If you haven’t read the other articles from this week, then here is the theme, which is based on a quote from Tony Robbins – Leaders anticipate, losers react.

Harsh sounding. No one wants to be referred to as a loser or think of themselves as a loser.

And of course, no one is a loser – because that label could be taken to try and identify the whole person, and no one is a loser. They might just be doing things that cause them to lose in some parts of their life (and yes – I know…’lose’ is also subjective…because who defines what winning means or looks like?).

The Importance of Anticipation in Leadership

Alright, back to our topic – true leadership is all about anticipating the better path.

It’s really tough to do if you are constantly in reaction mode.

How and why does reaction mode occur?

Busy-ness, sloppy-ness, overconfident-ness, abdication, and ego.

Instead of being in strategic and tactical planning mode, sales ops leaders get pulled in lots of different directions. Spinning lots of plates. Trying to fix things that break.

Once that pattern starts, it is tough to stop it.

The Cycle of Reaction Mode

One issue seems to spark another one. Focusing on the sales ops processes or technology means you have to temporarily turn your back on the ocean (rest of the sales operation), which never leads to good outcomes.

Next thing you know, a new fire starts that you have to put out. Then another.

“Who keeps starting all these fires? If only we could find them we could stop them from starting!”

But it’s not someone in particular – it’s the process of being a reactive project manager, instead of a leader that anticipates.

Benefits of Hiring a Consultant

It’s one of the reasons that hiring a third-party consultant can lead to such great, different results. As an outside participant, when I am brought in to help a sales operation, I am not stuck in the reactive trap, the meetings, the reports, the admin hell. I can fly at whatever altitude I need to so I can assess the situation, then I can focus on building whatever is needed to be proactive, instead of reactive. Since I am not fighting fires, I can help prevent them from happening.

The Difference Between Being Proactive and Reactive

It’s tough to be proactive and reactive at the same time.

Leaders anticipate.

So what can you focus on anticipating to help your sales operation succeed and scale?

Does your sales tech stack actually work together? How can you integrate things better? Or do you need to migrate to a better, all-inclusive solution – if available? Many times, a company has thrown together various solutions along the way, usually as a result of trying to solve individual sales process challenges, and by a technical or marketing founder who doesn’t understand sales operations. It can also be stitched together because of convincing B2B sales and marketing tech salespeople people. (Now – to be clear, it’s not always their fault your systems don’t work well. If someone sells you a hammer you get convinced you need, and you could use it but you never do – whose fault is that?)

CRM Utilization

Does your CRM actually do what you need it to do? And, more importantly, is your team actually using it like you need and want them to? Most CRMs function well enough, if they are used. If you can get the reporting to need, which will come from the right data/field tracking that will give you the insights needed to project the lagging indicators based on the leading indicators, then you can anticipate more and react less.

Managing Lead Volume

Is your marketing volume at the proper level? Most teams think that more leads are always the solution. But that is not the case. Sometimes they have too many leads and aren’t doing what they should with the ones they receive. Issues could also arrive as the cadence of the leads – too many in bursts and then too few. What can you do to even out the flow, at the ideal volume?

Sales Training Programs

What does your training program and plan look like? How are you training new salespeople to get them to competency in the quickest, best way possible? Do you actually have a training program? How do you train your new managers on how to go from ‘buddy to boss’, from salesperson to manager/leader? What structured continuous education program can you put in place to help your team constantly get better? Don’t not start because you don’t have a LMS or way to host the training. You can literally use Google Drive, Google Slides, and Google Forms as your way to do knowledge checks. You can use Zoom to record your training videos – even if it’s just you reading through the slides that someone made. There is no reason you can’t do something. Just get started and then keep adding more and more over time.

Conclusion

Of course, there are a lot more areas where you want to build out proactive tactics that align with your strategic vision (in fact, 24 total categories). But if you can get the above ones under control and shift to anticipating what will be needed, then you can go from reactive firefighter to true sales ops leader.