Happy Sales Reps?
I’ve spent far too much time lately hanging around at the behest of the world’s most inefficient organisation, the NHS. Every British politician you hear talk about our health service says all the staff are wonderful and it’s the envy of the world. What a load of rubbish.
There’s only so much you can take of hearing such tripe. When the reality is that far too many staff don’t give a stuff about their patients. The administrators are clueless, and most medical staff are hamstrung by poor administration or their own desire to get you in and out as quickly as possible, with the optimum remedy being inaction. Why does an MRI scan take over 3 months, then the appointment to discuss it as long again? It’s a disgrace.
Anyway, as you can imagine, most magazines left lying around in such waiting areas are not my normal reading matter. I picked up one, called Eve, and started reading about how American Dr Martin Slegiman achieved huge success in making people happier.
This got me thinking about a customer of mine, where several of the reps used to be customer service orientated, and some are feeling (deliberate) discomfort about being thrust into a pure selling environment.
He identified four traits he calls ‘heart’ and ‘signature’ strengths, which if you work on yourself will make you happy:
- Gratitude (show sincere gratitiude that makes people take note)
- Vitality (display a genuine infectious enthusiasm and throw yourself into something)
- Hope (have faith in future & plan for it)
- Love (both given and received)
Now, as you’ll know, I’m not really into pop-psychology self-help nonsense, but at least with a couple of these, if a down-in-the-dumps rep thinks about them, then they’ll likely turn things around.