4 Secrets to Manage People
By Tito King
Are you sick of tired people using you? Do you waste a lot of time and money on people who requires a lot of supervision and your energy so they can do a simple task for you? Are you in a position of managing people? If you are, then you have to manage people.
Here are 4 secret tips to managing people!
1. Set clear rules and guidelines
When managing people, you have to set clear rules and guidelines. This is because if you don’t set people rules and guidelines, they will get lazy and slack. For instance, if you get people to clean a kitchen at work, their interpretation of cleaning will be just cleaning the pots and pans but not the stove and floor. So therefore, you should set strict rules like cleaning kitchen involves cleaning all floors, pots, pans, stove etc.
2. When setting up rules and guidelines, always set the bare highest reasonable goals you want them to meet
People in general will always do the minimal or littlest work possible. So, when setting up your rules and guidelines, you have to make sure they meet your maximum goals that you want them to reach. If you set your goals at a minimum or bearable limit, then the output of work they want to give you is small or poor. Hence, if you give them guidelines and rules that are high, than the output of work is of higher quality and quantity.
3. When giving people tasks to do, set a deadline
Always give people a deadline to do when giving people tasks to do. This is because when you give them a deadline, you make them more focused at the job they are doing and making sure they complete the task on time. If you don’t, they will leave the job later and will tend to slack off with their work.
4. Only give rewards or compliments when they have done a good job
If you are a person who rewards a person because you are a nice person, then you are at risk of being abused or exploited by your employees. Only give your workers rewards/bonuses or compliments when they have done a good job and you are genuine about it. If you are not genuine with your compliments, then your workers may feel that you are dishonest to them and may see you as not a good boss for them. Therefore, always give rewards and compliments which are genuine and after they have done a good job.
Popularity: 3% [?]
6 Secrets to Becoming a Great Sales Manager
By Carl C. Henry
#1. Great Sales Managers Set Goals:
They are also masters at goal setting. Like top producers, they see an outcome and focus on it daily until it’s been reached. This shouldn’t be surprising. After all, nearly all-great sales are a result of having a great system, and working it consistently to hit targets. They know that small targets can turn into bigger targets, and that the only way to hit bigger goals is to hit all the smaller ones along the way. By manipulating their daily and weekly goals, they can guide producers to healthy and increasing annual figures.
#2. Great Sales Managers Know The Process:
Great managers understand the sales process, and know that each step is useful. Ask any of them, and they’ll tell you that you can’t skip any steps on route to a sale, and that to try means wasting time and energy. Without prospecting, you have no one to sell to. If the qualifying stage is rushed, you’ll meet resistance when you close, and might experience problems after the sale. Closing itself must be done patiently, working with the client to overcome any fears or objections. For a sale to be made, all the pieces must fit. A strong manager will help his or her producers to keep this in mind, so that they aren’t tempted to try to shortcut the selling process.
#3. Great Product Knowledge:
Another trait of top managers is that they understand the market for their products. They know where what they’re selling fits in terms of price and quality, and use that knowledge to show clients the best options for a given situation. They can tell you anything you’d need to know about a product in their catalog, along with its price and perceived strengths and weaknesses compared to the competition. This sort of thorough knowledge gives them the ability to coach their producers through presentations, as well as preparing them to counter objections.
#4. Great Sales Managers See Training Is An Investment:
Great managers know the value of expanding sales skills. They are always advising those under them to read another book or go to another seminar. They understand that training is never finished. Whatever you’re selling today, somebody else is out there training to sell it better and to more people. You can’t rely tomorrow on the same skills you used today. You have to keep learning or you will become stale. A strong supervisor will remind producers to keep training their minds and always be improving.
#5. Great Sales Managers Have Clarity & Focus:
Another trait they have in common is focus. Have you ever noticed how sales managers are always focused on their quarterly numbers? That’s not an accident. Simply put, great supervisors don’t get distracted by what’s going on around them. They know that they have a job to do – usually to help you hit a certain production goal – and will do whatever they can to help advance you to that point. Everything else should point toward that aim, and they’ll try to be sure that your activities reflect that.
