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Today’s show featured an interview with Anne Altman, CEO Everyone Matters, Inc. She was the recipient of the Institute for Excellence in Sales Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
The show was cohosted by IES Women in Sales program director Gina Stracuzzi.
Find Anne on LinkedIn.
ANNE’S TIP: “Sales leaders must create possibilities for their teams by asking powerful, forward-thinking questions. Inspire your salespeople by asking, ‘What if we could accomplish this?’ and help them bridge the value of what they’re selling to the impact it can have for customers. Engagement starts with envisioning what’s possible.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m very excited. Today we’re going to be talking with Anne Altman, and we’re going to be talking about the concept of engagement challenges. Gina, you hear this a lot at the Women in Sales Leadership Forum. I’m going to ask you to tell us why we have this challenge and why we brought Anne on. It’s quite remarkable that we’ve never had Anne on the show.
Gina Stracuzzi: I know.
Fred Diamond: We’re well over 750 shows. Anne’s been referred to dozens of times because of her leadership at places like IBM and the board work that she does. Of course, she was our third Lifetime Achievement Award recipient way back a number of years ago.
Gina, why are we doing this show today? You talk with sales leaders around the globe all the time, engagement, why is it such a challenge? What do you see? Then we’re going to get deep with Anne to get some of her insights into how companies can solve this problem.
Gina Stracuzzi: The why is something of an elusive question. Everyone has theories that it’s remnants of almost like post-traumatic stress syndrome from the pandemic. Others think it’s just the world is in such turmoil that everybody feels just angst and is having a harder time concentrating and feeling the same. The one thing I hear is that burn, the energy that used to be rather frenetic prior to the pandemic is just gone, and people are struggling to get it back. The leaders I speak with are really scratching their heads.
Part of what is happening is that the kind of communication divide that happens with various generations is just being lifted to the nth degree. That is driving some of the disengagement too, because there isn’t this everyone working in tandem. As we’ve talked about many times, there is energy that comes from working in a big sales department. It can be overwhelming at times, but we’re all veterans of it. I always say I would not be sitting here talking to you if I started my sales career sitting at my kitchen table all by myself. Because you need that energy to get you going, keep you going, especially in the early parts of your career, when it’s hard to get that rhythm and bringing in money on a regular basis and real income you can count on.
You need that interaction that happens when you’re with other people, and that is gone. That’s adding to it. As we talked about the post stress that people are feeling and just stress about the world, all of those things are adding to it. It’s like this big bowl of mess. Every company is handling it differently. What I like to do is try to talk to as many other leaders as I can so that we can figure out together and maybe help each other. That’s going to be a big part of the communities that we’re going to be launching in 2025 as part of the IES, is to really talk about these things as groups. It’s a big conversation with no simple answers, but it is something that needs to be addressed because engagement is way down and people aren’t hitting their numbers, even veterans. It’s a big topic.
Fred Diamond: Anne, we’re excited to have you here today. You’re involved with so many things. You’re on a large number of boards, you do a lot of volunteering work. A lot of people listening know you from the long time that you led IBM’s public sector in all those years. Give us some of your insights. Why do you think this is happening and what do you think some of the reasons are for the current lack of engagement?
Anne Altman: It’s a really interesting topic, and I think Gina really well outlined the fact that the pandemic, because everybody was not connected and everybody was home, and there was a lot of stress and anxiety and difficulty in trying to shift, especially in sales. How do you sell when you’re not there in-person and creating that trust in the relationship? How do you follow up? It was a very different environment. I think out of that came this element of engagement that we’re talking about.
That said, what I hear today is that it starts with the sales culture, and maybe we lost some of that during the pandemic because nobody was coming into the office and the sales leaders maybe didn’t know how to lead virtually. But I think that’s the starting point. It’s, let’s get back to the basics of a positive sales culture, a collaborative sales culture, a culture that invites coaching and mentoring and establishes things that are just basics like recognizing successes. These are really important elements of creating an environment that people want to be a part of. I would start there with the conversation about what does your culture look like and the environment that your sales teams participate in, show up in.
The second area I think is really important to salespeople, and I hear it a lot from younger ones, which is, if you are not passionate about what you’re selling, get out. If you can’t wake up and be totally empowered about the value that you can bring to a customer with what you are selling, whatever that may be, then you’re not in the right place. That’s super, super important. I think that we may have lost some touch on the basics of selling, which is you got to believe in what you’re selling.
