What is the line between motivating sales staff and manipulating sales staff? How do you make sure you don’t go over the line and place people under extreme pressure to achieve?

Research both here and overseas shows that high performing sales people identified how important it was to their performance that they remain motivated, which they recognised can be influenced by both internal and external factors, with a sense of self satisfaction found to be the most important contributor to their motivation.

The recent 4 Corners program on Telstra staff and a bullying culture that is supposed to be being cultivated in its call centres (transcript in full at www.abc.net.au/4corners) was very disturbing indeed.

It highlighted that once top performing sales people where now highly stressed, frightened of not meeting (changing) targets and felt unable to control their own destiny.

Research shows that the ability to control their emotions (ie self regulation) was seen as important in keeping sales people focused on key objectives, issues and working to resolve customers’ problems.

Having clear tangible goals, performance targets, customer segmentation, competitor awareness, a sound USP (unique selling proposition) and transparent pricing model segmented into individual and team sales plans as part of a sound sales and business strategy is what good sales people need and expect to be able to control their own destiny and achieve their personal and professional goals. This autonomy and control is highly motivating for good sales people.

However the 4 Corners program told a different story. It focused on call centre staff having their targets changed and increased to what some people say are unachievable levels with no reason or link to strategy.

This was compounded by a new management culture that encouraged team leaders to use phrases like dragons, savages and submarines to describe their team members if they missed performance targets and encouraging team leaders to “‘shoot ‘em’ if they don’t work out”. This left some team leaders hating and bullying their staff, with some of them hating themselves for becoming this way.

Selling is a relentless job at the best of times. It’s like being an athlete – you set clear goals and workout in rain hail or shine. You are committed to overcoming obstacles and challenges and stepping up when it counts.

Beating the competition is hard enough, but if your coach then starts adding to your load by bullying you, putting you down, changing the rules, setting unrealistic goals and training regimes and even, in some cases, completely changing the game or sport you are playing, then all hell breaks loose.

Locus of control is so important for anyone in times of stress, but especially for sales people, who want to earn bonuses or commissions, to be their best and manage themselves to succeed within the given rules. Changing the goal posts and game rules after people committed to a game plan leaves hard working, dedicated sales people feeling cheated at best. And stressed, disengaged and burnt-out at worst.

Fact or not, the 4 Corners story set back the perception of the sales profession to the draconian days of Henry Ford who said “work is for work”. He had a policy that if anyone smiled, whistled, laughed or showed any signs of enjoyment at work they should be sacked.

Having every keystroke and toilet break monitored implies that no one can be trusted. This is not an example of a healthy sustainable sales culture.

If you are a dedicated hard working person who prides themselves on being able to be trusted to do a good job and management wants to manage you this way, it is very demotivating indeed. I had hoped we had come further than that, given current thinking and research into performance and motivation, but obviously not if this story has any truth to it.

The story was discussed at great length in my circles and many people were troubled by the implication of intense sweat-shop type call centre sales environments. Sadly, it’s not new and many other stories about these draconian call centre practices are in circulation.

One of my colleagues who has worked in telco sales, in both call centre and field sales, for many years had this to say: “My experience in these environments is that the word ‘manipulation’ comes into effect when management have moving targets. In saying this I mean that half way through the game, someone changes the rules.

“The rules usually alter when companies feel that the targets are too easy and they are increased, new products appear, thus the commission plan alters, the compulsory amount of outbound calls doubles. You may achieve your results, however in the 11th hour management decide that commission will only be paid to those that completed their calls in a certain time frame etc.”

So how do we create a climate of motivation? To motivate sales staff is through honesty, loyalty and clear direction; really no different to how you would want your sales staff to treat your customers. To achieve consistent results from your sales staff and have good morale, you need to provide a very clear achievable bonus or commission structure, with no moving goal posts.

The criteria that bounds this bonus or commission (that is, amount of calls made per day/visits, markets penetrated, sales made, profits achieved etc) also needs to be achievable, structured and based on sound strategy and facts. Provide further incentives if you must, to focus on certain products throughout the year, but do not alter the bonus or commission structure.

SHL, a world-renowned psychometric test developer, has identified some key motivating factors. While these can vary from person to person, they give a good indication; money, competition, achievement, pace, social contact, recognition, growth and autonomy.

Management need to act as true mentors and motivators for their staff, especially in sales call centres as this is, or can be, a very mundane job, and staff need to feel comfortable to bounce ideas or frustrations off their manager without feeling like they are being judged or readied for execution.

So if sales targets are continually changing and sales people are finding it increasingly difficult to get bonuses or commissions, ask yourself:

• What is motivating senior management to do this?
• Is the sales strategy wrong? Did management make a mistake?
• Who will benefit financially or career wise from these changing targets
• Are management’s actions self-serving at the cost of their people?

Remember: A fish always rots from the head down.

If I hear “Oh let’s exceed our customers’ expectations” one more time I will scream.

Usually my response is: ‘Why don’t we just meet their expectations in the first place?’ Too many times the marketing hype (the promise) does not always connect with the sales expectation set up by the sales team, which doesn’t always translate into a service experience we were promised in the first place.

We are often left disappointed, jaded and, if it happens more than once, cynical.

Too many of us have stories of where we have been let down by businesses not fulfilling our expectations. We see broken promises, exaggerated claims, hollow offerings, no real value!

William T. Brooks talks about the promise-expectation-experience chain in his book The New Science of Selling and Persuasion. He says, and I agree, that everyone in the organisation should know what the connection is between promise, expectation and experience. Everyone who sees, talks with or comes in contact with a prospect or customer must be able to understand and execute this in all their actions. This is your competitive edge.

