5 mind traps limiting your sales team’s performance

Rick: Hello, welcome to Fearless Thinkers, the BTS podcast. As always, I am Rick Cheatham, your host. Today we have a great treat. One of my great friends, Miguel Sequeira is joining us today. He's a leader in our sales and marketing practice and has deep, deep experience working with commercial organizations all over the world.

So today he's bringing us some great insights into the mind traps that prevent sales organizations from changing and executing as they should. So with that, let's get started.

Rick: Hey, Miguel, welcome to the show.

Miguel: Thanks, Rick. Thanks for inviting me.

Rick: Absolutely. I have to say my friend, it was such a great time seeing you last week at our global conference. It's always great to get together with our colleagues.

I'm excited to talk to you today because I think, with everything that's going on in the world, our friends that are customer facing, and our friends that are sales leaders, especially, trying to navigate today's world and get their sales organizations mobilized for another year of change.

I mean, I think change is so constant for us in today's environment. And as we had the chance to chat, I thought it was really interesting, as you were thinking about some of the work you've been doing, some of the research you've done, the conversations you've been having about the mind traps— I believe you call them— that really get in the way of sales organizations performing. So I'm wondering if you could share with us a little bit, about those and then we can dig deeper.

Rick: Hello, welcome to Fearless Thinkers, the BTS podcast. As always, I am Rick Cheatham, your host. Today we have a great treat. One of my great friends, Miguel Sequeira is joining us today. He’s a leader in our sales and marketing practice and has deep, deep experience working with commercial organizations all over the world.

So today he’s bringing us some great insights into the mind traps that prevent sales organizations from changing and executing as they should. So with that, let’s get started.

Rick: Hey, Miguel, welcome to the show.

Miguel: Thanks, Rick. Thanks for inviting me.

Rick: Absolutely. I have to say my friend, it was such a great time seeing you last week at our global conference. It’s always great to get together with our colleagues.

I’m excited to talk to you today because I think, with everything that’s going on in the world, our friends that are customer facing, and our friends that are sales leaders, especially, trying to navigate today’s world and get their sales organizations mobilized for another year of change.

I mean, I think change is so constant for us in today’s environment. And as we had the chance to chat, I thought it was really interesting, as you were thinking about some of the work you’ve been doing, some of the research you’ve done, the conversations you’ve been having about the mind traps— I believe you call them— that really get in the way of sales organizations performing. So I’m wondering if you could share with us a little bit, about those and then we can dig deeper.

Miguel: Sure, Rick. I think it’s quite interesting, and I must say your mindset at the start of the year makes a lot of difference. What we found out in the last two, three years, is that, things are changing, and are changing faster.

And of course, there are some core capabilities that salespeople need in order to actually perform better. But if there’s one thing that is really making a difference right now, is the mentality of those salespeople. And what our research points is that there are five key mind traps that sometimes limit the productivity, either from sales representatives but also from sales managers.

The first one is what we call a mind trap of victimism. The second one is around what we call lonely wolf. Another one is the comfort zone. Fourth one is the pleaser. And the fifth one is what we call a control freak.

Rick: Well, you’re already hurting me. Cause as a career salesperson, I think that I’ve probably done all of those things at one point or another in my career. But let’s start to break them down. So when you say victimism, what are you really talking about there?

Miguel: So someone that is trapped into that kind of mentality of victimism it’s someone that is not seeing the issues or the problems as they are, right? So for example, conversation with their manager point of view, they tend to focus the conversation towards finding the reasons why they are not doing certain things, why they are not getting to results, why they are not using the CRM, versus what could they do in order for that to happen. Right? So at the end of the day, this kind of mind trap prevents you to see the issues as they really are and prevent you to act and change things. And to the point that we talked before, things are changing, and they are changing faster. So if this prevents you to act, then that’s a big limitation when an organization needs to change at a faster pace.

Rick: Yeah, and so if I kind of rewind my brain back through time when i’ve seen that in action, it’s really when the seller quite often takes on the customer’s point of view almost exclusively, and it’s her/his own organization doing something to them versus them seeing themselves as part of the change, part of the organization. As opposed to stuff being done to me, I’m actually part of the solution and getting it done. Is that fair?