#6. Great Sales Managers Have Patience:
And finally, they have patience. Most of them have been in sales long enough to know that there are going to be ups and downs. Being on top today doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily be in the same place tomorrow. Likewise, a bad week, a bad month, or even a bad quarter can happen to anyone. Like coaches, they’ve seen the wins and losses, and know that quality work will succeed over time, and that the lazy and noncommittal will eventually wash out. They emphasize doing the right things every day, because they know that over time, you’ll be successful that way.
Popularity: 3% [?]
8 Keys to Managing People With Genius, Not Idiot Or Dummy Principles
By Dr. Jim Sellner Ph.D.
My point is this…
If you don’t want people to run screaming in the opposite direction when you have crucial conversations with them, you have to be able and willing to get “real” use “ordinary speak” and connect with people – on their “mind turf.”
Be respectfully honest, compassionately brutal and authentically devoted to their betterment. You are going into the room for improvement to have a conversation — one human being human with another.
Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines is a master at this.
Talking to engage isn’t just about using with the “proper” words. Its not about the technicalities of words, its about the emotion in the message. Its about the intention behind the words you are sharing. You want to connect with people on an emotional level.
Making them value you.
Making them want to sharethings with you.
OK, fine — now you might ask, “How the heck am I supposed to do that?” Well, glad you asked!
This is not rocket science. The rules are quite simple.
1. Talk with a specific person or team about a specific goal or task you want improved – one task or goal at a time. Think of it this way.
2. Talk the way you talk. Don’t go “rap” and use street slang and shorthand. But if you can’t say what you need to say without stumbling and tripping over our tongue – you’ve gone too complex. Practice what you’re about to say preferable with a colleague who will be brutally honest with you.
Use simple words – not stupid, simplistic words. Most people have a grade school comprehension level. Some will be at college level. Very few will be highly skilled.
Most everyone, in a crucial conversation, in which heightened blood pressure clouds the mind, can only listen in 6-7 second word bites. Simple, easily understandable, delivered in small chunks makes it easier for people to digest the message. You don’t want them throwing up on you.
3. Tell a story, make it funny. Here’s one I like that one of my managers told me when I was being resistant to his instructions.
A motorist was mailed a photo of his car speeding through an automated radar post. An $80 speeding ticket was enclosed. Being a bit of a smarty the motorist sent the police back a picture of $80. The police mailed back a photo of handcuffs.
I got the point.
4. Relate to the person or group. Get into their shoes. What is their context? Use words that let’s them know you understand their world, and that you’re just as human as they are. People like that, they will then tend to like you. When they start thinking you’re a threatening alien you’ve lost their trust.
5. Make yourself easy to understand. Big, long speeches with long, run-on sentences send your audience screaming out of that room for improvement. Break it up, even use occasional word pictures or real pictures to help break it up. Ask for their input to engage people more.
6. Sleep on it before you deliver it. If you go for it when your rushed or under pressure it’s a sure bet you’re slap happy or exhausted and that 10-minute diatribe is nowhere near to being as impactful as you are deluding yourself into believing it will be.
7. Relax! Say what you’re passionate about. Say what you expect. Make it an invitation to improve.
8. Use the four keys to getting people to open the door to the room for improvement — Why? What? How! and “What if?
There you have it.
8 ways to not repulse the person or your team.
Are you able and willing to manage people with genius, to stop treating them like idiots or dummies — to engage, respect, and show that you’re interested in them becoming better?
I’d appreciate to hearing from you.
Human Principle #2: We behave in our best interests when we:
Increase our competencies;
Are aligned with our personal and business values; and…
Choose to be engaged.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Sales Management Training – 8 Competencies of Top Sales Professionals
By Marc Weiner
Beginning in the early 1980s, organizations and well-renowned establishments such as the Harvard Business School, The Gallup Organization, the Chally Group, the Xerox Corporation, among others, began studying outstanding salespeople to identify the competencies – also referred to as the vital behaviors – that contribute to their extreme levels of success.
Two of the most surprising discoveries – and these are very important because it doesn’t matter what product or service you are selling – are as follows:
1. 39% of a customer’s buying decision is based on the salesperson’s competence.
