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Signs you are at risk of losing your top sales performers

October 26, 2011 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent, Self Development, Success, Wellbeing

There they are every day bringing in the deals. They’re always prospecting, meeting clients, networking, making suggestions about how to do things even better and they never discount unnecessarily. Best of all your clients are happy. They’re happy with your offering, happy with your service, happy with the sales support they get and your business is profitable.

Top of the world

Top of the world

Sounds magnificent doesn’t it? Your top sales performer(s) require(s) very little work. They self manage, are resilient and are such a breeze to work with. They’re low maintenance and are not temperamental like those 600lb sales gorillas. You couldn’t be happier, right?

Well this is what most business owners or sales managers are thinking when they get a great sales performer. ‘So easy’ they say, ‘I wish all my sales people where like this’. And yes, we would love all our sales people to be self motivated, self disciplined, engaging people who cared as much about our businesses as we do while bringing in fantastic, sustainable sales results.

The temptation is to leave them alone and say ‘don’t fix what isn’t broken’. Many business leaders and sales managers take this approach. However, it’s precisely the wrong approach to take with top sales performers.
Let’s look at how much would it cost you to keep a top sales performer versus how much you would lose if they left your business.

Research continues to show that top sales performers love to learn and grow. The money is good but it is not the overriding factor. Instead they seek out opportunities to advance their skills, knowledge and mindset on a regular basis – they want to be the best. They strive for Mastery. The number one quality distinguishing top sales performers from their colleagues is their desire to engage in self-appraisal & continuous learning.

Here is what you are likely to see top sales performers doing on a regular basis besides selling:

  • Asking for feedback on their own performance and the degree to which they have met client expectations.
  • Collaborating with colleagues and not putting competitiveness in the way of business success.
  • Recognising and acting on the need for continuous self learning and development.
  • Appraising their own performance and competencies and initiates development activities without prompting.

 

These activities are often done without the support of management. Top performers create their own self development journeys and go outside to get the coaching, mentoring and nourishment they need.
This is admirable on the part of the sales person and it seems, great for the business leader/owner or sales manager. However, businesses are putting themselves at a huge disadvantage if this equation remains one-sided.

Why?

Because money isn’t enough. We might think that all we need to do is throw more money at top sales performers. Yes they deserve to earn top dollar but it’s more than that.

We need to take an interest their overall development. Provide them with opportunities to further develop their knowledge, skills and mindset. Give them opportunities. These can be to work with us on the business, take a mentoring or coaching role in our sales team, work on special projects, develop new markets or become our business’ key spokesperson. We can position our top performers as a champion an important aspect of our business or simply give them one-on-one time with us or a nominated coach who takes a particular interest in their development helping them to be even more effective.

Changing Jobs

Changing Jobs

The small investment of our time and attention to develop our sales superstars is far outweighed by their contribution to our business. Why risk it by ignoring the very people who make us a success? It seems logical but organizations make this mistake time and time again.

I hear so many stories from top sales performers who just up and leave organisations because they feel they were taken for granted. Here are some stories from top sales performers who have left companies because their requests for development were ignored:

  • “I wasn’t listened to. No interest was taken in me and my development. I had no respect as a professional business person. Management didn’t care about my professional development and dismissed me as only being ‘a salesperson’ because I did not have a business degree. They were only interested in me because I could bring in the deals. I tried to explain that it wasn’t only about the money and that I wanted more challenges to help the business grow. I had great ideas and wanted to step up. Instead they just told me to keep on selling and stay in my box. I felt ignored and taken for granted. I became tired, bored, and disillusioned with management and so I left. They went into free fall when I resigned and since leaving the business they keep coming back to me offering more money. They just don’t get it do they?’
  • ‘My repeated requests to my manager for coaching and training were dismissed as too costly. I went outside to get the development I craved. My manager just wasn’t interested in giving me any of his time to coach me and certainly wasn’t interested in paying any money for my development. So I paid $3,000 of my own money for 6 one-on-one sales coaching sessions and they really helped. The benefits of one-on-one sales coaching were enormous. I achieved 130% of my budget in my first year and made the annual incentive trip overseas. My manager tried to claim the credit for my success. Needless to say into my second year nothing changed on the management front so after a further 9 months in solitude I left the company to pursue a career where personal development was valued.’