Miguel: Absolutely, Rick. I would say the customer, the market, the politics— everything that is exogenous tends to come into place versus me as part of the solution.

Rick: Great. So now let’s talk about this lone wolf concept. I’m guessing that turns into, ” You know what? I’m just going to go out and do my thing. I know how to hit my number. I got this.” But, explain better, please.

Miguel: Yeah. So the lone wolf— this is a mind trap that is if you look at a career of a sales rep, it doesn’t tend to appear so much in the first years of your career, more when you’re experienced and so on. So it’s kind of this mentality, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I understand that, this initiative is important, but, you know, I’m getting to my results. I’m doing my things, so don’t disrupt my way of working. I understand all of the importance that can have. It simply doesn’t apply to me.” So if a person is in this mind trap, they tend to fall, more and more into that mind trap, because they tend to do things more in their own way. So they tend to, in a moment of change, to get even more distant from the way that the organization is trying to work moving forward.

Rick: Interesting. And so I actually want to jump down. We’ll come back to those that like staying in their comfort zone. Let’s jump down to the pleaser because I would think that it would almost be the exact opposite of the lone wolf.

Miguel: Yeah, it has some opposition to the lone wolf. So the best way that I can describe the pleaser is in two ways . So one is the external, right? So imagine an organization that is trying to sell in a different way. So they’re focusing more on specialized products, or they’re trying to focus more on value based products and services, right? So a pleaser tends to have a tough time if they are in that mind trap because, to sell in that kind of way, you need to have a point of view on things, and pleaser just like to do whatever the client requests. Right? So that tends to be a big barrier to change a way of selling, especially if you’re in a movement to value-based selling. The second lens that you can look at a pleaser is from an internal perspective, which is—imagine that you’re a sales manager, and you have four or five people that are trapped into the pleaser mindset.

So you finish your team meeting on a Monday. So the way that this meeting will end is that the pleasers will all say, “Yeah, yeah, we agree, we agree, we agree. Yeah, let’s go, let’s execute it.” So what will happen is that first, the truth, the disagreement might not come to the surface. So that’s the first thing.

And if that doesn’t come into the surface, even though they say they’re gonna do it, a lot of times what ends up happening is that either they don’t do it or they pretend they are doing it. So in the end, change is not happening again.

Rick: It’s funny because I see that pleaser, I think, frequently on the customer side too. When I was leading large sales teams I would often tell them that your most difficult contact may not be the person that is always challenging your value and pushing you to be better and isn’t always available. The most challenging contact could very well be that pleaser that always has time with you and would love nothing more than to go for a coffee, but has absolutely no intention of buying. They just want to be liked, and they want the recognition and attention. So I think that pleaser mindset can hurt sellers in a few different ways.

But let’s back up and talk a little bit about those that are kind of stuck in that comfort zone place.

Miguel: Yeah, so you can also recognize this one in various areas of a company, that this tends to have, which is whenever there’s change, there’s fear, and comfort zone, even though it appears that these people don’t want to act. A lot of times what’s behind it is that they have a fear to act.

So they fear the unknown. Best example right now, in the moment that we are is artificial intelligence, right? So we have a lot of clients that are trying to push artificial intelligence into the sales team so that they show up in a better way to the clients. They show up more prepared. They are showing up understanding more of the market than the client.

The thing is that when you hear artificial intelligence still today, there are a lot of people That have a lot of fear of what it means to use artificial intelligence. So this is a deep mind trap. , it’s difficult to change. But sometimes a big difficulty for a sales manager or sales leader is to identify that they are actually in the comfort zone because And not necessarily because they don’t want to do it, which is very different from the lonely wolf, for example.

Rick: Yeah it is interesting because when you first started talking, I was like, isn’t this just kind of a different way to group the what’s behind a lot of the other behavior. But I do think, when I reflect on the times that I was either a lone wolf or a pleaser, or I’ve seen it in others, it tends to come from a space of, I may know better.

