MOTIVATING to Improve Morale in your Sales Force
By Peter Michie
Founder of The PERFORMAX Sales & Marketing Group Inc.,
experts in “change management” for sales and marketing
organizations.
Introduction
Several years ago I joined a smaller computer company as their
Western District Manager and was sent on a one way air trip to
the west coast to try to turn around an ailing sales team. Within
hours of arrival I was informed that:
- The economy was in the dumper
- Our products were no good & too expensive
- Competition was much stronger than us.
In fact, the reality was that the sales team were confused about
their roles, territories and accounts had complex overlaps; the
admin and support staff saw themselves as blockers versus enablers,
so when someone did sell something it was like pulling teeth to
get the product shipped and invoiced correctly; and 3 out of 4
sales managers had been put on notice by the previous DM, as the
whole sales team was way behind plan.
What was interesting to me was that my boss who attracted me
to join the company, had described the situation as an opportunity
as …
“all I had to do was fix the morale problem, and results
would take care of themselves”.
In fact, he was right and after 4 months we started selling
like crazy and morale soared as we stole major sales away from
the market dominant.
However, in that period I learned that obtaining high morale
is a real journey which involves a manager in:
- Ensuring a series of very positive things are put in place
- Removing stupid roadblocks and negatives
- Continual re-enforcement of the positives.
In retrospect the major factors affecting the morale
of a sales force might be put into 5 categories:
- Your Corporate Environment
- Your Company’s ability to deliver good Products and Services
- The Sales Organization itself
- The Character of the People in your Sales Force
- Your Leadership.
How do you Motivate Someone Else
Before examining each of these, which may be redundant without
answering the fundamental question, “Can you motivate someone
else (in sales or in any other endeavor)”.
As a non psychiatrist, my belief is that a person can receive
stimuli from another that motivates them to behave and act differently
or better, as shown by military leaders who can create reasons
that cause people to put their very lives at risk.
My experience proves to me that a good sales manager can and
does provide compelling reasons for people to perform to their
limits. Unfortunately, most times, in a sales organization the
larger job seems to be the removal of the 10,000 things that can
demotivate the sales team.
The Factors
In reviewing the 5 Factors above, the last one has to be the
most overworked word in the English language, Leadership!
What does it mean? For me it meant a series of very positive
things had to be done:
- Getting everyone back to a very simple mission; eg: our raison
d’etre was to exceed our Sales Goal by selling and implementing
our companies products & services (sounds stupid, but most
people had forgotten this)
- Translating the District’s Sales Goal into individual Accountabilities
for both Sales and Support Staff
- Ensuring that each person had a Plan of how to achieve their
Accountabilities
- Removing people who either did not like their Accountability,
or who could not see achieving it
- Constantly holding people to our Mission, their Plan and to
their Accountability
- Removing the silly obstacles that the Company kept coming
up with (many times this meant ignoring ridiculous edicts and
messages from HQ)
- Constantly recognizing Success!
Needless to say, the above sometimes involved some very frank,
tough talks; and sometimes, thank God, the more important "attaboy"
discussions.
The Corporate Environment obviously has an impact
on the sales morale…My consulting firm dealt with a large company
where senior management keeps changing; they announce a reorganization,
restructuring and downsizing every 6 months; the products and
services of the company are all old; there is no clear company
strategy; and, guess what, the morale of the sales force is very
low causing the best sales managers and sales professionals to
leave!
In short, no matter how good the Sales Leadership, if the company
is really messed up and keeps making stupid decisions, high morale
cannot be achieved.
Although it is almost a subset of the Corporate Environment,
I have experienced a situation where, even though there were many
good things in a company, the Company’s ability to deliver
good Products and Services as ordered by Customers was
totally messed up. As several sales professionals and managers
put it, "Selling is easy; our problems begin when we make
a sale".
Obviously, this can cripples a sales force and gives low performers
the excuses needed, and hence lower morale.
Obviously, a key morale factor is The Sales Organization
Itself. In my opinion the only real factor is the quality
of leadership and competency of the sales management team at all
levels: There is no such thing as a Sales Problem; only
Sales Management Problems!
Some of the most common obstacles to sales success, and hence
morale, are:
- The overall Sales Strategy & Plan, and its linkage to
a Marketing Plan, and many companies don’t have such documents
- The fairness of the sales Goal setting process
- The compensation plan to incent and reward the right behavior
- The structure, tools and sales processes available to the
sales force
- The fairness of the sales Goal setting process
- The compensation plan to incent and reward the right behavior
- The structure, tools and sales processes available to the
sales force
- The roles and training of the Sales Managers, many of whom
are very good sales people promoted without any management training
- The roles and training of the Sales Professionals, many of
whom are facing significant changes in roles, eg.: many end-user
sales people are being redeployed as indirect sales people,
selling either or through VARs or Distributors, etc.
Above all, the ability of a Sales Professional to see how to
succeed by having a clear Plan for achieving their Sales Goal.
And this takes us into the last factor affecting morale …The
Character of the People in your Sales Force, as, obviously
if you populate your Sales Team with whiners and snivellers, you
will not achieve your Sales Goals and Morale will always be low.
Always hire on Character as successful Sales People need to
be interesting people with ambition, focus, and discipline.
The follow-on to this is to get rid of the whiners and snivellers
as they will reduce the morale of the good ones.
Conclusion
I believe that a final outcome Goal for any Sales Team must
be to have a high morale, as I cannot think of a Sales Force who
has this and who is not achieving their Sales Goals with a large
percentage of that Force making high incomes, and feeling good
about themselves and their Team.
In the situation described in the Introduction, I learned that
you can develop high morale before the whole sales team is succeeding,
and, in fact, in a turnaround situation, the key role of the Manager
is to provide the kind of Leadership that creates a high focused,
very competitive, high morale Team, who believe in themselves,
and that anything is possible.
For myself, the reward in doing this was to see a failing sales
team recover, start to tear business away from competition, make
significant money for themselves and our company, and have a lot
of fun doing it, as in fact, our revenues doubled that year!!!
I hope that this article may spur you on to similar fulfilment....
Peter Michie
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