The cost of losing a top sales performer is enormous and it’s not until they are gone that most businesses realises its mistake. Are you at risk of losing someone who is vital to your business?

Before it’s too late ask your top sales people:

What they want by way of personal and professional development. Where would they like to take their careers? How would they like to contribute to the business? What ideas do they have about how we could be better?

Nourish these people with your interest in their ongoing development and show them that you genuinely care about their contribution and growth in your business – not just every now and again but continuously. If you make this a priority you will retain these top sales people and benefit. Make it a priority to do something to support them and let them know you really value and appreciate their contribution.

If you need to talk to someone about coaching or training in sales, sales leadership, sales coaching or people management contact us.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

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Why we should manage & measure Sales Inputs rather than Sales Results

June 9, 2011 in Coaching, Communication, CRM, Performance Management, Prospecting, Sales Training, Success

Do you leave your sales results to chance? Well you might be if you are like most businesses that are too fixated on Sales Results – the Outcomes. Managing by numbers, sales managers can get blinded by measuring the number of sales made and revenue and profit margins achieved rather than focusing on the vital activities that produce these outcomes in the first place- The Sales Inputs.

Every outcome is the result of its inputs. Every effect has its corresponding cause(s).

Consider the following questions:

  • Do you know how your sales people actually achieved their sales results?
  • Do you know how well they are identifying real opportunities with their prospective clients and current accounts?
  • Do you know how well they are planning and managing their sales portfolio and their time?
  • Do you know how well they are utilizing the CRM to help drive sales and manage relationships?
  • Could there be more opportunity in these accounts that is otherwise being identified by your sales people?
  • How easy is it for a new comer to learn and replicate what your top sales performers do?

These are just some of the questions that if examined for their content, would make the lives of sales managers and sales people that much better. Sales people would know the vital activities they need to perform and to what standard and what knowledge they need to apply to add real value. And sales managers would yield much better sales results all round if they devoted more of their time coaching and managing their sales people around these input activities rather than only looking for and reporting on their sales results.

Do you want to increase your sales team’s effectiveness and boost sales results?

Pay attention to the details because excellence is in the details. Look at what you put in to see what you get out in terms of sales results.

Sales managers, sales people and business leaders could learn a lot from observing the Quality and Quantity of their actions each day. We call these the Input Measures which are made up of Type & Quantity of Activity and Quality of Activity. These are the areas that people can be trained and coached in.

Type & Quantity of Activities – the following are examples of types of activities:

  • Leads developed
  • Prospecting calls
  • Client meetings
  • Proposals developed
  • Deals in the pipeline
  • Up / Cross sales discussions
  • Customer inquiries
  • Account management calls / meetings
  • Account reviews had
  • Referrals requested

Quality of Activities – the following are examples of competencies or standards of activities:

  • Business acumen
  • Sales Planning skills
  • Prospecting skills
  • Selling skills
  • Communication skills
  • Relationship building skills
  • Negotiation Skills
  • Product knowledge
  • Company and market knowledge
  • Problem solving
  • Client proposal development
  • Self-Management

Sales Managers can really make a significant difference to their sales results and the lives of their sales people if they invest the time in coaching, training and working with their people on the Input Measures rather than pointing out the results week in week out. Results are important and need to be acknowledged but they can only be as good as the inputs. Once we understand the Input Measures then we can see their effect on the Results or Output Measures.

Output Measures / Results can include:

  • Overall Sales made including sales with new clients and existing clients
  • Sales revenue
  • Sales profitability
  • Sales growth
  • Sales quotas
  • Sales by product or region
  • Average deal size
  • Market share & growth

Let’s make sure that sales results are not left to chance; work on the inputs and get them right. It will make a difference to your results.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.
Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

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Can a sales manager be an effective sales coach?

