Ask the Expert October 2008

One of my salespeople who once showed stellar potential seems to have run out of gas and is failing to meet my expectations. How can I effectively give him a kick in the pants?

-Anonymous

 It’s bound to happen. Those enthusiastic, gung-ho, high-performing sales reps you’ve come to depend on year in and year out appear to be losing steam. What’s a business owner to do to get them back on track and producing at the levels you’ve come to expect? In the old days and, unfortunately, to some degree still today the remedy was a verbal kick in the pants. The manager or owner would simply bark, Make more calls! or, worse, You better start selling or else­ and send the reps on their way. Today’s smart owners, on the other hand, recognize these tactics for what they are: ineffective means of trying to right a proven but slumping rep’s listing ship.

Do Your Research First

Rather than bludgeoning your reps, try taking a diagnostic and prescriptive approach. Set up times to talk with them, both individually and as a group, with the goal of determining why they’re struggling, and then creating and executing a plan of corrective action. Then, after you schedule those talks, but before you actually meet with them, take a look around your business and see if there’s anything obvious that could be causing your salespeople to lose motivation and/or enthusiasm (such as poor products, an increase in customer complaints, takeover rumors, bad press, a recent change to the comp plan, or the down economy). Consider talking to your most senior sales person the one the others look up to and respect. See if you can glean anything from him or her. If you’re able to uncover any issues, keep them in your back pocket when you sit down with your reps.

In your one-on-one meetings, ask open-ended questions to find out why the rep is struggling. Why does he think he’s struggling? Listen, and resist the urge to interrupt and offer your own opinion. You may hear a lot of excuses; let it go for now. When he’s done complaining about external influences, ask him to look inward and consider where he himself may be falling short. This self-diagnosis forces the rep to focus on things over which he has control, and to accept responsibility for solving his own problem. You should come to the meetings with hard data that could suggest specific problem areas (if you’ve implemented a CRM system to track your salespeople’s activity and it is in fact being used, the problem area or areas will be readily apparent). Have any numbers or ratios dropped off recently, such as the number of cold calls? The ratio of calls to appointments? Appointments to forecast deals? Forecast deals to shortlist? Shortlist to close? What you learn from the numbers and what you learn from your rep will, together, dictate what you need to do to help get each rep out of his respective rut. Take detailed notes, then review, compare and analyze them for any recurrent themes.

Inspiration and Motivation

Later, in your group meeting, get all the issues they each shared with you individually up on a whiteboard or flip chart. Deal with each in turn, making it clear that you’re working with them on the issues that are out of their control and that you agree are legitimate (e.g., poor customer service, product defects) if they agree to address their own individual issues, get out of their funk, and regain their positive attitudes. Then, raising your voice, give as inspirational a talk as you can, reminding them of all the good things that can be theirs if they stay focused, get energized, and start coming to work again with a sense of purpose. Focusing on the positive on what can be, rather than on the negative should be the shot of motivation they need to get pumped up and back to producing at the levels you require.

Now that you’ve had your talks, what tools do you have at your disposal to help your reps turn things around? Depending on what you will have uncovered during your diagnosis, you’ll employ one or more of the following:

* Tough Love
* Empathetic Listening
* Training/Coaching

Tough Love

We’ve already seen how both motivation and inspiration can be used. But what if the issue you’re facing is avoidance of fundamentally unpleasant selling activities, such as cold-calling? In that case, it’ll be necessary to put your foot down and lay down the law. This is part of your job; it’s not optional. Period. I had such a situation with a rep of mine once, who acknowledged that she wasn’t making the prospecting calls she knew she needed to simply because she didn’t like doing it. When I demonstrated to her that there weren’t enough good leads coming in to give her a shot at making the income she wanted to, she quickly relearned how to dial the telephone. Occasionally, it’s simply a matter of the rep’s not wanting to take on the unglamorous but necessary aspects of sales (such as prospecting or continuing education). In those cases, a firm dose of tough love is in order. Agree on performance goals for the task, then drive home the importance of achieving that goal by emphasizing that you expect nothing short of full effort and achievement of it.

Empathetic Listening

What if you’ve detected a decrease in a rep’s energy level or enthusiasm? This could point to personal problems, or it could indicate dissatisfaction with some aspect of the job (a change in working conditions, being passed over for a promotion, perceived favoritism toward a co-worker). In such a case, empathetic listening coupled with a dose of motivation would be part of your prescription. The simple act of letting a rep get stuff off his chest can raise his energy level markedly. Perhaps assigning more challenging accounts, with potentially higher payouts, would be all that’s needed to motivate him to get moving again.

Training/Coaching

In yet another scenario, if the numbers for a rep show a noticeable decrease in, for example, the number of presentations that result in his making the shortlist, get out with your rep and find out what he may be doing in his presentations that’s leaving prospects less than enthusiastic about your product or service. Then provide him with specific coaching, either by you or, if coaching is not your strong suit, by a sales coach. As with any professional, the skills that a salesperson possesses, if not continuously used correctly, maintained and reinforced, become rusty and ineffective.

By understanding what’s holding your salespeople back and using these simple tools, you’ll be able to reinvigorate even the most moribund group of reps and turn them back into the stellar performers they used to be and still are.

Craig James is president of Sales Solutions, a sales productivity improvement business. He can be reached at craig@sales-solutions.biz.