3 Sales Office Ideas From Music Streamer Spotify

In general scrolling downtime, I was glad to come across this Guardian investigation into how various cultural successes tick.

Stockholm’s Spotify story revealed a trio of takeaways for aspirant sales stars.

31-year-old CEO, Daniel Ek (on acoustic guitar), kicks us off with his observations on personal productivity;

“I happen to believe that it takes people about 15 minutes to focus on a task, and then their attention span is about 70 minutes, and after that they need to break off and do something else, and for me, personally, that is playing music. I have spaces between meetings where I just play the guitar. It gives me more energy back for the next task.”

Guitars in the sales office, hey?!

What is spot on though, is how people in the myriad sales offices I’ve entered are not helped in this most clear of concentration regards. Way back in b-school I recall one finding that an interruption befalls the typical ‘manager’ every seven minutes. (Any random surf throws several stats your way on this.)

Whether your salesroom offers chillout or locked privacy nearby, does it truly enable salespeople to maximise their potential and motor on each task as they crop up?

Then one for the interviewer. In under two years Spotify has expanded hugely. From 250 people to 1,400. Daniel Ek again;

“I look for things people do in their spare time. What kind of hobbies do they have? It doesn’t matter if you’re into Japanese gardening or music – how you got into it is more interesting. Are you curious and open-minded? That says way more than any education you’ve gone through.”

For those seeking a checklist of questions this can equally apply to sales recruits.

Thirdly, 26-yr old Lisa Brännfors (left of the lampshade), as consumer insights analyst, seven months in, quips;

“A substantial part of internal communication occurs through animated gif images.”

Now. Forget the tech label. The important word here is images.

I sob to see another ‘memo’ pinned to a cubicle wall.

If the message promotes best sales process, prospect problem identification or celebrates happy clients in a sales (rather than mere ‘marketing’) manner, then why not picture it up?