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How To Keep Your Sales Team Motivated
Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it. Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it.
Let's take the idea of funnels and forecasts, for instance. Funnels and forecasts are important aspects of running any sales operation. Both salespeople and managers need to know where they stand in terms of potential opportunities, and funnels serve to track those opportunities. No successful business can operate and properly plan for the future without accurate forecasting. In theory, these are absolutely essential to the success of any operation. In reality, however, few words strike terror in the hearts of salespeople like "funnel" and "forecast."
For most salespeople, the term "funnel review" equates to micromanagement, probation and performance improvement plans. Just hearing the term is enough to shift a sales rep's frame of mind from positive to negative. He or she suddenly loses enthusiasm and doesn't know why. Many managers increase funnel reviews as performance slips, which causes performance to slip further, and in the end nobody wins. Endless funnel reviews, especially if they're not positive, only serve to reinforce salespeople's self-doubts and limiting beliefs.
Forecasts are a similar problem, but in different ways. Few salespeople forecast accurately. Nobody wants to fall short on their forecast, so they embellish, exaggerate and make sure the numbers add up to where they should be rather than where they really are. This results in managers who expect those numbers, and salespeople who dodge managers because they know they aren't going to perform as forecasted. Then there are salespeople like myself who do the exact opposite -since I hated nothing more than having a manager constantly ask me, "When is this one going to close? When is that one going to close?," I intentionally left good deals off my forecast. While it eliminated the problem of constantly being asked when all those deals would sign, it created another form of stress in having to deal with the consequences of a funnel that fell short of expectations.
Another word that instantly de-motivates salespeople is "activity." Unfortunately, in the absence of any other viable advice, most managers simply blurt out, "You need to increase your activity" to anyone who isn't at quota. This accomplishes nothing other than setting up the rep to believe that a series of funnel reviews and performance improvement plans are soon to follow.
Finally, I see entirely too many managers pushing too hard to spend extra time with salespeople who are falling short. While it's necessary to spend time with these people, it's not a good idea to keep asking them what they need help with and to insist on riding along with them. This only turns up the heat another notch on an already stressed-out rep. Nobody who is having trouble likes to be singled out, especially when the extra attention easily can be mistaken for micromanagement.
To keep a struggling salesperson motivated:
1. Keep the talk of funnels, forecasts and activity to a minimum.
2. Offer help without being overbearing.
3. Put your trust and confidence in that salesperson.
Stick with these guidelines and you'll not only do a better job of helping those who are having difficulties, but you'll see an overall increase in your sales team's motivation and enthusiasm.
Frank Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is a Waste of Time: Sales Success in the Information Age. He is the founder of FJR Advisors LLC, which publishes training materials on generating business without cold calling. He also owns a nationwide insurance agency. For more information, please visit http://http://www.nevercoldcall.com
Let's take the idea of funnels and forecasts, for instance. Funnels and forecasts are important aspects of running any sales operation. Both salespeople and managers need to know where they stand in terms of potential opportunities, and funnels serve to track those opportunities. No successful business can operate and properly plan for the future without accurate forecasting. In theory, these are absolutely essential to the success of any operation. In reality, however, few words strike terror in the hearts of salespeople like "funnel" and "forecast."
For most salespeople, the term "funnel review" equates to micromanagement, probation and performance improvement plans. Just hearing the term is enough to shift a sales rep's frame of mind from positive to negative. He or she suddenly loses enthusiasm and doesn't know why. Many managers increase funnel reviews as performance slips, which causes performance to slip further, and in the end nobody wins. Endless funnel reviews, especially if they're not positive, only serve to reinforce salespeople's self-doubts and limiting beliefs.
Forecasts are a similar problem, but in different ways. Few salespeople forecast accurately. Nobody wants to fall short on their forecast, so they embellish, exaggerate and make sure the numbers add up to where they should be rather than where they really are. This results in managers who expect those numbers, and salespeople who dodge managers because they know they aren't going to perform as forecasted. Then there are salespeople like myself who do the exact opposite -since I hated nothing more than having a manager constantly ask me, "When is this one going to close? When is that one going to close?," I intentionally left good deals off my forecast. While it eliminated the problem of constantly being asked when all those deals would sign, it created another form of stress in having to deal with the consequences of a funnel that fell short of expectations.
