Need to Improve Sales Accountability? Ask the Redwoods
Earlier this year I took my
family with me on a two-week business trip to southern Oregon and northern
California. We have always wanted to visit this part of the country and jumped
at the opportunity.
As part of the trip, we went up the Oregon coast. Fortunately, that led us right through the California redwoods and some of the tallest trees on earth. One of the trees we saw was nearly 15 feet in diameter and likely over 300 feet tall. The largest tree in the world is a redwood named Hyperion that is 380 feet tall. To put that in perspective, it is 75 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
These incredibly tall trees have a problem, how do they get water and nutrients from the roots all the way to the top of the tree?
Like all plants, redwood trees source their water from roots in the ground. But they don’t suck, or siphon, the water up. Instead, they take advantage of science.
The shape of water molecules enables them to climb upward. To facilitate this ability of water the climb, the tree grows tiny tubes called xylem. The xylem tubes perform capillary action to create the perfect condition where water can naturally climb as far as 300 feet, allowing a tree as large as a redwood to distribute water and nutrients from the roots to just about everywhere it needs.
It just so happens that a redwood tree is the perfect analogy for accountability at your credit union.
Credit unions have the same problem as redwoods. Just as redwood trees need water and nutrients to grow and thrive, your credit union, regardless of its size, needs revenue to thrive. Revenue is created when a credit union sells. While the vitality of a redwood tree depends on the quality of its roots, your credit union depends on the effectiveness of its sales performance, and the front-line salespeople. But even with strong sales roots, the credit union needs an effective accountability channel or “xylem.”
A culture of sales accountability can take one of three forms.
a) Punitive - Siphon Accountability