I hear from folks that there’s been a lack of clarity on their goals and the incentives. Coming out of the pandemic, that probably was true because we’re trying to adjust and figure out what is the right goal for our salespeople. But really important, if you don’t have those aligned, if it’s misaligned incentives, it’s degrading and diminishing and people disengage.
The third thing I would bring up is leadership. I didn’t start with leadership because we’re talking about why are salespeople not engaged. But gosh, if you don’t have the right sales leadership in place, creating that culture, ensuring that there’s coaching and mentoring, that there’s education, the appropriate training, that’s a real problem.
Gina Stracuzzi: It is. You hit on something that’s I think quite important and something that I hear in my discussions, and I know Fred has as well, and that is, leaders are struggling to know how to lead in this kind of half in the office, half out of the office paradigm that we’re in. Also the changing culture, the buyer’s journey that we hear so much about. All of that has changed. Even leaders seem to be struggling, which doesn’t help their salespeople, obviously. They’re human too, the leaders, and I think they feel their own sense of disengagement, even though they perhaps don’t speak about it quite as often.
What advice would you give business leaders as to maybe perhaps their own disengagement and then how to best keep their people engaged when they’re perhaps feeling slightly disengaged themselves?
Anne Altman: What I would say to the sales leaders would be, are you creating possibilities with your salespeople? Are you inspiring them by asking the questions? What if we could accomplish this? What if we could do this? What would that look like to you? Are sales leaders right now helping their salespeople bridge the value proposition to the impact that they can have working with their customers? If they’re not helping their own team members, then that would be something I’d really work on, which is, ask the sales folks, what do you see? What are you hearing out there? How do you explain how you’re going to make an impact or a difference to a customer?
I think maybe that comes down to a bit of role playing, but it’s also where sales leaders are actually seeing their people and working with them and encouraging them and listening to them and setting that bar for great possibilities. I think that aspiration is lacking right now.
Fred Diamond: You’ve led so many people over your career at the senior most level, entry level, mid-level, et cetera. We have a lot of sales leaders and business leaders who listen to the Sales Game Changers Podcast. Give us some insight into what people who are being led, what they really want, what do they really want from their leaders? You’ve led so many amazing leaders who’ve gone on to great things, but what have you learned that people really want, especially now? We’re talking about the lack of engagement. What do you think people want from their leaders?
Anne Altman: I think about this because I have a son who’s in sales. I hear from him when he’s frustrated. I think it starts with people want to be valued. They want to be seen in business. When you walk by, that you know their name, and that you acknowledge them and you know a little bit about them. They want to actually be visible and seen. They want to be valued by the organization they work for, and they want to be trusted. If they’re trusted, that gives them the confidence that they’re allowed by their company to make decisions on behalf of their customers, on behalf of the company. I think it’s the basics, but I really believe that’s what folks are looking for, and they want to enjoy what they do. We talked a little bit about that already, which is you have to find inspiration in what you’re selling, or you’re probably in the wrong job.
Then I think salespeople always talk about the money, always. It’s all about the money and making quota or exceeding. Of course, they want to make money, but I don’t know that that is the immediate thing. It’s really about the others, how they’re recognized in the organizations they work for. My husband, who also has been in great sales leadership responsibilities, has said, “It really is life, liberty, and this pursuit of happiness. That’s what everybody wants.” I think it’s true.
Fred Diamond: We’re talking a lot about sales leaders and business leaders engaging with their people, but talk about advice for sales executives to engage with customers. As we’re having this conversation about companies that are selling, one of the things we’ve come to realize over the last three to four years is that our customers are struggling with their own engagement, and their engagement with their customers, and their engagement. It’s not just the sales professionals that are challenged.
Give the people listening to today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast some advice on how they can continue to engage with customers. I also have a little bit of a follow up. We have a lot of junior sales professionals listening to the show. I always like to ask this question to very, very successful sales leaders in the public sector space. What would be your advice for them on engaging with government leaders, especially now? We’re doing today’s interview in January of 2025, and we have a new administration that’s going to be starting as this show gets posted.
Anne Altman: I’ll start with the sales executives and their focus with customers. It always comes back to what is success for the customer? We as sales professionals, it’s not about us, it’s about our customer, our client. It’s more than what we are selling. From my perspective, it’s about how sales executives engage, listen, that they demonstrate and model, especially for the younger or the less experienced people in their organizations, that the ability to do active listening and creative solutioning with a client, oftentimes doing that with not any intention to sell at that moment. This is simply demonstrating their commitment to that customer and to understanding the environment and to helping them think about that. That’s how I think of the sales executives and role modeling that for their organizations, for their sellers.