April 14, 2011 in Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Success

Coaching usually focuses on two areas of development to achieve excellence: skills and performance. Excellence in performance is knowing the right processes to apply in the right situation, coupled with the personal insight to know how to apply them wisely. An effective sales coach is there to help people achieve excellence and realize many more benefits.

However to be an effective sales coach your people must experience you as a support in helping them achieve higher performance and not a hindrance. Often people experience performance improvement initiatives as ‘threats’ or ‘aimless chats’ leaving people feeling negative, intimidated or that their time has been wasted.

For coaching to work at its best the relationship between coach and coachee must be one of partnership with trust, safety and minimal pressure. The pay cheque, promotion and performance axe have no place in a coaching relationship. Often, sales managers don’t know the difference between managing and coaching and find it hard to change hats when required. So can a sales manager reconcile the roles of manager and coach and can a manager really be an effective coach especially given time pressures and other competing priorities?

Barrett’s newly appointed Head of Coaching, Robyn Creed says ‘Yes, managers and especially sales managers can be fantastic coaches, however coaching demands the highest qualities of a manager.’

“Qualities include active listening, empathy, integrity, honesty, detachment and effective questioning. Coupled with this is a willingness to adopt a ‘performance enhancing’ mindset to staff development along with the skillful use of best practice coaching tools and frameworks. True coaches help people liberate their talent to realise mastery. Being able to set yourself a part from your managerial duties i.e. the KPI agenda, delivery of strategy, results, and firefighting and instead, approach each staff member as an individual when coaching, allows you to build a genuine coaching relationship. Creating a coaching climate can be a challenge for many managers mainly due to time constraints, competing priorities which often relegate coaching to ‘nice-to-have’ status, and the lack of proper training in effective coaching tools and strategies,’ Robyn said.

So how can a sales manager reconcile the roles of manager and coach? Knowing the difference helps. Review the following checklist on Managing and Coaching and see where you fall in relation to these roles.

Managers:
• Do most of the talking and directing
• Tell people how things should be done
• Fix problems – sometimes preventing staff members from developing necessary skills
• Presumes and makes assumptions (not having delved deeply into what is going on for an individual)
• Seek control
• Order people, provide directions
• Works on
• Keep distant
• Assign blame

Coaches:
• Spend most of the time in a coaching discussion listening to their staff member
• Ask people how they think things should be
• Prevent problems – when appropriate, skill people up to develop skills to manage situations effectively
• Explore, providing staff with in-depth insight around a particular situation or what is going on with an individual)
• Empower team member and seeks commitment
• Allow people to develop their own path, but challenges when necessary
• Work with (partnerships to develop skills and improve performance)
• Make contact
• Take responsibility (those who understand the importance of coaching appreciate the direct link between their coaching of their staff and their staff’s performance)

Many sales managers we work with have reviewed this list and realise they are not coaching at all. At best they have chats over coffee which is not the same as coaching. Yet they are ever concerned that their people may not be performing to the standard they require.

In 2005, the Sales Executive Council conducted a survey of over 3000 Sales Professionals and their sales managers. Some of their findings clearly demonstrate the difference in sales professionals’ performance based on the effectiveness of coaching. In this study there was at least 19% improvement in sales performance as a direct result of one-on-one coaching which meant the difference between people achieving their sales quotas or not.

Recent results from ICF Consumer Global Awareness Study reported that more than 42.6% of the respondents who had experienced coaching chose “Optimise individual and/or team performance” as their motivation for being coached. This reason ranked highest followed by “Expand professional career opportunities” at 38.8% followed by “Improve business management strategies” at 36.1%. Other more personalised motivations like “Increase self-esteem/self-confidence” and “Manage work/life balance” rated fourth and fifth to round out the top five motivations.

Coaching is key to performance improvement in any role. So why isn’t coaching prevalent in the daily lives of sales leaders and managers?

Lack of time is usually the issue. Finding time to coach is a real issue for these managers. Too many managers find themselves firefighting, unable to devote sufficient time to long term planning, visioning and most importantly coaching and developing their people. The paradox here is that if they coach their staff properly the staff will be capable of shouldering more responsibility, freeing the manager from firefighting and allowing them to be available to manage and coach their people and grow and develop the business.

