Podcast episode
How to Deliver Hard News and Lead Through Tough Times | Patricia DuChene
30 Minutes to President's Club8 May 202536 min
Description
FOUR ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS: Use the "Why, What, How" framework to communicate hard changes—always start with the why to reduce the shiver effect and maintain trust. Don't sugarcoat bad news—treat your team like adults, be honest about challenges, and frame positives where appropriate. Create a lever cheat sheet for your sellers so they know what they can give (discounts, services) and what to ask for in return to protect deal value. After major changes like a RIF, give the team a week to process, then reset expectations with managers leading the charge into the "new normal." PATH TO PRESIDENT’S CLUB: Chief Revenue Officer, Postal VP of International Sales, Wrike Senior Director of Sales, Wrike RESOURCES DISCUSSED: Join our weekly newsletter Things you can steal Save $50 on any 30MPC course with code “PODCAST” 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training
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wait and see, and having this like ominous forever timeline in an SDR's head. You go back to kind of how I was talking about this expansion of like your skill set and like scope creep that can happen. It can be honestly a great benefit is that when somebody's in that position where they're like, I was really gunning at this promotion and now it's gone. Your option is to go get another SDR job. “Being able to flip a core SDR job into an AE role is really hard.” So that person's got to decide, OK, do I just want to go bet on another company? And you've no idea, obviously, what the trajectory of that company is going to be. Or as a manager, do you own up to the fact that, hey, I can't promise you anything, but I can promise to develop these other skills so that when you go to get that next job, you have a meaningful opportunity to get the AE role.
So that person's got to decide, OK, do I just want to go bet on another company? And you've no idea, obviously, what the trajectory of that company is going to be. Or as a manager, do you own up to the fact that, hey, I can't promise you anything, but I can promise to develop these other skills so that when you go to get that next job, “you have a meaningful opportunity to get the AE role.” So Patty, one other thing that we were talking about in the pre-show is a lot of sales leaders right now are dealing with orgs that are going through RIFs. They are put in this really challenging position where maybe they're not the one actually communicating the RIF, that might be done by somebody else, but they have to then go meet with the team of the people that are survivors
“by creating an element of cross-functional ownership around that lead target.” Are you as a sales leader driving productive conversations with your marketing leader to solve that? Or are you blaming marketing in your team meetings for that lack of leads? Change that, and then your team will be far more likely to partner with marketing to try to fix that problem as well. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming back on. Everyone hang on for a 60-second recap coming up soon.
by creating an element of cross-functional ownership around that lead target. Are you as a sales leader driving productive conversations with your marketing leader to solve that? Or are you blaming marketing in your team meetings for that lack of leads? “Change that, and then your team will be far more likely to partner with marketing to try” to fix that problem as well. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming back on. Everyone hang on for a 60-second recap coming up soon. All right, Nick, time for a two-by-two recap from this episode with Patty D. What do you have for your two? So my first one is I wrote down three big reframes that I picked up from Patty on this one.
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