On the juniors, I would say most important is to study the customer. To understand their environment, whatever information, especially in the government, there’s ample information about every agency, every organization within a department, down to the minuscule level. There’s access to great knowledge about who they are, what their history is, what they’ve done, what the programs are that they’re working on, all of that. Be passionate about it, learn about it, be interested in your customer’s business and then know your competition.
Especially because we’re talking about the government sector, our competition is our partner one day, competitor another day. We have to learn the industry itself. You have to be very familiar with who’s out there, who else is walking the halls, who else is presenting ideas, because we may be partnering or collaborating in order to serve that customer.
For younger people, I would say part of learning your industry, and I think the government sector, because of the complexities, it’s really important to invest time in yourself to learn about that which is different. The world of federal contracting, FARs and DFARS, CUI, CMMC, all these acronyms, FedRAMP. I think that’s really important as well, that you got to know the language so that you feel comfortable navigating.
Gina Stracuzzi: I want to talk about specific opportunities and challenges that you see for women in sales coming up. But as you were speaking, it really struck me that I can see so many reasons why the disengagement is continuing and is so complex, because you are absolutely right that people want to be valued, and they want to be heard and be visible. Yet people don’t want to come in the office. The only time people are seeing each other is very scheduled opportunities. It doesn’t really give way to the spontaneity of saying, “Anne, I just want to tell you what a great job you did on that call today.” Or, “I overheard you talking to whomever, and I really love the way that you handled that.”
All of that is lost. Yet, as humans, we still crave it. Fred and I have been talking about this for two years. What are we losing and winning by just really putting our feet in the sand and saying, “We don’t want to come back to the office.” We’re all guilty of it at some level because it is far more convenient to work from home. There’s not the stress of travel and everything. I can just see how there is this innate opposition within the work structure and our own sense of what we need, so we’re not helping ourselves. It really hit me when you were talking. Thank you for all of those insights because it really drives some points home that I think we all need to keep in our own minds. We’re feeling that sense of disengagement, like, how much am I doing to myself? That’s always the hardest thing to look at a lot of times.
Let’s switch gears a little bit and let’s talk about specific opportunities that you see, or challenges for women in sales. There’s been a lot of talk over the last year to six months that DE&I is being pushed aside and that opportunities might not be as plentiful or as obvious as they were previously. What advice might you have for women in sales and what challenges or opportunities do you see with the changing environment?
Anne Altman: First of all, regardless of what the political motivation or the narrative around diversity, equity, and inclusion is, if you step back from that, it’s about the values the companies hold. I don’t care what you call it, as long as you’re doing it. As a woman, a person of color, whatever your identity, if the company isn’t demonstrating through their own values, creating the opportunities, the access, the programs to make you feel welcome, then okay, go find a company that aligns with your values. Because honestly, to me, it’s always been a factor. We always wanted to work for companies that valued that diversity in their salesforce or in their workforce. I think we’ve all got caught up in terms instead of in actions, the actions of a great company and how we make people feel and how we honor our people.
Back to your point about women, I think first, regardless of gender or identity, it always comes back to how you perform, how you prepare yourself, how you show up at work and in front of the customer, period. We just start with that. But what I have seen, and you may be seeing this because this is what you do, so you may be able to help me or put a fine point on this, but I read something recently from Harvard Business Review that said women in general outperform men in sales. I think the number was 86% achieve quota versus 78%, might be wrong on that.
What is it that women bring that’s a little different? Of course, this is broad, but it was that women emphasize things like collaboration. They like to shape solutions. They like to connect the dots for other people. Apparently, this is why women often are placed into the role that I think is standardly accepted, which is the customer success management. It really makes a lot of sense to me. If you have a CSM, a customer success manager, their job is not just the immediate sale. Theirs is the relationship around that whole customer so that you have continuing sales and stickiness with the client and you grow the business. It’s that long-term relationship and customer loyalty that comes from that. I think that’s pretty interesting that women may need to navigate into roles where they can ensure continued customer success. That might be a way to enhance the role of women in sales.
