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. How exactly do you do that?

Motivating a Salesperson
Ask your non-sales staff what’s most important to them in their work, and you’re likely to get responses such as “a pleasant working environment,” “friendly coworkers,” “job security,” a “livable salary” and “a good retirement plan.” While salespeople certainly appreciate these factors, that’s not what motivates them to perform to the level, and in the manner, you want them to. Conventional wisdom says that the one and only motivator for salespeople is money, plain and simple. But it’s more complicated than that. Most business owners have had the experience of paying sales staff well and being disappointed in their performance.

Keeping them motivated with non-monetary incentives is crucial to getting them to conform to your needs. To determine the best non-monetary motivators, you first need to find out what drives each individual. For example, when I was hired to take over as national sales manager for a team of five salespeople and two sales engineers, the very first thing I did was sit down with each one individually to learn as much as I could about them. I asked questions about their styles, what made them tick, what drove them, what was important to them, and what they wanted and did not want from their sales manager. (For a sampling of the questions I use, see “Questions for Your Sales Staff.”)
As a result I was able to learn what motivated them to perform. My Philadelphia rep, for example, had always been the top money earner in her career. In that one meeting, I learned that what motivated her and drove her each day was not necessarily to be number one in unit sales, but being tops on the board each quarter in revenue. I created a “leader board” that measured sales in two ways — unit sales and revenue. Every month it was updated and distributed to the entire staff, and since she was usually the revenue leader, she was recognized for her achievements. In contrast, my Chicago rep needed frequent cheerleading and positive reinforcement to perform at his best. I made sure to speak with him by phone more often so I could deliver the pep talks and sincere praise that motivated him.