2. Only 1% of salespeople utilize all the essential competencies. Furthermore, only 0.3% of actual sales forces and sales teams achieve what is considered to be world class status in the customers’ minds.
The vast majority of sales teams and companies will enjoy a tremendous competitive advantage – whether it’s a single sales person, a coach or a solopreneur, or a complete sales team – if they make even the slightest improvement in the required competencies.
Essential Sales Competencies
1. I use a partnering approach with my customers.
In all my years of working with people in sales training, every time I have asked the question, “Does anybody like to be sold to?” no one has ever raised their hand and said, “Yes, me.” No one likes to be sold to. Instead, you must become a partner with your prospective customer.
2. I am motivated by a compelling personal mission.
People are attracted to the passion we bring and the belief that we have in our products and our services. They may not understand every single process, but they can feel, touch, see and want the passion behind it. When they relate to you not only as a sales person, but a deliverer of those services, they become motivated by your compelling personal mission.
3. I use a listening/probing style with customers.
This is critical. If you’re not listening, you’re selling and you’re pushing. People want what you have, but only as it relates to them and if it can take them where they want to go. This can either be eliminating a source of pain, attaining a source of joy or achieving something of value to them.
4. I adapt my relationship style to various customers.
There are actually four quadrants in our behavior relationships. Each of us has pieces of all quadrants, but we always have a predominant quadrant. Some of us are analytical, some drivers, some amiable, and some are expressive. It is important to understand your behavior style, and to understand your potential customer’s style as well.
5. I build trust readily.
You’ve probably heard this before. We buy from people we know, like, and trust. Trust is especially important.
Think of a situation where you have purchased from, been involved with, or worked with someone you didn’t fully trust. It is not a comfortable relationship. Remember we started off by saying we use a partnering approach with our customers and my clients. Trust is a core component of partnering.
6. I express empathy well.
Empathy links to listening skills. In order to be empathetic, you must have the ability to understand what someone is going through. It doesn’t mean you judge them. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily agree or disagree with them. What it does mean is that you are listening and feeling their emotions to the best of your ability. It is the skill of viewing the world from their emotional perspective and unique set of circumstances.
7. I apply a higher level of thought and strategy in dealing with customers.
Do not simply shove something down somebody’s throat. Elevate yourself to a higher level in thought and strategy. This ties into operating with a partnership approach as well as listening and empathizing with your customers.
Your aim is to become not only a sales person, but a consultant, an advisor, a friend. Together you figure out how to work together, and determine the next step to positive action.
8. I hold myself personally accountable for achieving my customers’ desired results.
If you are simply selling a product and you really don’t care if it brings them their desired results, you will have less passion for what you are doing and you will not build trust with your customers. Hold yourself personally accountable to help that customer or client achieve what it is that they’re trying to achieve.
Evaluate these eight core competencies of top achievers and make sure you’re applying all of them in your own business to get the results you want and deserve.
Even incremental improvement in these core sales competencies will help you close more sales, build your business and improve your relationships with current and future customers and clients.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Sales Management Training – Managing Lead Generation – Sales Prospecting
By Sam Manfer
Active Networking
For salespeople to be effective lead generators, they must have both active and passive marketing programs. Now (1) their marketing program must be their own – not the company’s (although the two can be in sync with each other), and (2) they will do both, halfheartedly or not at all unless you the sales manager shows them how and holds them accountable. Accountability means setting goals, actions and measurements. Then, review progress on a regular schedule to give meaningful feedback and motivation to reach agreed-upon metrics.
So here are some sales management training tips for managing an Active Lead Generation Process.
Active marketing is networking (a) up and out within existing accounts, (b) into competitors’ and lost accounts, and (c) new markets.
For existing accounts do your sales people have 100% of their existing accounts’ business? Do your sales people what it will take to steal accounts from your competitors? Do your sales people have a method to introduce and integrate your products into new markets? Probably not.
