Overview:
- Topic: Building Better Teams for Your Promo Business
- Time:8 minutes
- Takeaway: Build a healthier, more cohesive leadership team and everything gets easier: 1) increased sales, 2) generate more profit, 3) empower freedom for you the owner, 4) and create a team that finally stops depending on you.
- Tool: Use the EOS Proven Process to Build & Maintain a Healthy, Cohesive, and Highly Functional Leadership Team to help you run your Promo Business!
- Tip: Bottlenecks vanish when you develop and empower a team of leaders!
- Try: Schedule a FREE 90-Min Meeting with me to start building a better team and freeing you up to work “ON” your promo business (Click the “Connect with me” orange box to schedule your 90-Min Meeting (Deep Dive into EOS)
Intro:
What is the one thing that, if you get this right, solves almost everything in your promo business? What is the lever that transforms your sales, your profit, your freedom, and your culture?
Build a better team!
And not just a “team.” A leadership team. A cohesive, healthy, functional, aligned leadership team!
I lead two Monthly Masterminds for Promo Industry leaders. As I interact and listen with real Promo Business Owners, I hear the same frustration everywhere I go:
- “We do not have the right people in the right seats.”
- “Most of our key accounts are with one or two major sales reps”
- “I am doing too much. No one can solve problems like me”
- “My team is overburdened and spread thin”
- “Everyone is reactive and overworked.”
- “We are slammed, too busy, too tired, and burned out.”
- “In our industry, it is always busy.”
- “I have no capacity.”
- “I cannot scale like this.”
The common denominator is always the same. You do not have a real leadership team! It’s just you – the busy owner trying to do too much, trying to solve too many problems. You have good people. But you do not have a team of leaders!
And until you fix that, bottlenecks will persist, politics will rise, and your best people will leave!
Not because they are disloyal. But because the system around them is broken… they are burned out, distracted, overwhelmed, and reactive. And YOU are doing TOO MUCH!
It’s time to stop enabling, time to start empowering! It’s time to start building and developing an actual management team -> something I call a Cohesive, Highly Functional, Healthy Leadership Team!
What:
Building a better team means putting square pegs in square holes.
Who is your ideal team player?
They fit your Company Core Values like a Glove (right person) and they are in the right seat (GWC the five roles of that seat).
- Core Values Fit + Get it (understand the job) + Want it (truly enjoy it and get excited about their job) + Have the Capacity to do it (they have the physical, mental, time, emotional, spiritual capacity to do a great job)
*Check out my video on this topic for a deep dive: Leadership Development Time – The Power of the Right People in the Right Seats (37min)
When you build a strong leadership team, “busyness” is no longer the company identity. You stop drowning in the reactive cycle. You stop being the bottleneck. You stop running around fixing problems that should never reach you. Instead -> you start building leaders!
Lencioni defines a Leadership Team clearly:
“A small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 21)
Not 10 people. Not everyone with a title. Not everyone you want to “include.”
Small. Unified. Aligned. Collectively responsible.
Goal: keep it to 3-7 (less is more!)
- A leadership team is not just a collection of high-level executives-> it is a group that operates as a unified force, responsible for making the key decisions that will drive the company forward.
- The Leadership Team is typically the team that drives the major functions of the organization! (Sales/Marketing, Operations, & Finance)
And the worst enemy of this?
Politics.
Lencioni defines politics as when team members prioritize their own preferences over the good of the organization (Lencioni, 2002). Politics grows when leaders refuse to be honest, clear, and aligned.
And here is the truth:
- Politics is causing your best people to leave!
- Not for money. Not because of the product.
- But because they are tired of silos, confusion, and misalignment!
As Lencioni explains: “Silos… breed the office politics and infighting which ultimately kill productivity, squash profits, and push the best people out the door.” (Lencioni, 2006, p. 1)
That is the promo industry today.
High pressure. High pace. Low clarity. Everyone is exhausted and no one knows why.
But the reason is simple.
