GlaxoSmithKline & Achievement Motivation

This is an example of how we transferred the Situational Leadership model to selling through Situational Sales Management. This training went to every manager; regional managers from sales, production, and marketing to every single manager in the company.

We created custom sales training for North America, Canada, Germany, Puerto Rico, and South America.

Our breakthrough was helping their salespeople determine how to get passed the gatekeeper through our behavioral event interviews. We created a competency map of what a superior performer would look like in the future based on what the winners were already doing. We identified the competencies they needed to perform to be better than they were today.

We took the money they used for junkets, repurposed it for sales training to teach them primarily how to get passed the gatekeeper (receptionist, etc. to see the doctor) with a value proposition that made it a career threat NOT to let them talk to the doctor. We taught them how to quickly diagnose the social style of the doctor and quickly offer something that would make them want to learn more.

Training their salespeople how to get passed the gatekeeper was the biggest barrier from earning a living ($50k) to earning a future ($500k).

salespeople training

We also taught the salespeople how to not treat every sales partner the same, and every sales manager not teach the salesperson the same.

We taught them how to diagnose the situation and then prescribe. (how to diagnose the doctor’s style).

We used their nomenclature so they adopted it.

Situational Leadership is common sense organized.

Not “this” all the time. It’s if this, then that.

We made their salespeople so successful we needed to next help the organization with how to keep their salespeople, and we learned was through recognition. Our sales training created a situation where many people no longer needed to work because they made so much money they didn’t have to work.

Our challenge was to make GlaxoSmithKline a place where people WANTED to come to work because they wanted to help other people.

While in Germany at a GlaxoSmithKline sales conference, I meet Jim Boyatzis and Richard McClellen. They were the super force on achievement motivation.

  • Why do people continue to work when they don’t have to?
  • What makes people achieve?
  • What motivates people to be great?
  • What makes people want to cross the finish line after they have 3 gold medals?
  • How do you create a culture where the money is nice but the mission is more important?

This was a shift from selling training binders.

  • How do you help people learn it is time to live and time to help?
  • We were also teaching prosperity to the GlaxoSmithKline salespeople.
  • Not how to think small.
  • How not to win/lose.

When the leaders are no longer in charge, it’s better to control outcomes than try to manage the process.

  • Measure the outcome you want from people.
  • Then recognize and reward when they do it.
  • There is nothing wrong with Quid Pro Quo as long as it doesn’t involve physical contact.
  • If you do this for me I’ll do this for you. It is 100% appropriate in business.
  • You do this, you get that.

Make it really clear how people “get their goodies.”

successful salespeople

The majority of people would rather win, would rather contribute to their team, church, community, society. All you have to do is learn how to tap into people.

All you have to find out is what motivates them and tap into it. Not manipulate. Tap into it. When you develop that’s different. When you nurture, that’s different. Everyone has something they want everyone has something they need. There should be clear goals how to get what you want. Need to make it explicit.

I had unfettered access to Boyatzis and McClellen when I was in Germany. I asked questions until I didn’t have any more questions to ask. It went from going to learn from them to being in collaboration with them.

All people who are successful have extreme, intense follow up and extreme commitment to goals and all they did was that one thing and they stick to it and stick to it.

Then, they become an overnight success who is the luckiest person in the world and they are at the right place at the right time in other’s eyes.

Successful people respect opinions, but they never change.
They persevere.
They believe.

The common thread I learned was follow up. Belief in the critical few. Eliminate all the complexity. If you do anything else you are wasting time.

I lived with my biggest clients, designed their sales conferences, went to their sales conferences, ate lunch with them, fished with them, was intimate with them for 10 years. I was a blur between working for GlaxoSmithKline, Nortel, AT&T or Blanchard. No one really knew my client companies. They just knew I worked for people, performance and productivity.

I learned to manage people and productivity based on management of organizational behavior.

I know we have left legacies because we have helped leaders create better teams, less stress, more wellness, productivity, recognition systems that separate the people who do from those who do not.

The best companies, world-class results companies recognize those who do and ruthlessly separate those who do not.

Meaning world-class organizations do not pollute the winners' circle. They coach and develop their people and if they can’t they help them find a job with a competitor.