Are your team slaves to their emails?

Are your team slaves to their emails….

Is email ‘completion’ determining your happiness and achievement?

During a recent survey I wanted to know what the most pressing challenges leaders are facing.  Alongside the normal list of suspects (like my team being motivated, proactive, converting blah blah) what also came up was ‘my team’s day is being determined by their email, so their workload is not prioritized in terms of what’s important- but by getting through their emails’. Expanding on that feedback was ‘some of my team feel stressed if they haven’t got through all their emails’.

This is a genuine fear. If your team demonstrate any of these behaviours it may mean the ‘counter’ (the possible side effect of that behaviour) can be costing you money.

To clarify this, let’s talk about ‘people pleasers’ and ‘completers’.

1. a) People pleasers

How can you tell if you have a ‘People Pleaser’ on your hands?

These are people who want to please everyone. The know they have done a good job when the other person is happy. They get concerned if someone is left out.

Potential side effect of people pleasers: They jump through hoops for every client. They want to get back to every client quickly. They spend the same amount of time on a key account as a minute sized prospect. They say ‘yes’ to everything the client wants.  Can view the client as king and act subservient, meaning they slip into ‘order taking’ mode as opposed to stepping in as the authority and educating the client.

What you can do: help this individual understand the commercial side of the business.  Explain the ‘energy and effort versus outcome’ equation and how to prioritise.

Demonstrate that there is no need to invest 400% with a client worth just a $1000. It’s important that you use this positive language, smiling and saying ‘that client is happy with what more than satisfies their needs’– smiling whilst saying this is very important.  Then shift the focus onto an account worth $200k saying ‘let’s ensure this account is happy’ and help the rep see that to keep that major client happy requires xyz amount of energy and attention.  Guide them on prioritization and focus (removing distractions, like turning off email notifications). Have a clear plan of how to carve off time set aside for tasks that are geared around those listed key accounts with contact names along with a schedule of ‘touch points that will bring value and make ‘insert client name’ happy’.

1. b) Completers

How can you tell if you have a ‘Completer’ on your hands? They complete every task they have started. Ticking off tasks is their primary focus. (In fact, the sense of achievement by ticking off anything thrills them).

Potential side effect of ‘Completers’. The priority of the task or client isn’t often considered. Getting 20 small jobs done and out the way is of primary importance.  The need to get through all the emails can have them place the same importance on a key account as a ‘rats and mice’ account. They may spend the same amount of time on an email response, proposal and meeting regardless of the account value size.

What you can do: using ‘closing language’ on tasks that are sufficient and no longer require more time – i.e. ‘Aaron, to finish this off, just email it to me and that closes that job off, that completes it, well done’ in other words it’s a ‘you have done it,  let’s get rid of it’ sentence.

To close, I will say that those people that have been trained (so, they had external training plus their leader did weekly focus sessions using platforms like the Smarter Selling Academy for even just 15 minutes a week) had a clear vision of what was expected. They felt ‘organised’ and ‘in control’ of their time, able to prioritise and allocate tasks into ‘chunks’ and be disciplined in how to stick to that.  They were calmer and therefore got more of the right tasks completed.