Now, the easiest way to get more business is to spread like a virus through all accounts, focusing on eventually getting to the C-level and/or profit center leaders and their immediate staffs. Your goal as a manager is to keep them focused on connecting with more and more people to learn their problems and potential opportunities that relate to your solutions portfolio. Then, with their gleaned knowledge, develop suggestions and strategies that these leaders find helpful. Try not to concentrate at first on the purchase, but rather on learning and then their buy-in to your suggestions. Learning their thinking will show what it will take to get buy-in. With buy-in comes support, and with support comes networking to those with the power to mandate changes, create budgets and to authorize purchases.
If your sales people stick with their one or two main contacts, their ability to discover opportunities and make suggestions that lead to purchases is severely limited. Therefore, you must insist upon an Executive Relationship Chart. The elements of such a tool include:
1. Who are all (up and out) involved people by name and title in that organization?
a. The powerful — C-Level, Profit Center Leaders and their immediate staffs.
b. The influential, the functional and the impacted.
c. The administrators — purchasing agents spec writers, engineers, and controllers.
2. Where does your sales person rank on the credibility pyramid for each of these people — 1-low to 6-a resource/consultant?
3. What actions is each taking to improve his or her position with each decision maker?
4. When will these actions be completed, and
5. How will you know it’s complete and how will you measure it?
Obviously, if your salespeople are a 5 to 6 on the credibility pyramid with the powerful, they will have access to new opportunities, which they have helped create. Conversely, if they are stuck with low-level administrators and functional people, they will be just another one of the bunch of competitors.
Your job for helping your people create quality leads is to keep them networking, learning from each individual and offering-up ideas. This process will take time, but once it catches-on, it will produce an ongoing flow of leads from new divisions, for new products, and more and more. This applies to existing and lost customers, competitors’ accounts, and new markets as well. My rule is 50% of sales people’s prospecting time should be spent on existing accounts, 30% on lost and competitors’ accounts where they have contacts, and 20% in those accounts where they have no contacts.
So start creating Executive Relationship Charts for each of your existing accounts and those accounts you would like to penetrate. These charts will yield your networking plans and the actions your people will take to improve their credibility with the powerful and influential. From these actions will emanate the leads that generate sales.
However, I guarantee your people will not do this without your pressure and your help.
Popularity: 3% [?]
How to Sell Your Business – Some Facts About Small Business Buyers
By Patrick Jennings
If you want to sell your business fast you need to be aware of the 90% rule.
“The 90% Rule” states that 90% of people who respond to a business for sale ad or who call a broker about buying a business never buy anything.
The brutal fact is that most people who sincerely want to buy a business can’t. They don’t have the money. Or they don’t have the ability to raise the money. Or they simply don’t have the guts to actually pull the trigger on a deal.
Most sellers waste a lot of time and emotion on people who will never buy. It’s natural for you to want to believe the buyer is serious, especially if they are the only prospect you have. But for the sake of saving time, and your sanity, you need to be ruthless in evaluating the legitimacy of each potential buyer.
So how can you tell up front if someone is part of the 90% or the 10%?
Well, there is no way to know exactly but here are a few behavioral traits that distinguish the two.
** They ninety-percenters focus almost exclusively on money while the ten-percenters focus on money AND the dream/idea/challenge of being in business for themselves.
** The ninety-percenters want a “turnkey” business that they can put on cruise control while the ten-percenters want a business they can improve, build and make their own. Ten-percenters are looking for a good business they can make better and are willing to work hard to accomplish that.
** Ninety-percenters think they should be paid handsomely from day one while the ten-percenters are willing (and prepared) to cut back on their lifestyle and expenses for as long as it takes to pay for the business.
The good news is that even if just 10% of prospects are good prospects, that’s still enough prospects for you to sell your business.
The important point here is that you don’t want to waste all your time trying to please the 90% who aren’t going to buy.
And you don’t want to waste your time trying to turn a ninety-percenter into a ten-percenter.
Too many sellers make the mistake of trying to please everybody. They try their hardest to paint a rosy picture of easy money for little work. They brag about how their business is a “turnkey” operation. And all for a bargain basement price.
To the 90% of non-buyers, this is just what they are looking for. To the 10% that are educated, prepared and qualified, it sounds too good to be true.
The best way to ferret out the real buyers from the 90%, who can’t or won’t buy, is to treat everyone like they are part of the 10%. Here’s how:
1.) Describe your business in the best possible light without going overboard.
