I’m going to discuss a management truth that needs to be heard by managers who are leading marketing teams. The truth to be told is that as managers we are actually, largely in the personal development business. If you think you can teach only information and not inspire; teach mechanics and not motivation; even provide a toolbox but leave their box of beliefs alone, you are, frankly, bluntly, a fool who has no real understanding of managing a canvass team or (show & event) – and if you are presently making money in your face to face marketing, you’re making it by churning people in and out at a fast pace, the day of reckoning of emotional, physical and financial burn out is on its way.
This isn’t going to be the Knute Rockne, Vince Lombardi style ‘rah-rah’ speech. I’m a believer in those, but they have a place, and it’s not in what I’m going to talk about today.
The first thing I’d ask you to do is open your mind right now, before you read on. As managers we can get ourselves locked into doing things one way, the way we’ve always done it before, but, for as much as the market and prospects have changed so too have the canvassers. You have scripts and systems of how you do things and many coach to those things alone. If you’re not balancing the right type of mindset to skill set training you’ll never fully achieve the results you can with your teams. The mindset stuff compliments the skill set stuff, and vice versa.
If you’re only going to teach information without inspiring people; if you’re only providing the tools but not inspiring their beliefs you’re fooling yourself. You don’t have a full understanding of what it takes to motivate people. You’re not motivating sales people or marketers; you’re dealing with people, emotional, psychological people.
You won’t be influential to the people you manage until you affect the way they feel about themselves. Only then will you be a true motivator, intrinsically motivate.
To quote Zig Ziglar, “People say that motivation doesn’t last, neither does bathing and that’s why it has to be done daily.”
As manager motivation has to be part of your daily agenda, during the meetings; it has to become habit. You’re working on skill set and application, but you also have to be working on fixing their head.
Here’s a reality that might take a little thought, you might say it’s philosophical. You don’t build a business or department; you build people who build the business or department. As a manager, teaching the core mechanics of your canvassing system is what you do, but you’re also into personal development.
Here’s what I tell people I work with. The personal development ‘stuff’ begins before they’re even hired. I establish the mindset of the people we’re looking for during the recruiting and group interviews. I don’t do one on one interview, I hold group interviews, for a number of reasons, but for the discussion here, in the group interview creates a situation of openness and lessens the pressure on the candidate being interviewed from thinking they have to perform in the interview. It puts them at easy.
The group interview allows you to observe how the candidates will respond to your overview and discussion of expectations and advancement, etc. You get to see how they react in a group setting and the process literally forces them to self qualify, or disqualify based on what you share. The group setting is more effective and more productive than individual interviews.
If you don’t change their beliefs about the job, the work or about their ability to be successful in the job then you’re set up for failure. This simple component of the interviewing process is why so many companies experience such high and frequent turnover.
To illustrate my point I’ll reference the ‘Shark Tank’ story I shared in the previous article. Nate Holzapfel went on the ABC television show Shark Tank to procure an investment of $50,000 in his belt business. There was nothing spectacular about his product or his pitch, but the moment Nate told the sharks that the day before he went door to door and sold 25 belts to the 27 homes he called on, in Los Angeles, before the taping of the show, it completely changed Mark Cuban and Damon John’s belief in this guy and his rather ‘plain’ product. The reason is that both Cuban and John had, early in their careers, sold door to door. Nate’s story immediately changed their perspective (and belief) in what was possible. The sharks readily share they don’t invest in businesses, they invest in people.
It’s what I shared earlier, you don’t build businesses, you build people who build businesses. Personal development can only happen one person at a time. This responsibility occurs every day. What holds people back is their belief system. Again, Zig Ziglar says, “Whether you believe you can achieve or can’t achieve, in either case you’re right.” This prevents people from taking action.
Think about this. When a person interviews for a canvassing, or show & event position, they see it as a job, not as a career. They see it as a means to an end. Most people who respond are young people and they think this will be stepping stone to something bigger, better and more meaningful in their life. I was there. I started canvassing in college and I thought it was just a way to make some quick cash to pay for my college lifestyle.
As I’ve discussed before though, canvassing teaches bigger life-skills. Most of the people coming to you are entry level people, they have entry levels skills and that’s all they think they’ll ever use in the job. Their mindset is, how hard can the job be, I’m only going around knocking on doors. It your responsibility to help them understand there’s more at stake here than just making money. The ‘job’ can change their life and it changes the lives of the prospects they’re going to be talking to. You don’t want them to learn this by osmosis, you have to communicate and teach it.
Another aspect of your personal development role is in helping people to set their goals and achieve them. I’ve written at length on this subject*, but one of the things that I teach that most goal setting programs don’t is the ‘why’ behind the goals. Without a ‘why’ there’s no clarity or motivation behind achieving the goal. For example, a goal to lose weight is not motivating; it’s not the emotional driver behind the goal. On the other hand, when you know the reason to lose the weight is because they’re getting married and they want to look good. The reason (why) behind the goal is far more motivating than the goal. When you hold them accountable to their goals then you become more influential and helpful to them. This is personal development. You don’t have to get into people’s personal lives, but you have to get them to define and recognize why they want to achieve what they state. When you want them to knock on a 120 doors a day you have something tangible to hold them accountable to and drive them to do the work.
*You can find my articles and recording on goal setting in the member archives
When you look at who people respect in their life you’ll find people who make others feel good about themselves. They provide motivation and inspiration. It’s a main reason my private clients have me as their coach.
What should you do from reading this article?
First, it starts with you. You have a strategy and a system to do your marketing (whether mine or yours) so you know you can teach the skill set. The next step is to get educated on how to teach the mindset. You hear me regularly reference books and authors, and I quote many people. You should invest in these resources; read them and learn from them on how they do things. One of the best books on learning how to train people in this respect is “Semper Fi”.
Attitude will make the biggest difference in everything you do and implement. You have to do it every day.
Committed to your canvassing success,
Chris Thompson
The Canvass King