Let Your Sales Force Have It…Their Way!

When sales managers complain that salespeople don’t have the special fire that keeps them continuously reaching for the brass ring, they are really admitting that they don’t know how to motivate their people. There are no one-size-fits-all cures for stoking the flame of unconditional commitment, but the following ideas will help you get a handle on what makes your sales people tick, so you can answer the million-dollar question: How do I motivate my sales people?

Help Them Fulfill Their Dreams

First, identify your sales people’s dreams and aspirations and help them develop a game plan to achieve them. Understand that no one wakes up and asks how they can help the company make record profits this year. Rather, sales people are very interested in financing college educations, paying bills, buying a vacation home, planning a vacation.

When one of my client’s regional managers was performing below his proven ability, I asked him where he wanted to be in five years. He wanted to retire to a new cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. However, he had absolutely no idea how much money was needed to fulfill his dream.

Based on our conversation, we devised a research action plan to discover what it would take financially to make his dream come true. He learned that his desired lot was $75,000, and he needed a down payment. With renewed vision and crystal clear goals, our manager was on track within 3 months.

Help Them Strengthen Weaknesses in Their Belief Systems

After identifying the weak spots in your sales people’s beliefs about selling, you can “surgically” coach them and provide tools to help them be successful. What do I mean by weak spots? Objective Management Group, (OMG), a specialist in sales-force evaluations, identifies several issues:

Sales people who are uncomfortable talking about money during the sales process are 25 percent less effective than their counterparts. The firm finds that 55 percent of those assessed demonstrate a money weakness. In addition, sales people who continually report that their clients have no money or ask management to lower prices in order to close the deal are demonstrating this weakness.

Another belief-system glitch is a strong need for approval. Sales people who find it difficult to ask tough, business-related questions and fear rejection are 35 percent less effective. They may have a full pipeline, but very little ever seems to leave the pipeline. OMG finds that 45 percent of the sales people they evaluate have this weakness. With tools that enable success in the steps of the sales process, sales people have the confidence to overcome issues where they previously were stuck, which spurs them on to higher achievement.

Talk Their Language

Become familiar with each sales person’s communication style, and learn to communicate in a way that resonates with them. You may be the boss, but people respond to those who they can relate to.

Jack, a sales manager with a local a power tool distribution company, was frustrated with his sales people because they didn’t follow his processes. His sales people felt that his processes “micro-managed” them. It was quite a stand-off in which neither side won.

Once the two sides began to understand each other’s behavior style, it became easier to negotiate activity and performance benchmarks, enabling them to work together synergistically. The sales people learned how to prepare detailed cases with sufficient backup data in advance. Walt learned to replace his dictatorial style with a collaborative working environment by asking others their opinion.

Clarify Minimum and High-Performance Expectations

In addition to communication style, it is imperative to clearly define “base-line” and “brass-ring” performance. An accurate understanding about activity and results expectations helps sales people manage their time and accounts better and helps them focus their efforts. As John Condry, management guru with Career Success Seminars says, “Sales people are paid in direct proportion to how well they manage their time and their accounts.”

Jim, the owner of a private audiology clinic, was disappointed with his staff audiologists’ performance. He was even more frustrated with his staff’s apparent disregard for fitting the minimum number of instruments in order to cover overhead costs.

After realizing that he needed to communicate minimum performance expectations and ask his staff to step up their level of effort, Jim also defined performance that would translate into additional growth opportunities, an accelerated compensation plan and other company perks.

Summary

In summary, you can successfully motivate your sales people when you understand their goals and help them achieve their dreams. Flexibility in management style enables sales people to be more successful in an environment that supports their personal work style. And when they understand what is expected of them, they will rise to meet those expectations.

Danita Bye, President One of the Twin Cities’ most well-known sales management consultants, Danita has carved a track record in building and inspiring high-performance sales teams that achieve bottom-line results is well. After a decade of award winning sales performance at Xerox Corporation, Danita became an equity partner and national sales manager of a turnaround management team for a Minneapolis-based medical company (Micro-Tech Hearing Instruments), where she grew annual revenues from $300,000 to $15 million in just seven years. Her unique Fortune100-turned-entrepreneurial perspective enables Danita to help CEOs and owners take their business to the next level by increasing sales, boosting profitability and creating predictable revenue streams while reducing sales costs at the same time.