As an executive you know how important it is to communicate the company’s mission to your employees, and we all know that that’s easier said than done. Talking about “the vision” at company meetings and having a Mission Statement on the website are not the same thing as having people understand it and believe it. The number one reason sales people don’t “Share the Vision” is that what they hear in speeches and read in letters from management often doesn’t align with what they see in action every day. Reps may not see, or may not think about, how their day-to-day activities fit with the company’s strategy, how their territories and their quotas align with the overall corporate goals. The major function of sharing the vision is to get the sales team to think about something other than their individual quotas. Reps can be very myopic when it comes to their little place in the corporate universe and occasionally need to be reminded of the “greater good” and how they can (and are expected to) serve it.
I cannot stress enough the value of senior management spending time with sales reps and giving them the insight to apply the company’s overall vision to their little slice of the world. Clarify and explain how sales objectives and territories are built and how what you have reps doing is an integral part of fulfilling specific milestones and meeting specific corporate targets, rather than just hitting sales goals.
Sales reps will be much more productive and happy if they understand your shared goals and can connect their activities with the activities of all the firm’s other employees. In the field they will be much more effective if they can trust that the corporate mission is more than words on paper; that it really is something you are all committed to.
Showing posts with label promise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label promise. Show all posts
Friday, October 03, 2008
Monday, December 04, 2006
De-Motivating Sales Reps
I know you're thinking "Jeez, what a stupid title, who'd want to de-motivate a Sales Rep?" The original title was Why Salespeople Don't Sell but then I realized that there was a whole myriad of reasons that could be true (personal problems, looking for another position, just isn't good at her job, etc) so I decided to focus on the one area you, as a corporate executive, have some control over - keeping reps motivated, or rather not actively de-motivating them.
Now I know it'd be stupid to actively try to encourage a Sales Rep to not sell and of course most de-motivation is inadvertent. It's well known that professional Sales Reps can only be effective when they believe in what they're selling. The opposite of that is true, too: if I don't believe in what I'm selling, I'm either A.) not going to be very good at it or B) I won't sell it at all. So, as noted in the previous post, things happen that cause reps to believe that the things they're supposed to be selling are lies. I clearly won't be trying to get business from that client for a while, because they won't believe what I'm supposed to tell them and neither will I.
Am I going to cut out selling every time the billing goes sideways or some customer service reps have a bad day? Of course not. If that was the case no one would ever sell anything. Accidents happen. If, OTOH, the billing issues, service problems, product failures or brain-deadness of the organization is an on-going and constant thing, you can be damn sure that your reps will shut down (and look for a way out). Again, I'd hope that if these problems were that bad, they'd be apparent to you and you'd have them fixed, however knowing the speed with which a giant organizational ship can be turned, sometimes even knowing the problems isn't enough. And then there are those firms that refuse to address the problems. The situation noted in the prior post (and I would venture to say, most good large corporations) fall into the former category. We know we've got issues; it's just that addressing them takes time and resources. In the meantime, no sales, because the reps aren't willing to throw their reputations under the bus. And note: asking a salesperson to burn their reputation so that you can get some sales is a surefire way to lose reps rather than gain sales.
Back to the issue of those that refuse to address the problem, let me pass along an anecdote from an an anonymous correspondent. This woman works for a firm that produces tradeshow graphics and booths. Now in her business everything is time-sensitive (getting the booth the week after the show is kind of a non-starter), so her clients are very specific as to when and how the products are delivered. The problem is that the boss is very scattered, disorganized and consistently over-promises and under-delivers. So the rep will have an order due, say, December 6th at 5PM. On the morning of December 6th, the boss will clear all the scheduled jobs in order to rush through the one that either he A) promised and forgot about or B) thinks is more important. The rep's job is now late. As before, if this was a once-in-a-while problem, no big deal, but at her firm it happens so often (and no one dares confront the boss) that she can never be sure that the promises she makes can be kept. She can never be sure that the job will be done on time. How can someone sell in that situation?
The bottom line is that, as a rep with any sort of pride, we need to be able to deliver what we promise on a fairly regular basis. That's what our clients count on and that's what our reputations are built on. If we don't believe that our promises will be kept, we won't be able to make them, and that's really all sales is - making a promise we know will be kept. If you can't make that happen for us, we can't sell for you.
Now I know it'd be stupid to actively try to encourage a Sales Rep to not sell and of course most de-motivation is inadvertent. It's well known that professional Sales Reps can only be effective when they believe in what they're selling. The opposite of that is true, too: if I don't believe in what I'm selling, I'm either A.) not going to be very good at it or B) I won't sell it at all. So, as noted in the previous post, things happen that cause reps to believe that the things they're supposed to be selling are lies. I clearly won't be trying to get business from that client for a while, because they won't believe what I'm supposed to tell them and neither will I.
Am I going to cut out selling every time the billing goes sideways or some customer service reps have a bad day? Of course not. If that was the case no one would ever sell anything. Accidents happen. If, OTOH, the billing issues, service problems, product failures or brain-deadness of the organization is an on-going and constant thing, you can be damn sure that your reps will shut down (and look for a way out). Again, I'd hope that if these problems were that bad, they'd be apparent to you and you'd have them fixed, however knowing the speed with which a giant organizational ship can be turned, sometimes even knowing the problems isn't enough. And then there are those firms that refuse to address the problems. The situation noted in the prior post (and I would venture to say, most good large corporations) fall into the former category. We know we've got issues; it's just that addressing them takes time and resources. In the meantime, no sales, because the reps aren't willing to throw their reputations under the bus. And note: asking a salesperson to burn their reputation so that you can get some sales is a surefire way to lose reps rather than gain sales.
Back to the issue of those that refuse to address the problem, let me pass along an anecdote from an an anonymous correspondent. This woman works for a firm that produces tradeshow graphics and booths. Now in her business everything is time-sensitive (getting the booth the week after the show is kind of a non-starter), so her clients are very specific as to when and how the products are delivered. The problem is that the boss is very scattered, disorganized and consistently over-promises and under-delivers. So the rep will have an order due, say, December 6th at 5PM. On the morning of December 6th, the boss will clear all the scheduled jobs in order to rush through the one that either he A) promised and forgot about or B) thinks is more important. The rep's job is now late. As before, if this was a once-in-a-while problem, no big deal, but at her firm it happens so often (and no one dares confront the boss) that she can never be sure that the promises she makes can be kept. She can never be sure that the job will be done on time. How can someone sell in that situation?
The bottom line is that, as a rep with any sort of pride, we need to be able to deliver what we promise on a fairly regular basis. That's what our clients count on and that's what our reputations are built on. If we don't believe that our promises will be kept, we won't be able to make them, and that's really all sales is - making a promise we know will be kept. If you can't make that happen for us, we can't sell for you.
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