Sales Management Style – The Positive Motivator

“You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.” Though its a bit of a non sequitur, the intent of this cliche illustrates a truth in human relations. So, it doesn’t take tremendous genius to recognize that a Positive Motivator Management Style (for Sales or for any other discipline) is, generally, more productive. But, as they say “back home”, that can say easy and do hard. The remaining question is how do you best implement this truth, as a Sales Leader?

A great lesson on this topic comes from Harvey McKay’s renowned book “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” McKay’s encouragement is to “catch people doing something right”, to harness the power of praise. This has been the foundation for what I’ve put into practice and I’d like to share one of my favorite examples:

Its not uncommon to hear that Sales “is a numbers game”. And, just as there is truth in the “bees to honey” cliche, its hard to deny that Sales clearly has a numbers-driven quality. My experience has been that Inside/Direct Sales Organizations are more comprehensive in doing this … capturing “talk time”, number of calls (inbound and outbound), time between calls, conversion rate, etc. Unfortunately, its also not uncommon to see numbers used in a punitive way in a Sales Organization. Ironically, one of my favorite stories of taking a different, Positive Motivator, approach to this comes from work I did in the Call Center of a premiere Direct Sales Organization … Nautilus. Here, we developed a program called “The Voice of Nautilus”, with the intent being to “catch people doing something right” and to encourage them to do more and more of it. In the Direct Sales arena there are certain basic “measurements” (some of them being legal requirements) that must be met. “The Voice of Nautilus” takes those things into full consideration but it focuses more on how well a Sales Professional actually “helped” a Customer. A good example here would be, did the Sales Professional hear that a Customer was interested in a specific device and then proceed to sell the features of the device or did they listen closely enough to hear that the Customer was calling because they wanted to be thinner and in better shape by the time of their next class reunion, thus the Sales Professional proposed the right device along with all the right accessories, a weight loss program, etc.? In addition to being a source of growth for individual Sales Professionals, this program is a source of development for the Direct Sales Organization, in general, inasmuch as it involves Sales Supervisors listening to recorded calls and submitting the calls they select to the Sales Training staff for determination of the winner/s.

Regardless of its implementation, having a Positive Motivator Style in your Sales Management is another foundational key to having a successful Sales Organization. What are your thoughts on this? What are your favorite stories, along these lines, that you’d like to share?!

The Pride and Prejudice of Sales

If your business life has involved having the word “Sales” on your business card, you’ve probably had an experience like this:

You’re at a social function, you meet someone and they ask the most common question in that circumstance … “What do you do?” Your response includes the word “Sales” and you, literally, see the other person’s face go slack. As this happens, you know that your new acquaintance is envisioning some huckster, in white buck shoes, palming off some old rattle trap to some rube in a used car lot.

Of course, as a Sales Professional, I’m perturbed by this Prejudice and when I can, I try to dispel it through education. However, I’ve found that this isn’t just an occasional, individual bias. It seems to be systemic in our culture. Since I only minored in Psychology in college, I can’t be sure but I think the fact that I too connect with the imagined “huckster in white bucks”, affirms my view.

So, what is a Sales Professional to do about this? I suppose becoming an evangelist, marching onward to “fix” this wrong-headed notion, is an option. What I do and what I recommend is to take the flip-side of this weakness (Prejudice) and make it a strength (Pride). In fact, I think this is one of the most important foundational steps you can take for yourself, as a Sales Professional and for your Sales Organization.

There is a legitimacy to the Sales function in business. It isn’t “palming off.” That is hucksterism. The legitimate process, in very abbreviated terms, goes something like this:

• Learning a Prospects challenges, from their perspective.
• Understanding what you can offer to meet those challenges.
• Communicating the value of that offer to the Prospect.

As a Consultative Sales Professional, the process is typically far more complex and requires many well-honed skills. And its this that I get “on fire” about. Its where I find the flip-side to Prejudice … its where I find the Pride of being a Sales Professional. For me, having that foundational Pride has been pivotal to my success. And, it has been integral to my work, as a Sales Leader, in developing others.

Over time, some aspects of the Sales role change. Presently, we’re seeing this as the result of telemarketing, inside sales, eCommerce, etc. Regardless, I believe it will remain true that any Sales Person or Sales Organization instilled with Pride in the Sales Profession will greatly outperform one that does not have this foundational characteristic. My recommendation is that you make it a regular touch-point in your personal development strategy and that of your Sales Organization.

Do you agree? If so, please share your ideas on the most effective ways you’ve found to do this.