You do not have a leadership team…. YOU are the bottleneck… and you have replicated bottlenecks all over the organization.
You have individual champions doing their best inside a disorganized structure.
And this always leads to…
***The Promo Industry’s Most Dangerous Problem…***
- Over-reliance on 1–2 top sales leaders.
In most promo companies, 40 to 70 percent of revenue comes from one or two salespeople. Those reps are drowning. You are drowning. And if they leave, the business collapses. And many times that top sales performer is YOU, the Owner!
That is not sales strategy; it is structural fragility!
This is why building leaders is not optional. It is survival!
Why:
1. Better Teams Increase Sales
Healthy teams stop the firefighting cycle. They create clarity and creative opportunities! They execute at higher levels!
Lencioni writes, “Success is embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence” (Lencioni, 2002, p. 220). Healthy teams create disciplined execution.
Your top salespeople cannot sell because they are stuck doing everyone else’s job. Balance your team by leveling up the rest of the major functions (CSR’s, OPS, FINANCE, ect).
Fix the teamwork -> And they sell more!
2. Better Teams Increase Profit
If your team is healthier, more cohesive, and highly functional -> they will become more efficient AND effective at solving the right problems on a consistent basis! This will affect bottom line profit!
3. Better Teams Create Owner Freedom
Owner freedom is not a vacation. It is the natural result of leaders who think, act, and decide without you! Empower ownership, autonomy, and proactive thinking!
You finally get your time back. Your life back. Your sanity back! Stop letting the business run you, instead YOU run the business!
4. Better Teams Build Better Cultures
Patrick Lencioni states: “It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage.” (2002, p. vii)
The promo industry is crowded. Team health is how you differentiate!
How:
Step 1. Get your leadership team small and conduct a 90 Min Meeting with Me!
In The Advantage, Lencioni explains that:
- Inquiry disappears in large groups.
- Advocacy takes over.
- People talk to be heard, not to understand. (Lencioni, 2012, pp. 21–24)
This kills execution. It slows decision making.
Keep it 3 to 7 people. Simplify! (For the greater good!)
The BEST way to experience EOS and test out a facilitator is to do the FREE 90 Min Meeting! Reach out to me and let this be the FIRST BEST STEP to building a Cohesive Leadership Team! (I will help you build it -> you are not alone!)
Build Your Leadership Team by Experiencing a 90 Min Meeting (Deep Dive into the EOS Framework)
Step 2. Reduce bottlenecks.
If everything flows to you, you do not have a team. You have helpers. Do you own a business or a job? Learn to delegate by building your team FIRST and inviting them to help you take things off your plate!
Step 3. Set your annual, quarterly, weekly cadence.
Once a year. Once a quarter. Once a week. Follow the EOS Proven Process! It is time-tested and it works!
The discipline is the solution!
Step 4. Kill politics by defining values clearly.
Patrick Lencioni shared recently in a conversation with Leader that people must be able to bring their “full selves” to work without creating division. If core values are clear, politics has no oxygen.
This applies directly to promo teams who often avoid conflict, avoid clarity, avoid challenging each other, and therefore drift into silos. Don’t let politics linger – otherwise say goodbye to your best employees…
Step 5. Build leaders who build leaders.
Your people need better leadership. Not motivation and cheerleading. Leadership is about know what to do, why to do it, and how to do it. So start developing them and empowering them!
You become a leader of leaders, not a leader of doers!
Pro Tips (Expanded and Promo-Specific):
Pro Tip 1: Stop hiring reactive people. Hire aligned people. Promo is fast-paced. Reactive people drown. GWC every candidate. Proactive beats reactive – so hire slow, fire fast!
Pro Tip 2: Protect your top salespeople from operational chaos. Do not burden them with production, artwork, billing, or delivery issues. They should be selling. Build the team!
Pro Tip 3: Ask weekly: Where am I the bottleneck? Then remove yourself from those areas!
