The “World Happiness Report” for 2017 was recently released and it made me wonder how happy sales people are around the world.
The World Happiness Report measures happiness in countries around the world, based on several different factors:
- GDP
- Social Support
- Healthy life expectancy
- Freedom to make life choices
- Generosity
- Perceptions of corruption
- Dystopia – report of previous day’s happiness vs. worry, sadness, etc.
All important factors of course. The report asks survey participants to rate themselves in these various categories and then they apply a certain weight to each measurement in order to come up with the overall ranking of each country.
By the way, the United States is ranked 14th in the world, according to the World Happiness Report.
But, one of the most wonderful parts of the sales profession is the thrill of closing the deal. And of course, the great experiences of building relationships with new people as a career.
Happy Sales People – How would you measure it?
What’s the happiest moment of a salesperson’s day? When they close a deal? When they meet a new, hot prospect?
When their career leads to a meaningful, permanent change in their life? (Watch Will Smith’s version!)
I think in order to measure a salesperson’s happiness, you’d want to measure some of the same things as the World Happiness Report but, you’d need to add a few additional measurements…
- Strength of the economy
- Strength of their industry
- Business activity or cycles
- Competitive landscape
- Relationship with management
- Confidence in products and services
- Confidence in management
For certain, if I were interviewing for a sales position, I’d want to ask my potential employer about all of these things. I’d want to talk with some of the other sales people and get their take on these questions.
Here’s a great article from Inc.com, “7 Things Remarkably Happy People Do More”. Many of these 7 things happy people commonly do are also things that are key to being a top producing salesperson…
- Making good friends
- Expressing thankfulness
- Actively pursuing goals
- Give
- Pursue more than mere money
- Live the life you want to live
Now, clearly you can see, being a leader in the sales profession is highly correlated with being a very happy person!
As sales managers, can we encourage our sales team to practices these behaviors? Of course! Most of us probably already are via our sales training platform or curriculum.
Can we measure which sales people are practicing what we preach using our sales CRM? You bet! Can we allow sales people to focus on deepening relationships by letting marketing automation do the “touching base” work for them?
Now, what’s your excuse? Shouldn’t your sales team be among the happiest folks on the planet?