Have you noticed most people are challenged in how they receive suggestions and new information? If you give someone new information, a new idea, a new structure, or a better way to handle something, there’s a good chance, before they can utilize that new philosophy or approach, they have to first apologize for their past.
As a sales coach, if I say to a salesperson “If you try handling that objection this way…it might be easier,” the first response is rarely “Wow! That would really help me.” The first response I’m much more likely to hear is them apologizing for their past by saying something like “Well, nobody ever told me,” or “I hadn’t heard that before,” or “That’s not how we used to sell.”
The reality as a coach is to make sure your people are receptive to new ideas, new directions and new best practices so they can sell even more. To do this we need to make sure our people are comfortable, that their egos don’t get in the way.
One of the ways you can do this as a coach is to quietly remind people that you don’t have to apologize for the past just to take advantage of an idea that can take you into the future.
Join me as I share how you, as a manager, can open your team up to more new ideas and suggestions…by making sure they stop apologizing fr the past and saying “Well nobody ever told me that before!”