Sales Incentive Programs – Maximizing Impact

WIIFM? What’s In It For Me? That question is at the heart of the buying motive. Whether we like to admit or not, its also at the heart of human nature. That means, not only is it at the heart of the buying motive, its at the heart of the selling motive too. So, regardless of a Sales Professional’s protestations that they’re really focused on their development and mastering things like strategic/complex selling, silently, they’re asking WIIFM? I’m, certainly, like that. My business card says, “Consultative Sales Professional” and I am but put an added incentive on the table and “I’m in baby!” And I’m perfectly happy to let others know of my success in competing for incentives. Wanna see the limited edition engraved marble Inner Circle plaques I have for each of my 11 years at Minolta?!

So, all that’s necessary is to play to that human nature … when Sales aren’t where you want them, just feed the WIIFM instincts of the Sales People then sit back and wait for the results. Right?! Well, sort of. Yes, you can grow your Sales along with growing the reward for the performing Sales Person through such feeding but I think, far too often, Sales Incentive Programs miss out on growth opportunities that can be much more far reaching and have significantly greater lasting power. Here’s what I have in mind:

Not long ago, I got to work with the Direct Sales Force of a company whose products are aimed at improving Health & Fitness. I found that, in the Direct Sales environment, Sales Incentive Programs are utilized with much greater frequency than I’ve experienced in Field Sales organizations. I, also, found that, this particular company set aside a significant budget amount in order to, at Christmas, purchase and distribute gift items to lower income families in their local community … no doubt, benefiting the Health & Fitness of that community. My suggestion was to tie the Sales Incentive Programs to the programs that benefit the community. Instead of the top Sales Performers getting to go home with the latest Nintendo has to offer, why not offer them Paid Time Off to represent the company in its community service? There’s still positive impact on Sales and some immediate needs in the community are still ministered to but, in between, there’s a lot of added growth.

But, what if you’re not a large company with its own sizeable Direct Sales Force? It strikes me that, even for a small to medium sized company, a similar approach can be taken. Is there a local business organization that would be beneficial for your company to join but you’re struggling to justify the budget for membership? How about adding to the justification by using the membership as an incentive, allowing Top Performing Sales People to represent the company, as they and your company grow in the process?

So, what do you think of this approach? What’s been your most effective approach to Sales Incentive Programs? Please let me know so it can be shared with others.

The “Tech Savvy” Sales Organization

 

If your Sales role doesn’t include a technology-based product or service, you might come to the conclusion that being “Tech-Savvy” isn’t a top priority. If so, you’re making a BIG MISTAKE, no “might” about it!

 

Believe it or not, in my first Sales territory, in the Midwest, my initial training included a prospecting technique called “Smoke-Stacking”. This involved driving to a town, finding the companies with the biggest smoke-stacks and trying to meet with the decision makers in those companies. The most significant technology involved in this was my company car (See! I don’t go back to the horse and buggy days.), printed presentation materials, pay-phones and handwritten records. That was then.

 

Now, Sales and Technology go hand-in-hand, regardless of what you’re selling. This includes: cell phones, voice mail, PDAs/laptops/PCs, email, word processing software, spreadsheet software, Internet browsers, virtual meetings, eLearning, SFA, CRM, ERP and on and on, into my next blog post. If you’re not tuned into these technologies, you might as well try “Smoke-Stacking”.

 

So how do you keep up when it seems that technology advances with every breath?  It’s a must to have a strategy for this, whether you’re an individual contributor in Sales or you’re a Sales leader. And, in order for the plan to succeed, it has to be a right-fit for each individual and their organization. That means there’s more than one “right answer” to this. Regardless of the method chosen, I recommend personal commitment, as an essential element. What I have in mind here is along the lines of what I once did, to keep up on CRM technology, when I was in “job search mode”. At that time, I had experience with several CRM systems. But, that didn’t include Salesforce.com. I can recall Googling CRM and finding an article entitled “Top 10 SFA Vendors Not Named Salesforce.com”. It struck me that it might be important for me to do something to fill in that gap in my experience. Duh?! I found that Salesforce.com offered a 30 day trial that allowed you to thoroughly examine their product, go through all their tutorials, have dialog with their support personnel, etc. Beyond this, an affordable individual license was available. Needless to say, I took advantage of those offerings and thus, no more void relative to Salesforce.com.

 

So, what’s worked for you along these lines? Please let me know! I’d welcome hearing from you on the approach you take for yourself and/or your organization so it can be shared with others.