Pro Tip 4: If someone is toxic, slow-to-read the room, or political, remove them fast. Politics kills cultures. Politics kills teams. Politics kills revenue! If you don’t kill your politics, you will lose your best people…
Pro Tip 5: Clarify your accountability chart every 6–12 months. If you do not define your structure, you are doing your people a disservice. Organizational clarity is a MUST to lead well!
Pro Tip 6: Push your team to inquire, not advocate. “Inquiry is rarer and more important than advocacy” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 22). Teach your team to ask: “Help me understand. Why do you see it that way?”
Pro Tip 7: Ask your best people why they stay. Their answers reveal what you must protect.
Q&A Time:
Q: Why do large leadership teams struggle so much in the promo industry?
A: Because the bigger the room, the slower the decisions. In a large group, more people are advocating for their own perspectives, which creates longer discussions, more opinions, and fewer conclusions. Chris Argyris of Harvard studied this extensively. He found that large teams get stuck in advocacy mode, where team members push their own ideas without seeking to understand others.
Patrick Lencioni reinforces Argyris by saying: “Inquiry is rarer and more important than advocacy. It happens when people ask questions to seek clarity about another person’s state of advocacy.” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 22)
When your leadership team is too big, inquiry disappears. Curiosity disappears. Listening disappears. And clarity disappears.
Bottom Line: Too many people in the room makes communication slow, decision-making inefficient, and execution impossible.
This is why promo leaders feel the pain:
- Slow decisions
- Constant rework
- Endless email follow-ups
- Missed opportunities
- Confusion between sales, ops, and production
Big teams are not more inclusive. Big teams are more dysfunctional!
Q: How does a large leadership team create politics and dysfunction?
A: Big rooms breed big egos!! When more people sit at the leadership table, the dynamic subtly shifts. It becomes about airtime. About being heard. About protecting territory. About looking smart. About saying the “right” thing. Lencioni describes this in Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars:
“Silos… breed the office politics and infighting which ultimately kill productivity, squash profits, and push the best people out the door.” (Lencioni, 2006, p. 1)
On large leadership teams:
- People hesitate to challenge each other.
- Real issues remain unspoken.
- You get false harmony instead of healthy conflict.
- Politics replace clarity.
- Turf wars emerge.
- High performers get discouraged and leave.
- Everything moves SLOWER!
Bottom Line: The intention is noble. The outcome is dysfunction.
For promo leaders specifically, this shows up through:
- Sales vs. operations conflict
- Art vs. production misalignment
- Top reps avoiding collaboration
- Team members feeling unheard
- Leaders making decisions in hallway conversations instead of meetings (silos)
Promo companies thrive on speed and execution. Politics kills both!! Don’t feel like addressing the politics? Say goodbye to your top performers….
Q: Why does team health matter more than strategy in the promo industry?
A: Because team health is the advantage that drives every other advantage.
Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Lencioni expands that idea: “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare… If you could get all the people in your organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” (Lencioni, 2002, p. vii)
Team health is the backbone of your promo company because:
- It keeps everyone rowing the same direction
- It prevents burnout
- It eliminates silos
- It accelerates sales
- It creates owner freedom
- It makes execution smoothe
- It helps define your culture before it defines itself
- It creates alignment and accountability
Team health is not an accidental outcome. It takes being intentional, courageous, consistent, and disciplined!
As Lencioni says: “Success is embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.” (Lencioni, 2002, p. 220)
Promo leaders who invest in team health outperform those who do not!
Q: What if my team is already exhausted and overworked?
A: Then this is exactly why team health matters now. Most promo teams are not tired from too much work. They are tired from too much unclear work. Go back to the visual of the arrows. Slow down to get everyone rowing in the same direction and you will be amazed at how much efficiency and effectiveness picks up! That is what EOS does as you follow the process!
