Meetings, memos, and proclamations can be dangerous things when it comes to leading salespeople. I observe this with regularity among frustrated sales managers who wonder why their salespeople aren鈥檛 bringing in more business. Their solution? Apply pressure to the entire sales team and challenge their desire to succeed. Unfortunately, the approach fails.
I always equate these corrective edicts with the flight attendant picking up the microphone on a flight and waking sleeping passengers with the warning, 鈥淟ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the pilot has turned on the seatbelt sign and everyone needs to be in their seat!鈥� I wake startled, notice the woman in the green dress walking in the aisle, and wonder why the flight attendant is yelling at me. Talk to her!
It goes this way with salespeople and managers. If things aren鈥檛 going well, the easy solution is to levy criticism toward the whole group and presume that individual salespeople in crisis know what to do while successful performers will have the confidence to ignore the edict. Two thought leaders have proven this approach fails.
Daniel Goleman, the author of 鈥淓motional Intelligence,鈥� noted psychological factors that impede performance when negative pressures are applied. He discovered that the use of coercion, while effective in rare crisis situations, is an impediment to leadership success when striving to manage ordinary day-to-day functions of performers.
Goleman determined that establishing vision that empowers performers and coaching skills that fulfill the vision are the two most effective leadership styles when striving to build consistent optimum performance. In 鈥淟eaders Eat Last,鈥� Simon Sinek went further to illustrate the physiological effects of threatening environments versus safe ones.
A threatening environment triggers the release of adrenaline and cortisol, two hormones that create anxiety and inhibit learning. A safe environment releases dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. These hormones produce positive feelings that enhance learning. Serotonin calms; oxytocin escalates the feeling of love and connection; endorphins produce energy; and dopamine is the carrot that drives people to want more of whatever creates it.
I have asserted that the only way to manage salespeople effectively is one individual at a time. It makes sense when you consider the vast differences in skills, experience, and personalities of all the different individuals on a sales team. The profession of selling is as complex and requires more product knowledge than ever; adaptation to a multitude of technology platforms; classroom sales training; and, yes, time.
If a manager is yelling at his team or calling meetings to pressure for better results, it鈥檚 a sign that the manager feels salespeople need to be pushed towards success. If this is the case, then it鈥檚 a sure sign the manager has hired the wrong people. In the December 2023 issue of 麻豆传媒, I wrote about grit and the importance of finding it in sales candidates before you hire them.
A salesperson with grit, like any person with this essential trait, will eventually become great at what they do. The purpose of coaching and training is to speed up the process. This means identifying the skills necessary to succeed颅鈥攅.g., prospecting, listening, product knowledge, presentation skills, organizational skills, and more.
The best sales leaders I鈥檝e seen are calm and consistent. They do not react to or fear sudden changes because they have a process that works. They recognize that consistent performance leads to optimum outcomes. They build performance methodically.
My coaching experience has proven there are no shortcuts to build sales excellence. Constant pressure applied to salespeople rarely corrects any sales problem without performance coaching. The best method for building sales performers is to not presume they know how to perform the job until you鈥檝e verified performance.
This means training and coaching salespeople one at a time to ensure that each has the skills to perform consistently, and then verify performance in the field. It is a process that takes time, but the outcomes are enduring.