2.) If there are opportunities for growth explain them to the buyer in detail so he understands. Don’t settle for generalities about how easy it will be for the new owner to “explode profits”.
3.) If, along with these opportunities are challenges and the need for hard work and sacrifice, say so.
4.) If you have made mistakes that have hurt growth and earnings admit to those mistakes.
If your prospect responds by showing real interest in the inner workings of your business and the opportunities it presents then you probably have a good buyer. If their only response is to ask for a price discount along with 100% financing then you know you don’t have a buyer.
The bottom line is that even though only about 10% of the prospects out there are good ones that is still enough good prospects – after all, you only need to find one. But you can’t afford to waste time with bad prospects.
So stop trying to please the 90% who aren’t going to buy anyway. It’s amazing how quickly these prospects lose interest once you are honest about what it takes to run a business successfully.
The high quality prospects however, know that there is no free lunch and are not going to be impressed when you present a situation that is too good to believe. So don’t even try.
Popularity: 3% [?]
5 Reasons Why Managing People Effectively is So Hard
By Dr. Jim Sellner Ph.D.
Or, Why is the “soft stuff” so hard to do?
The cry for better management can be heard in every corner of the corporate arena. So with all this focus on managing people effectively, why do so many companies have such a difficult time actually making it happen?
First, note that “management” is not one thing. It is the amalgam of insights, skills, determination and often bold, decisive actions. When broken down into its parts, the task of managers appears to be Sisyphean (in Roman Mythology Sisyphus was a king whose punishment was being compelled to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat it throughout eternity).
Here are 5 elements that prevent businesses and the individual in them from doing a better job of managing people.
1. Bureaucratic Rigidity
Most businesses, particularly larger ones, are by nature, rigid. Good management of people requires flexibility to deal with the vagaries of human behaviours. A corporate culture driven by short-term earnings demands does not encourage or enable flexibility. Risk-taking, the kind that tends to inspire employee innovation and engagement, is a key part of the management process; but it is not typically all that acceptable in the executive suite.
2. Looking for Quick Fixes in All the Wrong Places
“Let’s improve our people management practices!” Too many companies hire high-paid consultants to develop new management models and methodologies when they don’t have the foggiest idea how the culture drives management decisions. So often, the people on the frontline who produce the bottom line are ignored.
3. A Paucity of Fresh Perspectives
Few organizations have the abilities, willingness or emotional intelligence to turn themselves on their ears. Yet, that is what would be necessary in order to effectively manage people. Too often, the people who rise to power positions in most companies have been doing the same ineffective things over and over again. Their blind obsession on the task at hand is what got them to the top. It’s what can drive them into ineffectiveness. You have to challenge the status quo if you want to adopt and adapt to a fresh perspective on people management practices. “I have seen the enemy… ” is a powerful, frightening brutal fact for many in power, but one that must be confronted if one is interested in innovation.
4. Incongruity
“Our people are our most important asset.” First of all most corporate cultures simply does not support that statement. Second, to regard people as assets betrays an impersonal “human-is-a-machine” approach to people. Both of these attitudes reveal low emotional intelligence.
5. We Just Don’t Get It
Maybe the greatest obstacle to managing people better is that we simply don’t pay attention or acknowledge what constitutes the human experience. Management, besides being an inexact art, is not just the stuff of balance sheets, margins, machines, etc. although paradoxically all these things are created and managed by people.
Management is not something you do once then sit back and enjoy your work. It’s a never-ending, unfolding story with many subplots. It is a mindset, a viewpoint, not only of work, or people, but of one’s worldview. It’s about making unique, often seemingly disconnected associations, connecting the interactions no one else sees. It is ongoing curiosity, questioning, searching for something new, different, better — posing the uncomfortable questions like “What if?” or “Why not?” That is the stuff of managing people.
So here we are in a changing world of unknowns, unpredictabilities, surprise events, terrorism and roller coaster behavioural economics and an environment of business that is summed up by,
“The rules have changed, the players have not noticed!”
A few companies like Southwest Airlines, Apple, Patagonia and Google have managed to learn how to manage their people very well. Many smaller less publicized companies are doing a great job too. The ROI in their investments? — profits, highly engaged, aligned, productive people.
