Sales Manager Question: We sent part of our sales team to a regional LBM show in December, expecting the usual shot of energy and ideas. Instead, they came back with a bunch of pessimism, negativity, and gossip from the event floor. Add in the recent Venezuela headlines and uncertainty, and this negativity seems to be sticking. What can I do to help my team cut through the noise and refocus on optimism, opportunity, and things they can actually control?
Answer: The truth is, life is always uncertain. There’s more randomness and variability than we can possibly comprehend—let alone influence.
What changes isn’t the uncertainty itself.
What changes is how we feel about it.
With ongoing consolidation in our industry, rumors of layoffs, and margin pressure (to say nothing of geopolitics), it’s not surprising that a year-end event featuring alcohol and some free time produced a little PNG: pessimism, negativity, and gossip. That’s human nature.
So, let’s invert the problem.
What should you not do?
Don’t give a pep talk.
Don’t channel your inner Coach Norman Dale from Hoosiers. Your team doesn’t need motivation—they need direction. Pessimism, negativity, and gossip surface when people facing uncertainty look to water cooler discussions to feel more in control.
It’s a tribal response to a problem buried deep in our collective psyche.
The solution isn’t more inspiration, it’s more clarity.
To provide that, use the GOST framework.
GOST-ing Your Team
The #1 job of a leader is this: Remove confusion.
And confusion thrives in the absence of clear priorities and next steps.
Right now, your team is distracted. That’s just another form of confusion about what to do next. The fastest way I know to swap confusion for clarity is with Rich Horwath’s GOST framework.
- Goals: What you’re trying to achieve generally
- Objectives: What you’re trying to achieve specifically
- Strategy: How you’ll achieve it generally
- Tactics: How you’ll achieve it specifically
Goals and objectives define the WHAT.
They’re lag measures, important but backward-looking.
For example, a January goal might be for each rep to hit their monthly sales target. An objective for Sales Rep Sam could be selling $750,000 at a 28.8 percent margin, driven largely by closing that new Toll Brothers community.
Strategy and tactics define the HOW.
These are lead measures, which provide direction.
The strategy is to become the most proactive supplier in the market through intentional, coordinated communication with the key decision-makers on every job.
The tactics are proactive, pre-scheduled planning sessions with purchasing managers in the office and daily huddles with framers and supers on the job.
When sales reps know exactly what to do next, there’s little time for gossip. Fear and uncertainty—tendencies of human nature not easily controlled—get replaced by the confidence that comes from serving others in ways they can control.
January Is Primed for Excuses
Seasonally, know you are fighting human nature. Again.
- Fewer hours of daylight
- Fewer selling days (only 16.5 left)
- Cold weather
- Final episode of Stranger Things
Strong sales leaders don’t overthink this, they counter it with the two activities that always underpin strong performance: coaching and accountability.
That means increasing the frequency of check-ins, specifying tight deadlines, and focusing conversations on daily sales activities, not just results.
When in Doubt, Serve Others
We all have limited reservoirs of energy, attention, and focus to use throughout the day. Engaging in PNG (pessimism, negativity, and gossip) depletes all three—and delivers a negative ROI.
Meanwhile, by serving others—delivering value first to customers and non-customers—we can actually increase our energy. This win-win scenario turns ideas into action with a well-organized, prioritized sales pipeline that answers a critical question: Who deserves my time and attention today?
Builders don’t need your theories on the unintended consequences of the Maduro capture or the probability of a Greenland invasion. They need to know that Friday is the deadline to order framing for Lot 62—and that you have four value-engineering ideas, already reviewed with the framer and superintendent, that are worth fifteen minutes of their time.
When your sales team is busy doing meaningful, customer-facing work that delivers value first, pessimism becomes far less attractive.
It also happens to be the most effective way to grow sales.
PNG-Destroying Sales Manager Checklist
- Clarify this month’s GOST framework—in writing
- Translate goals into specific weekly activities
- Review completion of lead measures daily
- Use your sales pipeline as a daily execution checklist
- Focus attention by asking: “Which builder needs our help today?”
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Bradley Hartmann & Co.
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