I know how to make the customer happy. I’ve been selling this way for 15 years, and I’m not going to change. Versus what i’m hearing you say in the comfort zone. It’s like, gosh, I want to do this, but i’m so worried about how i’m going to show up. I’m so worried you know, fill in the blank of worry, worry, fear. Versus I’ve got things under control, that kind of mindset. And speaking of control, let’s talk about our controllers, please

Miguel: Yeah. So the control freak appears in all sales teams, usually, in a context that they have to manage multiple people in an account, either from customer service, customer success, pre sales, et cetera.

So imagine a key account manager that has different people in that account team. A control freak will show up, and sometimes they’re not verbal about this, but you can feel it, which is, I need to be in every meeting, otherwise we don’t get what we need. So they tend to overrate, first of all, their impact. That’s why it becomes so present when you have key accounts and so on. Where you have the power to explode those accounts.

There’s so many hours you have in a day, right? And there’s a sweet spot for an account to go from good to great. And that sweet spot is what I like to call a controllable discontrol. Meaning everyone is coordinated, everyone is aligned, but that doesn’t mean that you need to be in every meeting, okay?

Or in every interaction, right? So that limits a lot the growth or the way that we want to grow. Also with the client’s this control freak.

Rick: So the really interesting thing for me, as I’m thinking back on the sales managers, you know, those frontline leaders and the sellers that I’ve worked with through the years. And I look at what you were saying here, and it feels to me like a lot of times, if I was assessing my team, I would probably expect that control, lone wolf, pleaser type behavior to come from my top performers, while those that are kind of acting in fear or acting as a victim were those that are probably a little more insecure in their performance or their role in the team. Have you seen those kinds of trends, or am I just possibly making things up based on my own experience?

Miguel: Yeah, you know, I never thought about it, to be honest. It is true. Maybe there’s a tendency in that way. However, I think that the word there is changed because you might also be in a mind trap of victimism in the sense of you might be delivering performance in terms of the number, but you might not be delivering performance in terms of how you get to that number.

So you get all of the excuses on why not to do it, right? But yes, maybe there’s a higher tendency in that way. Maybe that’s the next phase for our research.

Rick: There you go. Well, you know, my last question for you, and this is one that I can’t help but ask. If I’m a sales leader out there listening to this, what potentially can I go do with this knowledge that could take my team further or make me better as I continue my day today?

Miguel: Good question. Maybe I’ll refer to the way that we started this podcast, Rick. One of the things you mentioned when I talked about the five mind traps, you said, I can definitely recognize myself. So the first thing that a leader can do is that this is only natural to happen, meaning you are not the mind trap. Depending on the moment of the career or the change or the results that you’re getting, you might be falling into one of these mind traps, either you as a sales leader or one of your sales people.

So I would definitely say that the first thing is recognize. The second thing I would say that it’s instilling in your sales team that this is natural. And then ask them a question that I feel that is very powerful, which is: Who wins when you’re in one of these mind traps? And from a sales perspective, the answer usually to that question is the only agent that wins there. If you’re in one of these mind traps, it’s competition.

The customer won’t win if you’re in a victimism mode. For example, you won’t change the results, the team won’t change the results, the client won’t get better things. Only the competition will win. So instilling this mentality in your team—that this is normal— so let’s recognize it and change it faster, is great.

And then lastly, and this is especially for our more senior leaders, I would say from a systematic point of view, make sure that you’re also assessing what are the most probable mind traps that your team might be falling. At which stage, for example, we see that a lot of the companies that are more successful with their sales managers are the ones that are actually assessing what are the mentalities that their individual contributors, that they usually promote to sales manager role, what are the mentalities that they are actually exhibiting, and what is the probability of doing it.

So having a systemic view and a systematic approach to assessing people along the way in the change, I think, makes a huge difference to our senior leaders.

Rick: I think that is really really great advice. Part of what I was hearing you say there is we’re probably going to fall into different mind traps all over time in different circumstances. So just bringing the awareness to yourself and your team is probably a big jump forward. So great advice. Well, thank you so much, my friend. You’ve really given us a lot to think about and we’ll have to have you back soon. I can’t wait to hear about how things progress with you and the great sales organizations that you work with.

Miguel: No, thanks for inviting me. It’s been my pleasure.

Rick: All right. Talk soon

Miguel: Bye.

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