Gina Stracuzzi: Those same reports, and I’ve read a number of them from Harvard Business Review and other places, that women make really good sales managers too, because they bring all those things you just outlined. They bring more diverse teams who stay longer, and they stay longer too. They’re not necessarily as quick to jump ship for a couple extra dollars as, no offense, Fred, men sometimes do. I like that thinking though, that there is opportunity in continued customer success. That’s really got to be the emphasis, policies aside. To your point, if a company is only doing DE&I practices because they were forced to by words on a piece of paper, then they’re not right anyway. That is a very good point.
Fred Diamond: We have a lot of people who are listening to the show who’ve worked with you, worked for you, some who’ve probably competed with you over the years. I’m curious on your three top leadership concepts. I don’t know if you have mantras or if you have three go-tos that if I were to say to someone who’s worked for you for X number of years, “Tell me about Anne’s leadership concepts and thoughts,” people want to hear those. I want to get those on the podcast. Can you give us your three go-to leadership concepts?
Anne Altman: I’m happy to. I think people who know me or have worked with me would say, “I already know what she’s going to say.” But number one is being authentic. Authentic leadership is so critical. Don’t try to be somebody you’re not. Be yourself. Then I would say the second is discipline, learn, always be learning. Learn from your wins. Learn from your losses. You’re never as good as you think you are. You’re never as bad as they tell you you are, so really, really important. I think we’ve talked about this before, but there’s a level of creating aspirations, seeing the future, and helping the organization move to that.
Fred Diamond: Gina, before I ask Anne for her final action step, I’m just curious, because you and I have had this conversation. We’re shifting a lot of the messaging from the Institute for Excellence in Sales to engaging teams. Our motto for 2025 is engaging teams, elevating leaders, empowering success. We put the word engaging there because it’s so critical and for reasons, Gina, that you’ve very clearly communicated, there’s a huge gap there. One of the key things I took away from this conversation, I love a lot of what Anne said. I’ve loved what Anne said since we’ve met her, but I love the fact that sales leaders asking their people what the possibilities are. What are the possibilities from engagement? What are the possibilities from stepping up, etc?
I also loved when she said you got to be passionate about what you’re selling. If you’re not, man, you’re toast. Because there’s going to be the competition who’s passionate. You have to wake up. We talk about it a lot. It sounds like commonplace, but it’s not. You got to love what your customer’s doing. We keep talking about value. People have to bring more value than ever. The way we say it is, you need to bring value for where the customer’s going, which means you need to be deeply invested in their business, in their market, their mission, particularly in the government. Gina, before I ask Anne for her final action step, just curious on some of your thoughts from this conversation.
Gina Stracuzzi: Anne has my head just spinning because it’s so clear speaking to such a seasoned leader that we’re just in opposition to where we need to be as an industry. It is almost impossible to be truly passionate about what you’re doing and your customer’s needs if you’re not engaged. Forget about effective. That’s just out the window. I can see how we as an industry need to work on getting that engagement back, getting that curiosity that fuels the passion, consistency. Damn it, it means coming back into the office, I hate to say it, and I’m the first one to love sitting around in my sweatpants, but it’s at what cost to what we’re trying to achieve. If you have government clients, this is really critical because there’s somebody right there waiting to take your place if you’re not going to do it. A lot to take in from this. Wow.
Fred Diamond: Well said. Anne, we like to wrap up each show with a final action step. You’ve given us so many great ideas about this on this podcast. I’m going to ask you for one specific action step people should do right now to take their sales career to the next level. But I’m also going to give you the opportunity, if there’s anything else that you want to say that we didn’t get to that you feel compelled to include in today’s show, and then wrap it up with something specific people should do.
Anne Altman: There’s a couple things that come to mind with this conversation that I would share. Because we are talking about engagement, I think it’s absolutely critical that sales leaders and sales professionals are visible and active in the industry. To that point, you have to know your customer. You have to know them deeply. You have to, as Gina said, have insatiable curiosity about their business and what they do. Learn about it, be engaged with it, and invest in your understanding of their business and their priorities and their programs. Take that as part of being passionate and then be visible, be engaged. We’re talking about engagement, but get active. Join associations, show up at the IES events, show up, be present, and then take it upon yourself to find ways to bring your fellow teammates together.
Way, way back when, my team, independent of anything that was sponsored by the office, we got together every Friday for libations and review. We all got together and we talked about what we were doing, where we were going with our clients, how we were progressing. We asked questions. We drank a lot of beer. It was a means of helping each other. I think you just got to stand up and say, “I’m going to become more active and involved because it’ll make me a better salesperson. I’ll be happier and so will all the other people that I’m working with.”
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
