Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
What do you do when you work for someone who is very unlike you? My boss, the senior advisor, is a no-nonsense, almost nasty guy. If he doesn’t like what you are saying, he will tell you without worrying how you will take it. He even does this with clients. The clients seem to like it so he has no incentive to change.
I’m not like this at all. As a female advisor, I don’t feel comfortable being so direct and swearing around clients. And it isn’t my style; I’m more of a listener and a collaborator who tries to get someone to see my point of view by influencing them.
He criticizes me constantly and calls me “soft” and “weak,” but I’m not. I can stand strong, but I don’t believe that to be strong you have to be nasty and crass. I practice yoga and have learned that the strongest tree doesn’t stand straight; it bends with the wind. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t strong enough to withstand a hurricane.
I tell my boss this and he dismisses it. He says you can’t get anywhere without pushing for what you want. I respect that he has been successful doing this, but it isn’t my style. Is there a way I can tell him this and get him to listen to me?
A.Y.
Dear A.Y.,
This is one of the more frustrating things that I often see – managers or leaders want to coach their team members to success, but rather than accommodating the other person’s style, they tell you to do it like they do. The problem is that if you are wired differently, it just does not translate.
You want to differentiate between what is bluster, i.e. he is saying things just to have something to say and to be sure you remember his approach, and what is objective feedback that could be used against you in a future performance review.
Ask him to define success for you – set some standards around the desired outcome. See if you can focus the discussion on where he wants you to ultimately wind up, not the manner in which you get there. In other words, if he values high client satisfaction, strong growth or working well internally, that gives you a direction to head. If he starts to focus on being pushy or stronger with clients, gently remind him this is more of a means to an end. It isn’t really the ultimate outcome; it is about how you get there.
If you can agree with him on outcomes, then have a conversation about the fact there are different ways to achieve a similar outcome. Ask him to give you some time to prove that your way works and both of you could agree on this.
Depending on how open he is and on your relationship with him, if it works you might want to point out the gender differences and say that, as a female, you are less comfortable employing some of the tactics he uses. You can compliment him, “You have definitely honed a great approach and it works well for you. People do sit up and take notice! In my case, and especially as a female advisor, I prefer a more moderated approach. I appreciate what you’ve accomplished, but I need to find my own way and my own style to be successful.”
Do not misinterpret that I believe women cannot be pushy and direct – many are and they are comfortable doing so (myself included when it is warranted) but I’m focusing on what you are telling me are your comfort zones and preferred approaches and suggesting he may understand your framing of it more if you explain his style of swearing and badgering people doesn’t fit who you are.
Much of this is situational and depends on the person – why my favorite acronym is KYA – know your audience. There are some things you can say that another person hears and respects, and the same things said to someone else might result in a defensive posture and pushback. You have to figure out what will allow you to remain a confident professional, but get him to hear the message that this style will not work for you.
Dear Bev,
I’m tired of our marketing department. I’m a wholesaler and we depend on marketing to get us tools to help us sell more successfully. It’s clear we sell – we get paid to sell and they support us and they get paid for support.
But everyone on our marketing team has a chip on their shoulder. They say, “Don’t push me. I don’t get the big commissions like you do so I’ll do it when I can.” It infuriates those of us who are trying to get stuff done. Some of the wholesalers have created their own materials, which is against compliance, but they hate waiting, and so they go ahead and put something together.
Why do marketing teams think they are beaten on when it is the structure in place that they should be mad about? If they want to make commissions, then sell. There are open wholesaler jobs here all of the time.
R.R.
Dear R.R.,
In one of my corporate roles, I ran institutional sales and I was very close with the person who ran institutional marketing. We viewed these two roles and areas of responsibility as so intertwined that we insisted on writing a cohesive business plan that combined the two. Our boss, head of both areas, became enraged and told us to redo them – separately. He said, and I quote because I will never forget it, “Sales and marketing should not get along. You should be at odds because it makes for better outcomes.”
I disagree with this sentiment. You can’t have a successful sales effort long-term without great marketing and marketing doesn’t go too far without great salespeople to take their efforts into the market. They are closely intertwined.
But it is a common tension and it does stem from marketers feeling at times “put upon” and not rewarded for their contribution and this is true in many cases. Salespeople can also be all about the material of the moment, or the “one thing” that is going to close the deal and they get the marketers to jump to do it and then nothing materializes. Having run both sales and marketing and combining both in our firm today, there is misunderstanding, lack of communication and blame on both sides.
You haven’t asked my advice, but I will make one suggestion: Use your external selling skills internally and see if you can’t win over some of your colleagues in marketing. I’m always amazed at how polished and professional a salesperson can be when working with prospects or trying to close something. But when working with internal colleagues, they lose all of that finesse. If you treat your marketing colleagues like the important partners they are, learn more about what they need to be successful and be deliberate in opening communication and valuing them, you might find they are not so difficult to deal with after all. Give it a try and see what happens.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Entrepreneurship. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