I wonder why more companies don’t choose the courageous decision to do a better job of managing their people?
Popularity: 4% [?]
Successful Sales Management – Maintaining Authority and Fostering Growth
By: Leanne Hoagland-Smith
The purpose of management is to help others achieve shared goals (organizationally and personally). However many in sales management have difficulty securing this desired results because of these two challenges pr obstacles:
1. Maintaining Authority
2. Fostering Growth
Both of these challenges require exceptional interpersonal skills (people) or what I prefer to call self-leadership skills. However the current K-16 educational experience at least in most American schools does not provide any development for this critical business need.
For individuals to take this initiative on their own requires self-awareness supported by personal action plans. One of the first steps is the creation of a life wheel from which an action plan can be developed. From my research, the earliest life wheel I found was created by Buddha.
Another action is to identify the decision making styles externally and internally as well as the key talents of not only sales management, but the entire sales team. To realize greater success, this assessment needs to be deductive in nature instead of inductive. By securing such an instrument helps to reduce miss reads because the co-efficients of reliability and validity are higher.
The reason for such an instrument is it helps to overcome the challenges of maintaining authority and fostering growth. Imagine for a moment as a manager, you have validated knowledge of how each salesperson makes decisions along with her or his talents. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Many people invest more time on their weaknesses or non-talents than their strengths because of past conditioning.
Additionally such a tool allows you to create a far more balanced team.
Great sales managers know how to mentor those they are responsible for managing. Having knowledge about how individuals think about themselves when making internal decisions can be of invaluable help. Then specific goals can be set where those decision making styles and talents can be incorporated to ensure achievement of the desired results. With anywhere from 40%-70% of all sales targets (sales growth) not being achieved, does it not make sense to find tools or instruments to potentially reverse or reduce those dismal statistics?
Finally, for sales management to be truly successful does demand an organization where strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people are all in alignment. Even the best sales managers cannot work in a broken organization. Sales Training Coaching Tip: This is called fighting an uphill battle with C-Level individuals.
For example, if the organization is geographically spread out, then each area probably has a somewhat different demographic and psychographic. A one size fits all marketing and selling approach does not work. Maybe the processes such as marketing, customer service, accounting and production work counter productive to what is demanded from the sales team. Sales Training Coaching Tip: No one looks good in a bad system and this is why I recommend Jay Galbraith’s 5 Star Model for organizational development.
Successful sales management can happen provided there is support, alignment and documentation. Through effective self leadership skills, sales managers can increase sales, reduce staff turnover and truly enjoy their roles.
Of course, this may require the investment of the resources of time, energy, money and emotions. However, the end results justify such investments provided everyone truly desires achievement of the pre-determined result and willing to do what is necessary (proactively) to achieve those results.
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Popularity: 5% [?]
How Can You Predict Success in Sales? The Holy Grail of Sales Recruitment and Management
By: Laurie Hall
What are the key personality traits that salespeople really need to be successful? Ask any sales manager and you’ll get a confusing array of answers to this question. You’ll hear phrases like ‘driven to succeed’, ‘good at closing’, ‘tough negotiator’, ‘great listener’, ‘resilient’, ‘activity planning’, ‘rapport builder’ and ‘people person’.
But can one person possibly have all of these ‘traits’, since some of them are almost opposites? And if we can’t have them all, which ones are most important – which can’t we do without?
And what is personality anyway? The phrases above may look great on a job description, but some of them have little to do with personality. They’re learned skills. In theory, anyone can learn and use great sales skills, regardless of their personality. So where does that leave us?
Wouldn’t it be more useful to know which aspects of personality are connected with the willingness and ability to learn and use great sales skills? Then we would kill all the birds with one stone, so to speak.
These questions are not as difficult to answer as you might think. Last year, I carried out a small study, using a well-known psychometric test, hoping to find some clues. I got more than I bargained for. I was expecting vague and inconclusive results, open to interpretation. Instead, I got strong, statistically reliable correlations. The results were startling. They indicated significant correlations between sales performance in that organisation and four personality traits. Just four.
