Sales Manager learns the “real” motivators

One of my favorite books is
The One Thing You Need to Know…about Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success. In it, March Buckingham states:

“Great management is not about changing
people.  Great managers take people “as is” and then focus on
releasing their talents.”

Here’s an example of this principle in action:

Walt, the sales manager, is extremely frustrated with Dale, ready to have the Performance Action Plan conversation. As a regional salesperson, Dale covers a large geographical territory. Keeping Dale on the road is expensive. The problem is that his performance results don’t justify the large expenses. Walt tries talking to Dale, with no change in his actions or performance.

Walt calls, asking if I have any suggestions prior to the PIP conversation. After talking through his frustrations, we decide to assess Dale’s attitude and interest preferences, compare that with Walt’s, and see if there were any insights that help solve this dilemma.

We discover that Walt ranks high in Utilitarian: he is driven to ensure that every single meeting has a clear return-on-investment and that his sales people are making the most revenue from each visit

On the other hand, Dale, high in Social, is focused on helping his prospects and clients. In fact, he “helps” them even if the company doesn’t benefit. His high Social motivation is sabotaging his effectiveness.

Armed with this new understanding, Walt reframed Dales’ purpose. Instead of a Performance Improvement Meeting, they had a Help-the-Company meeting. Walt started the meeting with, “Dale, it’s great that you care about your prospects and clients needs. In addition, you also need to think about the needs of your teammates and all the employees of the company. They have families to feed and kids to send to school. They need your help. When you do your part by closing sales, they stay employed and can keep serving their families.”

It was a light bulb experience for Dale!

So, by understanding the values of your people, you can achieve company goals more easily.

Understanding an individual’s attitudes helps understand WHY he or she behaves the way they do. By learning their values, you can tune your communication to resonate with them.

The assessment tool that I use measures the relative prominence of six basic interests/attitudes:  Theoretical, Utilitarian, Aesthetic, Social, Individualistic and Traditional. If you’d like more info in this process, feel free to contact me.

So, what steps are you taking to understand the “real” motivators for your sales team?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Danita

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