers (Getting Along with your fellow inmates), and everything in between, this book is your must-have guide to surviving (thriving is not realistic) in the modern workplace. Grab your copy here.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Which of the following movies does NOT have a salesperson as a character?

A. Love & Other Drugs
B. Cedar Rapids
C. The Founder
D. The Insider

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).

“About fifteen years ago, I worked at a call center. It wasn’t a huge one, we probably had like 20-30 reps, but except for the manager’s office and the conference rooms, everybody was out on one main floor.

I used to sit next to this guy who had only joined the company a few months prior. He was pretty soft-spoken and kept to himself, but when I started talking to him more, it was clear that something was a bit off. He told me he’d been in the Marines, but that he’d never really bought into it and hated everything they had to say about teamwork etc.

He also talked badly about a bunch of people in our industry, which wasn’t too unusual but he seemed to know a lot about their personal lives. Overall, just a pretty strange dude.

One time, he went out to get lunch, and I stayed in the office since I’d brought mine from home (there were other reps there too). All of a sudden, a woman walked in out of nowhere and asked where he was. I told her he was out at lunch and she asked if she could wait for him and I said of course. I thought she was going to wait in the seats we had near the door as a makeshift waiting area, but she sat on his chair and put her feet up on his desk.

Well, he showed up less than ten minutes later, and when he saw her, he said, “What do you want?” She proceeded to get up, then sweep everything off his desk onto the floor in one fell swoop. Everybody was dead silent – you could hear a pin drop. Then he told her to get out, and she literally picked up his stapler, and chucked it at him as hard as she could, missing him by about four feet.

Then she yelled something at him, and stormed past him, but at the last second, turned and bumped into him with her shoulder before walking out the door. The guy didn’t say a word, just went back to his desk and quietly cleaned everything up. A few minutes later, the sales manager called him into his office, and (he told us this later) the guy apologized and said he was having issues with his girlfriend and that it wouldn’t happen again.

He left early that day (with the manager’s permission) but he never came back to work after that. I have no clue what happened to the guy, but it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen at work.

Anonymous Location withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- October 2022

WORTH A PEEK

Yes, unfortunately even this section has been taken up by a book promotion too. But on the bright side, it’s the last time we’re going to promote the book today – smooth sailing from here on out. If you’ve got a friend, spouse, or coworker with a good sense of humor, pick up a copy for them here.

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 about to graduate from college in the spring. Lots of my friends are applying to grad school, but I’m pretty sure I want to start working instead. I’ve seen my older cousins get advanced degrees and now they’re crippled with debt and jobs they don’t love, all because it was considered the “thing to do.”

I’ve been selling high-end road bikes throughout college at our local bike shop and have really enjoyed it. I like talking to people, and I like the energy I get from making a sale. Obviously, I’ve been reading about the money that can be made in SaaS sales, and I think that’s the direction I want to go in. I don’t know if I will do it forever but I know I’d rather work in sales and make money than keep doing the school thing right now.

The problem is my father has always wanted me to go to grad school. He has a PHD and has always stressed the importance of education. Not going to college was out of the question in my house, but I’m definitely old enough where this is now my decision. Another problem is that I don’t think he has much respect for sales as a profession, but I feel like he still thinks of sales reps as fast-talking door-to-door types who will run off with your money.

How can I convince him to let me start my career now instead of going back to school? Any advice?

Conflicted in Colorado

Dear Conflicted,

If you’re still in college and you’re already subscribed to this newsletter, then it sounds like you’re taking your career prospects seriously!

The key here is to show your dad that sales is no longer the fly-by-night profession that it might have been in the past. Sales reps can make enormous amounts of money, and there are many sales positions that come with quite a bit of prestige, especially at the most sought-after companies in the world.

While you could talk to your father about the money, what’s probably more important to convey is that this is what you want to do. Going back to school when it doesn’t feel right is a recipe for disaster, and there are millions of people who hate their jobs but refuse to make a change because it’s either too late, or because they can’t push back against what’s expected of them.

At the end of the day, like you said, you’re old enough to make the decision for yourself. But it would definitely make things easier if he got on board. Make the case in a respectful, informative, and mature way. And remind him that you can always try it for a year, and if it doesn’t work out, or it’s not what you expected, you can go back to school. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: D

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How did you like today's story?

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

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