‘So what?’ you might ask. Any psychometric company worth its salt can tell you which personality traits are correlated with success in sales. Yes – but this is based on a ‘norm group’ of people working in all kinds of sales roles. What about the sales roles in your business, selling your product, to your customers? No-one can tell you, reliably, which traits are important there.
This may sound pedantic but it’s actually pretty important. There is a great deal of research out there which identifies personality traits that are linked to success in ’sales roles’. But unlike some other roles, sales roles vary enormously. Each sales organisation operates in an environment that is unique in terms of product complexity, sales cycle length, average order value, customer type, organisational culture and so on.
Consequently, the key ’success traits’ in one sales role may be completely irrelevant in another sales role. Anecdotally, this is borne out by the sales manager who has hired a salesperson with a ‘proven track record’ in sales, only to find that they fail in their new role.
Sales managers know that you need a different ‘type’ of salesperson to work on the big deals than the small deals. This is self-evident if you imagine the cliched double-glazing salesman trying to sell a multi-million pound aeroplane to an international airline. They’re both sales roles, but they couldn’t be more different. The ’stereotypical’ salesperson will only be successful in ’stereotypical’ sales roles, which don’t really exist anyway.
Most modern sales roles and most modern salespeople are not stereotypical. Consequently, in your business, success could be dependent on a few, perhaps unexpected, personality traits. The typical, bubbly, outgoing, enthusiastic salesperson may interview well and talk a good game, but have they got what it takes to succeed long-term in a modern sales role? According to my study, the answer is: probably not.
So if there is no such thing as a ‘typical salesperson’, no such thing as a ‘typical sales role’ and we can’t rely on our notion of the ‘ideal salesperson’, where does this leave us?
We need an objective way of predicting what personality traits will lead to success in a sales role. But not any sales role. The sales role in your business.
My study establishes a simple model for doing this. It may have been a relatively small study, but the results were significant enough to prick up the ears of a well-known psychometric testing organisation who asked to use the data to further prove the validity of their flagship psychometric tool. The results were compelling enough that the financial services organisation in which I conducted the study has already changed the criteria for its recruitment. They now recruit a breed of salesperson that is quite different to what most people intuitively felt was ‘right for this business’.
So, it’s possible to create a model that identifies objectively which personality traits contribute to success in a particular role. But why bother?
Personality testing is an objective way of assessing a candidate’s suitability for a role. But like any tool, it is only as good as the user. In order to test personality traits objectively, one must first identify objectively which traits will lead to better performance – which traits are we looking for? Unfortunately, the way in which we do this, in most organisations, is rather subjective. After long discussion and debate, we basically ‘guess’ which traits are important, based on our subjective opinions. Therefore, even though the psychometric tool is very objective, we use it in a subjective way, removing its value as an objective assessment.
Sometimes we kid ourselves that just because we’ve worked in sales for years we have developed some kind of ’sixth sense’ which allows us to know intuitively who will be successful in our sales organisation and who won’t. We’ll cite all the successful salespeople we’ve hired – and conveniently forget about the other half who ‘didn’t work out’. We can come up with all kinds of good reasons for this, but a bad hire is a bad hire. And how many people have you decided not to hire because you didn’t ‘hit it off’ in the interview? Think of all those lost opportunities…
No system is perfect, and clearly psychometrics can never be a cure-all for the minefield that is sales recruitment. You’ll always need interviews, role plays and CVs. But if we use psychometrics better, we only need to interview the people whose personality already predicts a good a fit for selling in our business.
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The Top 10 Ways to Integrate Field Sales With Inside Sales
By: Jim Domanski
Do your field and inside sales team work harmoniously with one another or do they operate unto themselves in separate kingdoms?
Unfortunately many inside and outside sales teams exist in open conflict with one another vying over accounts, sales and territories. The time and effort it requires to handle the subterfuge is simply not worth it. Not only does it impact the morale of your reps (and your company), it affects the relationships and perceptions of your customers and prospects, not to mention your sales revenues.
Inside sales and outside sales can and should work in unison to produce stellar results. Here are 10 ways to bring these two powerful sales teams together and maximize their results.
