And provide some peer pressure yourself
Today, we’re going to learn how you can use peer pressure to increase your performance, increase your peer’s performance and ultimately improve sales results.
When we hear the term “Peer Pressure”, we usually think of all the negative connotations associated with it. It’s the high school friend that encourages their peer to drink or smoke. It’s the cool kids that make fun of the way some kids dress. It continues even into adulthood. “All” my friends are buying $50,000 SUV’s and 3500 square foot homes. To fit in, I want to move from my comfortable enough 2,000 square foot home and trade in my well maintained, functional four-year-old car. This adult version is often called “Keeping up with the Joneses.”
We can all agree that those are negative effects of peer pressure. But, what about the positive effects? Are there ways we can view or use peer pressure to help us achieve more? Can we use the positive effects of peer pressure to help our peers achieve more? The answer to all these questions is “Yes” with a little understanding of how.
Responsibility: The unfortunate truth is, we are often more responsible to others than we are to ourselves. Imagine, you love to golf and three of your friends ask you to join their group this weekend for a round of golf. You agreed on Tuesday. When Saturday morning arrives, you are tired and want to sleep in. But you agreed to meet your friends for an early morning tee time. You don’t want to let them down. So, you drag yourself out of bed and get there on time. Why? Because you’re responsible and live up to your word. However, if you were just going to go out and golf on your own, would you be more or less likely to get out of bed? Probably less. We can use this type of peer pressure in our work life to achieve our desired goals by joining groups, getting a coach or simply telling others about our plans.
Social Media – Announcing to the World: One of the top success factors in reaching a goal is whether or not you tell people about it. If you have a goal to exercise more, lose weight or complete a marathon, then you are more likely to achieve that goal if you make your intentions public. Telling others about your plans makes it harder for you to quit. If you don’t make it public, then you’re only accountable to yourself. You can easily quit with little social pressure or embarrassment. However, once public, we are more committed to living up to the expectations of our announcement.
Your announcement doesn’t have to be on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It can be your peers, a workgroup, your supervisor or family. Whatever level of publicity you feel comfortable with is better than keeping it to yourself. Allow others to help hold you accountable to your goals.
Bill Gates – Dare to Compare: We see it every day. Someone wants to get “clicks” or “likes” on their social media posts. So, they post a picture and quote from Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or maybe even Gandhi. Not that this is bad. It’s just that everyone has seen them and it’s too far-reaching to compare yourself to Bill Gates or Jack Welch. Comparing yourself to someone that is wildly successful actually brings you down. I experienced this first hand while sitting at a national sales meeting. Brand new in sales, I watched as the top salespeople were brought on stage in front of 500 cheering employees at our annual sales meeting. “Wow, I thought to myself as I looked at their sales numbers. I could never get there from my meager sales numbers.” I can hear you thinking, “That’s great Greg. That was your incentive. That’s what drove you to succeed.” You would only be partially right. First, it made me feel worse about some of my success because they were such meager results. It also demotivated me because I knew how hard I worked to get those meager results. “How could I ever put in the amount of effort to triple or quadruple my results to even be in contention for getting on stage? Why try?” Luckily, I learned the secret of comparing myself to top performers. Sitting through a presentation for small business owners, a very successful small business owner made a great point on comparing yourself to wildly successful people. She said, “Don’t compare my end to your beginning.” She went on to explain, “I’ve been at this business for 25 years. I have a lot going on in my business right now, success is happening and it can seem overwhelming to someone just starting out. But I started out just like everyone in here did – bad. It’s taken me 25 years to learn and perfect my business to achieve these results. So, if you are in your first year, don’t compare your results to mine. Instead, learn about my work ethic. Learn about the stages of my journey. If you really want to compare yourself, then compare my early stage to your early stage. However, don’t compare my end to your beginning.”
Following my first national sales meeting, I went to my manager and told him I wanted to go ride and learn from the company’s top salesperson. This individual had won the top sales award in ten of his 20 years in sales. I was honored and pumped up to ride with him and learn. What did I learn? His territory was nothing like mine. Even if I had 100% market share in my territory, I wasn’t going to come close to his results. Lastly, I realized he had been at this for a long time and built a tremendous customer loyalty that paid off in results.
Changing my strategy, I searched for a salesperson in the company that had a territory similar to mine. Riding with that salesperson paid off in several selling strategies and new products I could use in my territory. Comparing and competing are basic components of selling. Just be careful who you compare yourself to and where they are in their journey when you compare.
Coaching – Paying for Peer Pressure: In today’s work environment, hiring a coach has become a great way to use peer pressure to achieve more. In full disclosure, I provide coaching as a component of my service. Am I biased a bit on using a coach to help improve your results? Obviously, yes, or I wouldn’t offer the service. I have benefitted both as the person being coached and as a coach. The two primary components of coaching are awareness and accountability. The accountability component is basically peer pressure. Your coach is typically not your manager and more like a peer. You don’t have to actually do anything you agreed upon in your coaching sessions. However, you are more likely to complete these agreed upon actions out of peer pressure. You want to live up to your agreement with your coach. When asking for or hiring a coach, it’s like buying peer pressure.
How to get started? First, do a self-assessment on the questions below.
Negative peer pressure assessment:
- Am I hanging out with the right crowd at work, friends, activities?
- If so, is it doing me any good?
- How can I distance myself without alienating myself?
- Who do I compare myself to? Yes, we want to admire wildly successful people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. However, if it’s demotivating you to think about how successful these people are and how meager your own results are, stop comparing. Look to their work patterns, their early methods that compare your stage in your territory.
Positive peer pressure assessment:
- Think through your goals.
- Is there someone you know (co-workers, peers, family, friends) who can inspire you towards those goals?
- Is there an internal coaching program I can take advantage of? If not, are there coaches for hire in your field?
- Who would I like to tell about my goals to help hold me accountable? It might be just your spouse or one close friend. On the other end of the spectrum, you might be comfortable announcing your plans on Facebook and Twitter. Pick your crowd and make the announcement.
- Who can I aspire to be like? Versus, who can I aspire to be? Striving to dominate the operating system on half the computers in the world is probably going to demotivate you if you’re just starting out as a website developer. However, understanding how Bill Gates worked and networked in his early years and how those techniques can be applied in your business would be helpful.
Next Step: Find your desired level of peer pressure and put a plan in motion to assemble your very own ad hoc support group. The right level is different for every individual. Some people need aggressive, in-your-face peers to help keep them on the right path. Others need a more collaborative or gentle nudge approach to peer pressure. This is not a matter of toughness. Don’t mistake the in-your-face support as being tough. You’re trying to grow sales and dominate your market. It’s a matter of what works for you.
Contact Me if you want to have a discussion on how I can help provide some peer pressure to help both salespeople and sales managers.
If you found this to be helpful, forward on to someone you know who might also appreciate it.
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