WEEK 48

SHARPEN YOUR TEAM MANAGEMENT SKILLS

About 18 years ago, I decided to open my own sales company. Before that, I had always worked for others. During my earlier years, I had had personal assistants working for me. But it was only when I opened my own company that I became a sales manager as well as doing my own sales.

At first, I made all the same dumb mistakes that most sales managers make. For example, I alienated my support staff. I didn’t realize how left out they felt when I set up contests for our salespeople and would reward top producers with prizes and bonuses. I lost some good people. Today, I try to bring in the support people by getting them involved in the success of the company and rewarding them accordingly. They contribute through sales leads, suggestions, and the like. It’s really made a difference—in the numbers, yes, but more so in the general office environment.

Another mistake I made: I assumed that everyone was motivated primarily by money. I found that if you rely primarily on cash and commissions to motivate your salespeople, you’ll probably have short-term success, but you tend to lose your top people to your competition and suffer high turnover in general. Salespeople crave recognition—it’s all about ego for them. Bringing in $1 million is great, but the good ones care more about how they compare to their peers than how much they brought in. If they aren’t recognized as part of an elite group, the dollar amount doesn’t mean much—it has no value outside of the commission for them. If you want to turn salespeople into order takers, use a commission system as your sole reward system.

The best thing you can do is to ask them how they want to be rewarded. Don’t just promote them to sales managers. This is usually a waste of a good salesperson. In terms of ego, they will initially be pleased with the promotion and the increased power and responsibility, but the promotion takes them away from their strength—selling.

Ask a top person how he or she prefers to be rewarded. Maybe the person wants to branch out to a different line of sales or wants to personalize his or her own reward system. One of my best people left me when I didn’t understand that he wanted to sell fewer homes at higher prices, instead of my way—selling more homes at lower prices. Actually our systems would have produced about the same revenue, but his was more efficient. When he saw my goals for him (selling substantially more houses), he quit. He felt I had no idea what motivated him and what success meant to him. I goofed up. I didn’t listen to him and what he wanted.

Sometimes you can reward people by giving them better tools to do their jobs. My secretary once asked me for her own fax machine next to her desk so she wouldn’t have to stand in line down the hall to fax a document. One of my buyer agents asked me for his own computer for his desk so he wouldn’t have to share one. These are both top people and giving them these things was a no-brainer. It made them happier and even more productive.

To motivate people now, I do weekend getaways and contests. I put a lot of energy into recognition, including little things like thank-you notes. Also, I try to pull my people out of their sales cocoons. Part of being a good sales team is being creative and thinking outside your immediate surroundings. For example, when I go to sporting events, I always ask myself how I could get $10 from every person there. Some of my schemes are fairly ridiculous, but that isn’t the point. It’s a great game I play with myself to help keep my creative juices flowing.

Another big mistake that sales managers often make is they forget to manage and revert back to their sales behavior. You see this with people who have been promoted to manager when they never should have been or they simply haven’t gotten the training they so desperately need.

This can happen when the salesperson brings them along to help seal a deal. In general, I think it’s a great idea to bring along a sales manager in the final negotiations. It makes the client feel important, and the manager is supposed to make the salesperson look good in front of the client. I recommend it 100 percent. But it can backfire when the manager wants to hog the spotlight. The manager is so excited to be back in the middle of a sale that his ego wants all the attention. So he pushes the salesperson into the background.

How can the salesperson develop a relationship with the client when the client sees that salesperson as a second-string player? The manager is sabotaging his salesperson. He must remember the manager’s job is to help his people achieve their goals. He has to change the way he thinks about success. It is no longer based on his own numbers, but on how good his team’s numbers are. Taking this step back is tough for successful salespeople because they are so used to being hands-on.

I’ve made all these mistakes and more but I try to learn from them. I’m a better manager and motivator now than I was 18 years ago, and I hope to be even better tomorrow. You can be, too!

 

Ralph’s Rule: The key to good sales management is to realize that managing is different from selling. It requires different skills and a different view of what’s important. Don’t try managing unless you’re willing to understand this difference.