Your team is not exhausted because of production. They are exhausted because:
- Priorities shift weekly (no Rocks = 90-Day Priorities)
- Roles are unclear (no organizational structure)
- Decisions change constantly
- Your leadership team is too big (or non existent)
- They lack real support
- You don’t have the Right People in the Right Seat
- They are doing work that does not match their GWC (Get it… Want it… Capacity to do it well…)
- Politics force emotional labor
Fix team health, and your team gets energy back! Fix clarity, and your people come alive! Fix leadership structure, and burnout fades!
Pro Tip: Get everyone in your company to do the Delegate & Elevate Exercise. This ALONE will generate more awareness as to where the bottlenecks are showing up.
Q: What if my top salespeople resist leadership team structure?
A: In the promo world, this is common. Top reps resist structure because historically structure makes their lives harder, not easier. They have been carrying too much weight for too long.
Protect them operationally and they will champion structure! Show them how this is in THEIR best interest! Help them see the bigger picture! Fix the leadership team and they will start to breathe again!
Salespeople embrace systems when systems remove chaos and make their jobs easier!
Q: What if my company is too small for a leadership team?
A: You are not too small. You are too busy! A 3-person promo shop needs structure more than a 30-person company because every mistake is more expensive. Get the Accountability Chart right! Do the exercise! It WILL pay off! Who is in what seat? Who reports to whom? Who is accountable for what?
Clarity is not a luxury for big companies -> Clarity is oxygen for small ones!
Q: How do I know if politics are already happening?
A: If you are asking the question, it is happening.
Politics shows up subtly:
- People go quiet in meetings
- Decisions happen after the meeting
- Departments complain about each other
- You hear “they” more than “we”
- High performers are frustrated
- You spend too much time in conflict mediation
- Sales, ops, and production blame each other
- Your best people are tired but cannot articulate why
These are warning lights on the dashboard. Ignore them and the engine blows!
Q: How do I simplify our leadership structure without hurting feelings?
A: Tell the truth. Be kind. Be clear. Emphasize that everyone is a leader of their vertical! Really emphasize the Accountability Chart.
- Everyone has a seat in the company. Not everyone needs a seat at the leadership team.
- This is not about value. It is about the right and best structure.
- Small teams lead better. Large teams talk more but do less.
- If you want efficiency, speed, clarity, execution, and sales growth… reduce the room!
Summary:
If you want to fix your sales, your revenue, your culture, your capacity, and your burnout, there is one path forward.
Build a better team. As a result, you will experience the following:
- Reduced bottlenecks.
- Elevated leaders.
- Eliminate politics.
- Shrink the room (for the greater good).
- Increase organizational clarity.
- Strengthen the right structure for your promo business.
- Build leaders of leaders. (Level 4 Leadership!)
As goes the Leadership Team, so goes your promo company! It starts with you – the Owner. What’s your next move?
Challenge:
Send this article to your leadership team. Schedule your first Leadership Development Session with me by letting me facilitate a FREE 90 Min Meeting! In that meeting, I will help you all openly and honestly discuss the bottlenecks. Then commit to one structural change (start building the Accountability Chart TOGETHER!)
One decision can change everything!
Final Thoughts:
“Everything rises and falls on leadership.” John Maxwell
“It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage.” Lencioni (2002, p. vii)
Thank you for reading!
- If you found value in this, share it with your friends in the Promo World!
- If you want to connect further, email me at charlie.rhea@eosworldwide.com and we can set up a 15 minute connect call!
- If you want to explore EOS for your team and truly take that next step to start building a cohesive leadership team, reach out and let’s schedule your free 90 Minute Meeting!
- Lastly, if you want to join the FREE Monthly Mastermind Meeting for Promo Industry Leaders, reach out to me email and I will get you added to the group!
I am WITH and FOR you. Charlie
#helpfirst
APA References / Resources:
- Lencioni, P. (2002). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Jossey Bass. Lencioni, P. (2006). Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars. Jossey Bass.
- Lencioni, P. (2012). The Advantage. Jossey Bass.
- Watch my Video on What is a Leadership Team? (11min)