The Care and Feeding of Your Sales Staff

If you’ve ever been frustrated that you can’t get your sales staff to do what you want, think for a minute about how they differ — in personality and in purpose — from your other staffers.

As the outward-facing soldiers of your organization, salespeople work in a different environment than most other staff members. Most of their time is spent interacting with people outside the company, typically operating in their prospects’ offices, not in the familiar and secure comfort of their own. To a much greater extent than internally focused employees, sales staffers interact with people who don’t welcome them with open arms. They face indifference, skepticism and outright rejection on a daily basis.

Operating effectively in such an environment requires a set of personal attributes conducive to it — characteristics very different from those of your internal staff. Salespeople tend to have thick skins. They’re resilient in the face of adversity, persistent in the face of indecision and persuasive when faced with skepticism. They’re naturally self-confident and optimistic, which enables them to believe they’ll make a sale whenever they approach a new prospect. They have the resolve to persevere in the face of frequent disappointment. And since success in sales, more than in other areas, is measured by winning and losing, most salespeople are both highly competitive and assertive.

But the same qualities that make them excellent salespeople make them a challenge to manage. Of all the employees in an organization, those on the sales team are generally acknowledged as being the most difficult to handle. Since many view themselves as the engine that drives the company, they tend to have an oversize opinion of their own importance. This often leads them to feel they’re entitled to special treatment. They are non-conformists who value independence, dislike rules, don’t want to be managed and want to be left alone. They are more likely to challenge your authority than any other group of employees.

There’s no doubt that salespeople are cut from a different mold, and can be difficult to manage. Yet you must manage them, because otherwise their individualism and self-assuredness will lead them to do only what they want, the way they want to do it. This may result in poor sales, or just sales practices that you’re not comfortable with. Acknowledging that salespeople are different, and understanding how they’re different, will help you more effectively manage them and change behaviors as needed. Your salespeople differ from non-sales staff in three key ways: their work environment, their inherent traits and attributes, and what motivates them.

You can’t change their working environment or their personal attributes. But you can change their behavior — by determining what motivates them to perform and implementing motivational methods to achieve the behaviors you desire.