December 29, 2022

A Conversation with Jeff Bajorek

48 minutes

Jeff Bajorek is an advisor and coach to B2B sales leaders, author of Rethink the Way You Sell, and host of the podcast of the same name. Sales leaders tend to forget that managing sellers are pretty much the same as how sellers engage with their customers.

Sellers are a sales leader's product. With this perspective shift, sales leaders create accountability for how their sellers are working and, by extension, how much they're hitting quota.

An environment of accountability, knowing that the people up the ladder have your best interests at heart, is actually a part of enablement. But accountability goes both ways and Jeff gives his insights on maintaining quality control and leadership training that appears to be lacking in today's environment.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Managers can't lead when they don't know what's happening at the front - Jeff: "The worst managers I've ever worked for were only behind their computer, just doing what the numbers were telling them, and there was a lack of intuition there. There was a lack of your finger on the pulse of what was really going on. There was a disconnection between the management level and what was going on on the front lines. How do you manage someone in a situation you're unfamiliar with?"

Accountability is a partnership between the seller and the manager - Jeff: "Accountability is a partnership. Micromanagement? Not a partnership. Micromanagement is a nightmare. But accountability is a partnership. Andy, if I'm reporting to you, if you're my leader, we're going to sit down at the beginning of the year, the beginning of the quarter, maybe the beginning of the month, and we're going to talk about expectations. We're going to talk about what you need me to bring in in terms of revenue and I'm going to look you in the eye and I'm going to say, yup, I've got that, or I might have to tell you that I don't think that's coming."

Find out more about Jeff in the links below:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbajorek/

Website: https://www.jeffbajorek.com/