After seeing my last blog “5 signs your team may NOT achieve the sales strategic goal “, a previous customer shared with me as below the reflection of how “ZL Accountability System” helped their team seeing what was missing in the sales strategy execution. I have to say that I felt deeply touched and motivated when I hear success stories from my customers. Knowing that I helped them got closer to their success made me feel very accomplished.

“End of Q2, as a business leader I was feeling the pressure of not achieving my sales strategy goals. I felt I have done all the right ground work. I have put a solid strategy in place, I have an experienced sales team and our sales process has proven to be right. And yet we were lagging to achieve our goals. I increased the pressure on my team, starting to scrutinize their approach more. I personally do not like to be micromanaged and I certainly do not want to micromanage my team members and yet this is how I was perceived. Me drilling into the details of the strategy execution created some degree of discomfort within the team. I started to question if we are doing it right and if there are other things we need to try. This was when I faced resistance. I basically pushed my view and how I would execute the strategy to my team. All it did was to increase the resistance. I was trying to grasp what was missing.

It was out of pure luck that I met Ivy Lewis, president of ZL Consulting LLC, with whom I had some crucial conversation about the situation I am dealing with. I learned that I felt into the trap many leaders do, which is to drive the strategic initiative but falling short on the execution, not focusing on the right things. Throughout the several conversations with Ivy, it became clear to me what was missing.

Me meeting Ivy turned out to be one of the most important meetings I have had throughout the year. I had an epiphany.

The most important part I was missing was a structured approach in executing the strategy. Additionally, caused by the lack of success, I started to push instead of pulling the team. This caused resistance. Additionally, I pushed but wasn’t sure in which direction. I was pushing for more success but I actually did not change the execution. I did not reassess the strategy and consider pivot.

I eventually realized that a significant change in how we execute strategy and establishing much more accountability was required.

I was convinced that the “ZL Accountability System” including the “ZL 5-Step Method” is exactly what I need to introduce to my team. Most important success I achieved immediately was a much more structured approach to execute the strategy. This was a major break-through. It was not that she brought new ideas of actions to the team, my team had all the right ideas. The process she lead us through drove ownership and focus. The team members shifted from “I have no time to do this” over to fully embracing it and making it their own and actually making it their main priority under 2 months. After introducing the “ZL Accountability System” and working with Ivy, those signs of resistance even increase initially, especially the “old dogs can’t learn new tricks”, but Ivy Lewis has a very unique way of breaking that resistant through her Accountability Coaching on Team Level and Individual Level. Step by step those signs of resistance disappear. And once the first successes by months 3 are achieved this will boosted the motivation to an unseen level. “