Don’t make promises you can’t keep. <\/strong>Your mother probably told you this growing up and it’s just as important today. Manning says she often sees managers make the mistake of promising a desired outcome rather than acknowledging uncertainty. For instance, don’t tell your staff there won’t be any layoffs at your company because you can’t possibly make that guarantee. “Make no promises,” says Manning. “Don’t build up false expectations because that just creates more fear.” Instead, be honest about what you know, even when \u2013 especially<\/em> when \u2013 the news isn’t good. Your reps would rather have the hard truth than a pleasant lie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThose last two lines are straight-up truth.\u00a0 The best way to allay these fears is to be forthright with your team.\u00a0 I believe managers often error in thinking their employees cannot handle the truth of the present situation.\u00a0 This is a leadership mistake that creates distance between the manager and the employee.<\/p>\n
I will close with the next suggestion from the article \u2013 it is a good one:<\/p>\n
Start a blog.<\/strong> Blogging is a great way to keep your people updated because it has an informal, conversational feel and reps can check it at their convenience. Manning says she knows of several CEOs who are having “tremendous success” with blogging right now, using it as a vehicle to keep employees posted on what’s going on, answering their questions and correcting rumors. Sales managers, she says, could expand those topics to include sales successes, news about products and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These are skittish times, aren\u2019t they?\u00a0 I have seen this among reps and myself \u2013 every little item is scrutinized.\u00a0 Communication, email, reports\u2026I find myself looking for subtle clues in all of them.\u00a0 Is a layoff coming?\u00a0 How bad is it?\u00a0 What is going to happen next? These are not productive thoughts.\u00a0 As a manager, how do you quell these fears?\u00a0 There isn\u2019t one move, tool or approach that will cure it, but a concerted effort will help to minimize your team\u2019s anxiety. Selling Power offers up an article that has some feel-good points that I question.\u00a0 However, there is something in the article that caught my eye: Don’t make… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,23,4,11],"tags":[1760,1229,1766,551,1228],"class_list":["post-1921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-retention","category-sales-management","category-team-management","tag-communication","tag-managing-in-a-recession","tag-retention","tag-sales-communication","tag-team-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-uZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":903,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/05\/communication-blindness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1921,"position":0},"title":"Communication Blindness","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone who has managed salespeople knows how difficult a task that can be.\u00a0 We see it often in companies where clouded communication occurs daily.\u00a0 I think\u00a0 most of you could name numerous situations throughout your career where management communication simply broke down or worse, did not even occur. SellingPower.com's article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/windowslivewritercommunicationblindness-7082power-pole.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":259,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/managing-other-communication-styles\/","url_meta":{"origin":1921,"position":1},"title":"Managing Other Communication Styles","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Monster.com posted this article last week - Adapting Your Management Style. There isn't a lot of meat in this thing but it does address an important principle: Moniot helped the manager better understand different personality styles and then devised an innovative visual cue of a color-coded piece of paper, correlated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":534,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/time-wasting-miscommunication\/","url_meta":{"origin":1921,"position":2},"title":"Time-Wasting Miscommunication","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The information topic seems to be appearing everywhere we look this week. Now this article from Selling Power - The Cost of Poor Communications - attempts to put some metrics to inapt communication between managers and employees. While managers are off worrying about sales trends and marketing plans, they often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":80,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/managing-a-sales-team\/","url_meta":{"origin":1921,"position":3},"title":"Managing a Sales Team","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Keys to Managing a Sales Team is a quick read from the abcnews.com career center. The article has hands-on advice (which we like) that cut to quick of effective sales management - at least in a limited scope. One item I want to pull from the article: Do you adapt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/05\/first-time-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1921,"position":4},"title":"First-Time Managers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Stepping Into the Role of a First-Time Manager (link is gone) is a quick read article with practical advice for employees making their foray into management. My first foray into management left me with many bruises as I did not follow one of the suggestions in this article. 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While you do get to avoid the intricacies of corporate politics, it also means that you have to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1923,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921\/revisions\/1923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}