1. Report to a Single Executive
If the field sales team reports to a sales executive and the inside sales team reports to a customer service or operations executive (as it often does), conflict is inevitable. Each department has different priorities and there are bound to be clashes. But the moment a single sales executive is made directly accountable for the results both teams is the moment that the squabbling ends and entire department begins to fire on all cylinders.
2. Develop Blistering Clear Plans & Communicate
The biggest battle with inside and outside sales teams is ‘who handles this and who gets credits for that.’ While there will never be perfect division of accounts and territories take the time to think and plan your approach. Marginal, inactive and geographical remote accounts are perfect for your tele-sales team and will force you field sales team to focus on priority accounts.
Explain the rationale in writing so it is indelible to them and to you! If accounts are given up or traded, reduce sensitivities by paying double commissions for three or four months. This step will save you hours of needless conflict and help make the transition smoother.
3. Compensate and Motivate in Like Manner
You do not have to pay your inside sales team exactly the same as your field sales reps but you must pay in ‘like’ manner. If your field sales comp program includes base, commission and bonus so too should your inside sales team on a proportionate basis. This strategy reduces the ‘have’ and ‘have not’ mentality.
If there is a sales contest, make certain inside sales is an active participant and ‘mind the gap.’ Avoid the temptation of offering lavish rewards (e.g., the trip to Vegas or Hawaii) for field sales and offering pathetic rewards (toaster ovens or movies passes) for inside sales. If the recognition gap is so vast- and it often is- it sends a resounding and discouraging message to your inside sales team.
4. Create an In-to-Out Career Path
One of the best strategies is to develop a career path where you inside reps can be promoted to outside reps; a farm system. This will do several things. First, your inside team works harder and smarter for a chance at achieving an outside sales position. Second, the cost of recruiting and selecting a field rep is reduced dramatically. Third, the customer barely notices the transition because they get an experienced, knowledgeable rep. Finally, once the inside rep becomes an outside rep, the integration process becomes much more complete.
5. Attend Conferences, Trade Shows and Other Event, Together
Tension, frustration and confusion are reduced dramatically when the sales teams meet together at the same events, conferences and trade shows. Typically they have to work as a team on the trade floor. They begin to bond at lunch and dinner. They ‘play’ together in evening. It works if for no other reason then they get to know one another.
6. Attend Sales Meeting Together
This is so obvious that it is very often overlooked. Integrate inside and field sales by having them attend the same sales meetings. Have them participate, present results and be held accountable to one another. If the team is geographically spread out, have a conference call so that communication is fostered. If you have a sales rally or president’s club, make absolutely certain that both attend.
7. Train in Exact Manner
If training is required train the teams together. For example, ‘boot camp’ training is a great way to get reps to bond together from the get-go. If you have skills or knowledge training sessions throughout the year, pull your teams together. Do NOT train inside and outside teams separately.
8. The Day in/Day Out program
Here’s one of the best tips to pull your teams together. Every quarter or every six months have the outside reps spend a day on the phone with the inside rep. Have the inside rep spend a day on the road with the field rep. In short order, each rep will have a great appreciation of the job and one another.
9. Do Not Tolerate, Excuse or Permit Saboteurs
Here’s the cold hard truth: depending on your situation and environment, you can expect that some reps will seek to sabotage the efforts of others. A saboteur is a rep who subconsciously and often consciously, seeks to wreck, dilute or cheat the policies you have established. For example, a field rep might say to customers, “I can’t deal with you any more. You’re stuck with an inside rep” and thus taint the entire program. Equally, an inside rep might remark, “Your field reps never visited you in the first place, so I’m your new account rep” which simply shows the customer that your sales team is on shaky ground.
Sentiments like these will lose you customers in a heartbeat. Deal with these saboteurs quickly, efficiently and if necessary, brutally. Stick to the policies. Do not tolerate belligerence because it will fester and spread.
10. Be Vigilant and Keep Your Word
Continuously monitor the integration of your teams. If you get wind of dissension, act fast and deal with it. Get your managers together and talk. Don’t ignore the situation.
Above all, keep your word. Beware the temptation to change the rules as you go because it will have a significant impact on sales results, morale and customer satisfaction. Walk the walk.
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