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February 4, 2008

Motivating a Sales Team in 2008

Posted at 11:37 AM

Paul "Bear" Bryant said, "If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win."

Lou Holtz said, "If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today."

Bobby Knight said, "The key is not the will to win … everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important."

Earl Weaver said, "The key step for an infielder is the first one, but before the ball is hit.

Tommy Lasorda said, "Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure."

So, what do you say to motivate your team? And are you aware of what people receive from working for you? Long gone are the days when it was considered productive to "rough up" and threaten a sales team. One thing is certain in today's market: Most anyone on your team can go online and find another job. The issue is not "we need them" or "they need us," it's "what can we do together?"

Things have changed and so should we. The biggest motivator I have found in the area of creating change and increasing revenue is what I call Vision Building. As managers, we must help the team members set a new vision for where they want to go. Help them see that they can have more, share more, and generally do more in life. And they can use their success on the job as the path.

You should routinely sit with your team and explore what they want out of life – then help them get there. Most leaders have a vision of where we want to go in life and what we want to happen. Surprisingly, many of our sales team members don't. Part of our job is to help them and in doing so we improve our own chances for success. Start with a very basic private meeting with each person on the team. Let them know that you are going to be very open with them and share your vision with them. Next, ask them to be open with you and to share what they would like to have. What you may hear are things like, a new home, a better car, a kid's college education, or even help with a parent. Now, let's take those "needs" and tie them to revenue goals.

From that point forward, each meeting should target the sales rep's vision tied to the revenue goal the company needs. For example, it's not bringing in the Johnson account – it's now the down payment on the rep's dream home. People come to work for very personal reasons, and the more we help them get there, the more revenue they bring in. Let's coach them toward their vision and win our revenue goals in the process.

For more information, please click here: http://www.gregwinston.com/download.asp.

4 Comments

Posted by: Don Myers at February 4, 2008 6:49 PM

Greg, you hit the nail on the head with this one.

Posted by: RO at February 5, 2008 11:06 AM

I can't tell you how many companies still think that berating their sales force motivates them to achieve. That is where most companies fail. Most sales forces also need to be led by example from someone that has a vested interest in seeing both the company AND sales force succeed such as the CEO or VP of Sales. These executives shouldn't be commission compensated so that the sales team does not feel as if they need to compete for sales. A sales force needs to learn "the vision" from the top rather than seeing a sale as their next commission. Sitting in on executive sales presentations provides sales people with knowledge and vision. When they can learn the vision with emotion and can incorporate that into their own style, that is when they will see the big results. Once that is accomplished, Vision Building takes sales to the next level and allows the executives to replicate that success and build on a solid sales foundation.

Posted by: Bryan Durkin at February 6, 2008 9:42 AM

Greg: Outstanding post! I completely agree with your approach in this article as I have just finished working with a client who totally is driving their business from a spreadsheet and has completely missed what "wires" their reps. They use a term that I like "We're all coin operated" and then just go back to the insane techniques that got them in their mess to begin with. Once you align the sales teams compensation with the behaviors you want to promote you get the results you want! I would rather have reps trying to retire to the islands and give 150% to get there than to have people on Monster.com everyday!

Keep It Up!

Posted by: Mellonie Richardson at February 8, 2008 12:20 AM

Greg, there are so many important things that you highlight in your blog about value and motivation that are right on! Routinely sitting with your team and being an example of vision building is critical and in my opinion should be the norm and not the exception. I’m baffled that people still think that bullying people around is motivating – give me a break. This type of behavior will certainly send employees out the door.

I believe that as a manager it is absolutely necessary to share with your team (and business partners) to identify their needs, values and to understand what drives them. Also sincerely communicating your interest in them and your support of their goals is equally important.

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