So how do we get managers to engage in coaching?

Help sales managers see the real value in coaching including the dollars and sales it can return to the business. We need to help managers see that coaching delivers far more than the effort put into coaching however, if you have never experienced effective coaching you are unlikely to value it. One solution is for managers to experience professional coaching themselves and see how it helps them achieve excellence in their own role. Engaging an independent coach to work with a manager i.e. a ‘coach-the-coach‘ experience has great benefits. Ideally sales managers would be trained in best practice coaching tools and strategies to give them the confidence and competence to coach. Another solution some managers are resorting to is outsourcing the coaching of their team members to independent coaches or internal people specifically trained and assigned to a coaching role thus leaving managers to manage. This is a trend in some industries such as call centres.

Robyn Creed says that outsourcing authentic coaching can really help people experience an agenda free environment helping them to shift and move to higher levels of performance without the complicated relationship of their managers. However, she does warn that abdicating coaching responsibilities as a manager is dangerous. ‘Managers should not avoid coaching’ says Robyn, ‘The skills and mindset of coaching need to be ever present in a manager’s tool box, especially in sales. The opportunities to coach present themselves at any time and you have to be ready to seize the opportunity and know what to do.’ Robyn’s advice is to adopt a blended approach: ‘train your sales managers and other managers how to be effective coaches and then, when needed supplement this with highly trained external coaches. These coaches are best used to coach the managers who are coaching their own teams as well as for high performing sales people who need that to move to a higher plain.’

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

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Why hiring or keeping the 600lb sales gorilla is a mistake

December 2, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Teamwork

For many years the legend of the 600lb sales gorilla or Alpha sales superstar has been strutting the hallways and boardrooms of businesses. Often revered for achieving top of the league ladder sales results, yet feared by many for their aggressive, manipulative, ego centric, demanding, intimidating antics, countless CEO’s and sales managers have allowed these sales prima donnas to remain in their sales teams but at what cost to their sales team and their business?

Too scared to confront them about their behaviours or sales tactics for fear of losing their sales contribution, many sales managers and their sales team have simply suffered in the presence of these sales bullies. In my many years of working with sales teams and sales managers I have met my fair share of sales gorillas and their distressed managers and sales teams. Here’s what I have observed:

  1. They have the ear of the Managing Director/CEO who thinks they can do no wrong.
  2. They won’t let the business anywhere near their customers.
  3. They tell tall tales about their legendary sales conquests.
  4. They refuse to be coached, counseled or trained.
  5. They are very demanding, always complaining about the lack of resources and taking up the time of countless people to do their bidding, leaving the other sales people to fend for themselves.
  6. They often exhibit bad behavior, and may be heard swearing or making inappropriate comments to their colleagues or other staff who are often too fearful to report them (see point 1).
  7. They can engage in questionable sales tactics, yet claim that they are pristine and operate with the utmost of integrity.
  8. They claim to know a lot of people and be very well connected.
  9. They use actual or implied intimidation to get their way with internal team members.
  10. They use charm and manipulation to get their way with key stakeholders.
  11. They act with righteous indignation if you question anything about them.
  12. They don’t think they need to comply with company policies so often refuse to complete paperwork or keep up to date CRM’s if they think it’s a ‘waste of time’.

You only have to watch the movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ to see your fair share of sales gorillas. This type of sales culture was revered by a number of industry sectors in the 70′s and 80′s, including real estate, car sales, stock broking, etc. Watching it makes me feel ill, but many sales teams got off on this and even use ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ as a model of how they should sell in some quarters today.

Yet most people watching ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ or meeting their very own sales gorilla feel repulsed by them. Often very wary of them, others wonder why they have to tolerate them and why management won’t act. Truth is these sales gorillas have never been pulled into line. Their outstanding sales results have somehow bought them immunity from behaving in a civil manner. The smell of money they can bring in has condoned behaviour that has often outweighed the need to act ethically and uphold team values and respectful behavior. Their bad behavior has been allowed to manifest without restrictions, ‘oh let him get away with it. Look at the results he pulls in’. These sales gorillas are the direct result of poor quality leadership, lack of clear standards and bad decision making.