Another word that instantly de-motivates salespeople is "activity." Unfortunately, in the absence of any other viable advice, most managers simply blurt out, "You need to increase your activity" to anyone who isn't at quota. This accomplishes nothing other than setting up the rep to believe that a series of funnel reviews and performance improvement plans are soon to follow.
Finally, I see entirely too many managers pushing too hard to spend extra time with salespeople who are falling short. While it's necessary to spend time with these people, it's not a good idea to keep asking them what they need help with and to insist on riding along with them. This only turns up the heat another notch on an already stressed-out rep. Nobody who is having trouble likes to be singled out, especially when the extra attention easily can be mistaken for micromanagement.
To keep a struggling salesperson motivated:
1. Keep the talk of funnels, forecasts and activity to a minimum.
2. Offer help without being overbearing.
3. Put your trust and confidence in that salesperson.
Stick with these guidelines and you'll not only do a better job of helping those who are having difficulties, but you'll see an overall increase in your sales team's motivation and enthusiasm.
Frank Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is a Waste of Time: Sales Success in the Information Age. He is the founder of FJR Advisors LLC, which publishes training materials on generating business without cold calling. He also owns a nationwide insurance agency. For more information, please visit http://http://www.nevercoldcall.com
Comment
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Comment by richard on December 27, 2008 at 7:40am -
Motivation. How about trying this. Set goals. Have the sales staff write out personal goals ,six months twelve months and where they see him or herself in five years. Repeat this with their professional goals.
Have the sales staff write five items they receive from working leaving money out of the equation. What satisfaction they derive from work.
The next step have the sales staff write what they are willing to do to reach these goals.The cost to them.
Then the company must write company expectations of each person within the sales staff. Each will be different as each sales person has a different level of experience and drive.
Each professional needs to keep with them this list to help self motivate themselves when they find themselves in a rut or they do not know what to do next.
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Comment by Adrian Pilling on December 21, 2008 at 2:03pm - Just got involved in this stuff and its very exciting in a positive way. Now to apply it and to keep responsibility for actions is the test. Looking forward to making a difference.
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Comment by Trevor Glass on May 26, 2008 at 3:30pm - I enjoyed reading your comments. It is true that some sales managers do not know how to manage and that is frustrating. I have been a manager and took our team to No: 1 position in eighteen months. What I learnt was the hands off approach. Speak to your salespeople, be excited at what they are achieving, make something off them no matter how small it may seem to you. Recognise their strengths and at the same time look for their weaknesses. We all have them. Help them to improve where there is a weakness. Don't place undue pressure where it is not needed. Too many managers are more concerned about what is happenning in other companies, frankly I never was that concerned other than finding what our market share was. Concentrate on your own people, always have an open door policy and help them achieve their goals and in doing that the team will win, the office will win and so will the individual.
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Comment by Eric Hastings on May 20, 2008 at 8:37am -
When it comes to funnels, pipelines, forecasts, etc. it’s more the way that some sales managers go about using them and wielding the force of negative consequences that strikes fear into most salespeople. If you use the funnel as a worksheet of “what are you working on” rather than what are you selling today it keeps it more reasonable. I have always worked with my salespeople as if they were operating their own business. Tell me what you are doing to keep your business going.
How are you marketing yourself (networking, cold calling), what is your inventory (funnel), what revenue are you producing (sales). This approach keeps them focused on the fact that we are a business and what their contribution is without the impression that they are chained to an oar in the galley of an old ship.
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Comment by Anthony Brown on May 20, 2008 at 1:02am - Everything I've read of yours over the last couple of weeks, destroys everything I've been taught over the last few years, but in a positive way! Reading your comment about Performance Improvement Programmes (or PIP's as they were known at my last company!) made me laugh, because there was nothing more demotivating than having that hanging over your head month in month out. And having it thrust on me by my sales director to implement was soul destroying!
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