On Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall continues his two-part conversation with his fiancée, Helen Fanucci, Microsoft’s Strategic Accounts Global Sales Leader. Today, they’re talking about how work-from-home experiences have resulted in a shift in employees’ attitudes about where and when they are willing to work. This is Helen’s area of expertise: She’s been managing employees remotely for 15 years, helping them grapple with their work-from-home issues. Additionally, she understands the challenges of attracting and retaining the best people, especially in today’s job market. Microsoft’s customers demand great service and support, and, Helen says, “That’s why we have to win the war to get talent. We have to keep serving our customers with amazing talent, or they’ll find somebody else who will.” And once you’ve hired talented people, how do you keep them? “Through servant leadership,” Helen explains. Describing her role as a manager at Microsoft, she says, “I am expected to model and coach, be inclusive, take accountability. I remove the blocks and barriers so that my team can achieve.”

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Chris plays devil’s advocate with his question, “If you’re all touchy-feely with your employees, where does their drive to achieve come from?” Helen is ready with the answer: “When we hire the best people,” she explains, “they come with an inborn drive to achieve. Part of a manager’s job is to make sure those people feel respected. [At Microsoft], we really bend over backward to be accommodating and help employees be successful. But make no mistake about it,” she assures Chris, “We’re about being competitive and winning in the marketplace, and our results show that.” Learn all about hiring and retaining the best people on this Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “A Talent for Managing Talent.”

 

About Our Guest

Helen Fanucci has been a valued employee at Microsoft for 13 years and is currently their Strategic Accounts Global Sales Leader, heading up an incredible global team of seasoned sales professionals who are working with some of Microsoft's most strategic accounts.

 

Here is the full transcript from this episode:

Chris Beall (02:35):

Well, one of the things I hear you saying is that we need companies to kind of give us places to go. But there aren't places anymore that give us some boundary within which we can organize and work together and be a team. This does actually remind me of the first 88 episodes or whatever, of Market Dominance Guys, which are about, Hey, your company's job is to dominate markets, which provides a stable foundation for doing more, for servicing those customers.

Chris Beall (03:07):

And maybe that's one of the things that we do, as companies. Your company has done an extraordinary job, although I'm sure that there is nobody there who likes to talk about dominating markets, because when you're big and you don't need to talk about it, why talk about it? Right? But the fact of the matter is, there are markets where Microsoft does extraordinarily well. And in a way, that's what makes the home, that's the house in which employees can come. But then we better make sure that they have a good time while they're there, but it's not enough to have a good time. It's a bigger deal.

Chris Beall (03:41):

This is the hardest part for me. Sales management, traditionally, I'll be crude, used to consist of throwing somebody into a territory and seeing if they worked out. So, that was kind of it. And if they didn't work out, then you put somebody else in the territory. I mean, I know there's a lot more to sales management, but traditionally, I think that a lot of what folks call, sales management, has really been, checking to see if people are working out. And then, yes, there're improvement programs and all sorts of stuff and there's training and this and that, all sorts of wonderful things. But that's been kind of the theory, over time.

Chris Beall (04:14):

I've observed how you manage, and you actually get