What most businesses do not know is that these sales gorillas, for all their so called sales success, actually fall well behind the real sales superstars in terms of achieving high level and sustainable sales results who, by contrast, are open minded, curious, collaborative, team oriented, open to learning and aim for partnerships on every level. And these real sales superstars are humble too which is a direct contradiction to the behavior of the sales gorillas.

  • So are you currently letting fear hold you and your team hostage by allowing your sales gorilla to persist?
  • What would happen if you got rid of the sales gorilla?
  • How would the rest of your team respond when they left?
  • What would happen to sales and the clients?

In my experience when the sales gorilla finally departs, there is an initial sense of shock which quickly gives way to relief and the opportunity for the sales team to really pull together and prosper. The biggest fear of losing the sales gorilla’s sales power and their clients doesn’t eventuate in the vast majority of cases. In fact it is often revealed that the clients are happy the sales gorilla has left and look forward to a more open and prosperous relationship with the company concerned and sales grow even more.

I am not suggesting that most leaders intentionally hired these sales gorillas or intended for them to manifest however, without clear codes of conduct or values and a proper understanding of what you want by way of ‘good sales performance‘ you cannot hire or develop the right sales people to do the right things in the right sales culture.

In his book ‘The No Asshole Rule’, Leigh Buchanan writes about bosses behaving badly. Its thesis – don’t hire jerks, has become public policy in many companies around the world. I would suggest we think clearly about what we want manifested in our sales teams and take a leaf out of Leigh’s book and make sure we employ ‘The No Asshole Rule’ and don’t hire sales jerks.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Why we should put the Trainer back into Sales Management

September 8, 2010 in Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Management, Sales Training

Up until 20 years ago, a key function of a sales manager’s role was the regular training of their sales people. What did this look like? Well, something like this: weekly 1 hour power training sessions for the sales team focusing on honing key skills, bi-monthly half day or 1 day sessions drilling down on account planning, strategy, market and product knowledge, and formal class room training usually employing external, expert training providers on a once or twice yearly basis to boost their teams to the next level. This was all supplemented by sales meetings and one-on-one coaching.

Many sales managers of yesteryear were good trainers. However, through my observations across many businesses, the training component has been replaced by compliance. Caught in a bind of having to meet their reporting and meeting obligations, sales managers lose valuable time that should be invested in the continuous development of their sales people.

I am seeing that many sales managers are now relegated to being ‘CRM compliance police’, caught up in reporting on numbers of leads, meetings, conversions, etc., usually at the behest of senior management to justify their investment in a CRM. This means that sales people are often left to fend for themselves with no sales management support at all and often feel under constant scrutiny to meet their numbers quotas.

I get constant complaints from sales managers about this ‘numbers’ obsession and they not being able to support and develop their people to be their best. They know numbers are important but numbers are not the only aspect of effective sales performance – yet why are they required to worship at the compliance alter?

Training sales people is vital to healthy and sustainable sales performance. With markets becoming more complex and changing at rapid rates, regular training is imperative to help sales people keep up to date and effective. Training needs to be regular for it to have any effect. Regular ‘mini’ training sessions in short, sharp bursts combined with one-on-one coaching in the field makes for better and better sales performance as well as team spirit, unity and retention. But when do sales managers have the time to learn how to be good trainers and coaches? And when do they have the time to put this into practice?

Since 1997, we have been accrediting and training sales managers at Barrett to be competent trainers and coaches. Many report very positive outcomes as a result of being able to conduct regular training with their teams. Besides sales lifting, team moral improves, there is better retention of staff, and clients seem happier too.

It has been shown that if a business has skilful, professionally trained sales managers who can strategise and plan; lead, coach and train; effectively manage their unit; liaise, link and collaborate with other divisions; and regularly report relevant, real data to the business, then the performance of the sales team will improve significantly. No other area of development shows such a positive correlation with sales results.

As a rule of thumb, ‘best practice’ states a sales manager should invest their time accordingly:

This is a plea on behalf of beleaguered sales mangers everywhere – if you want great sales results, get your sales managers training again.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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