The marketing and sales tools you give sales people, customer service teams, service technicians, and anyone else in contact with a customer must support your integrated promise-expectation-experience chain. Otherwise, it will be seen as insincere and fake.

Brooks also says: “An inconsistent poorly defined marketing, sales and service strategy for the entire organisation results in an organisation fraught with finger pointing, blame, denial, backbiting, slippery revenues and reduced cash flow.”

Regardless of the marketing position you chose to take, it’s important to effectively communicate that position to all the internal teams who work with prospects and customers.

Sales, marketing and service departments must never operate in isolation! However this happens too often.

Sales people setting false expectations

Even if you get your promise-expectation-experience chain right, there are some scenarios that can also damage customer expectations and experiences:

• Sales people who don’t know how to correctly analyse a customer’s situation and prescribe the right solutions. They give the wrong advice on how to proceed with your company.
• Sales people who make all sorts of promises to prospects just to get a sale knowing that the business will never deliver but they will still get their commissions.
• Sales people who can’t say NO and so promise unrealistic prices, or throw in “freebies” that aren’t free at all. Customers think these pricing deals are the norm and when a new sales person comes on board and informs them they were getting something at greatly reduced rates and now need to pay higher prices then of course the customer is ticked off. You can hear it, can’t you? “Why didn’t they tell me what the real price was in the first place?”
• Some sales people sell deals they know the delivery team will find near impossible to deliver because of too tight timelines, extra staffing or product needed, all to make a sale and get rewarded (often at the expense of someone else).

Some questions for your consideration:

1. What do your sales rewards systems actually reward?
2. Is your business made up of competing cultures where each area is vying for leadership?
3. If you were a customer of your business would you get what you expected and paid for from your marketing literature, your sales team, or your products/services?

Last week I spoke about sales burnout and the challenges many SME business owners have of being all things to all people including, usually, the main sales person and sales manager.Like many people, I have known that selling and managing are not the same thing. They are two very distinct jobs with different demands and expectations.

Some home truths about sales management:

• Sales teams cannot be lead from behind a desk.
• Sales people cannot be cloned into the image of the top sales-person-now-sales-manager.
• Mediocre supervision can put a big dent in the effectiveness of good salespeople.
• Sales people need sales leaders and coaches, not administrators and organisers.
• Some sales people are “passengers” and will never be good sales performers.
• Some sales managers are “bullies” in disguise and will ruin your team and quite possibly you.
• Both sales people and sales managers need to be trained or educated about those demands and expectations along with exactly how to fulfill them.

Have a look at the key sales management duties below and check what you are and are not doing in your businesses.

• Planning: Developing and owning the sales operating plan for the business unit in concert with marketing, service and all other parts of the business.
• People development: Establishing the people resources needed to successfully execute the operating plan by hiring, coaching, developing, measuring and leading the “right” people.
• Proactive review: Managing revenue and profit by monitoring, controlling and reviewing sales, business, customer and competitor activity. Proactively reviewing the sales plan and consolidating this plan into the business forecast for the organisation.

I am aware that I am a better sales person than I am a sales manager, and I am a better “delegative” manager than I am a “micro” manager. Looking at the key sales management duties above, I know I have not always been as diligent as I should have been even when it came to the sales management of my business.

And I suspect am not alone. Even if you delegate the role of sales management, you still have to be on top of things.

It is wise and correct to delegate key jobs to qualified people. In SMEs, where possible, you should always try to employ people who are already good at the functions you need them to be good at, so the “learn to earn curve” is quick.

However, you must always have key performance measurements and monitoring in place for each person’s role, and review them every week. Never lose control of the information flow, finances or the overall management of your business, even if you have to delegate it.

Too many entrepreneurs are not “detail” people and are “hands off” managers like me, and while I am not advocating “control freak” behaviour, you must be more vigilant.

If you’re not, you are at risk of not being on top of the sales pipeline and cash flow at best, or being marginalised in your own business by people who are “passengers” with no intention of really stepping up to the mark and doing their jobs, at worst. These “passengers” can take advantage of the free ride for more months than they should because you haven’t allocated the time to manage them properly.

If this happens you find you end up carrying nearly the entire sales load to keep cash flow coming in, potentially overcompensating for those staff who aren’t pulling their weight, all the while neglecting the managerial responsibilities of your business, especially the people performance management duties.

If this goes on for long enough you become too overwhelmed and stressed, and it all gets on top of you. A vicious circle. And isn’t it amazing how some of these passengers sit by idly watching you bury yourself deeper and deeper and don’t do anything to help, and yet can still take home a pay packet.

Yes I know, we are to blame. If this does happen to you then, hopefully, you only have to learn it once to get the message and never let it happen again.

So you can never not manage your business even if you are the best sales person and it’s not in your nature. At least have the minimum in place:

• Clear performance expectations by individual and team.
• Monitor Inputs (quantity and quality of sales activities) and Outputs (results) every week.
• Clear accountable sales plans for each individual sales person, team and sales manager.
• Regular (at least once a month) client field visits with each of your sales people (even if you have a sales manager).
• Weekly sales meetings where you talk about the future “live” work, current activities, real proposals, sales initiatives and outcomes.

Know your limitations and always make time to manage your business and your sales team directly and indirectly every week. You don’t have to be the best at it, but doing it is better than doing nothing. In small business, a week without key sales activities has an impact very quickly in the bottom line.

One final note. Be very careful about employing people who have never worked in small businesses before. It can be a big risk although there are exceptions. I know it’s stating the obvious, but small business dynamics are very different to big business dynamics, especially when it comes to personal accountability and responsibility and the courage to have your arse on the line.