Top Sales Manager Blog

You don’t always have to think long-term. Let me say that again. As a top-performing sales manager, you don’t always have to think four or five years ahead. Sometimes you need to appreciate what’s in front of you, right now, when dealing with underperforming sales people.

When it comes to underperformers, you need to stop thinking about the war and start paying attention to the battle.

Focus on rewarding the “smaller” things – the small steps that might lead to a sale. Don’t wait until the actual sale is done before you start acknowledging their efforts. For example, you could praise an underperforming sales person for showing good probing techniques, for preparing a commendable opening statement, maintaining a solid rapport with other office staff, making good use of sales data, etc.

With an underperforming sales reps, praise all the basic stuff at first. But them, a simple, yet specific “Good job” from you means a lot…and could go a long way to turning them around now.

The point is to simply get your underperforming sales people moving in the direction of success.

They may not have reached it yet, but praise them all along the way by doing things “approximately right”…not withholding praise for only when they do things exactly right.

Use your influence as a model sales manager to guide them in that direction. Don’t be a seagull sales manager – that guy who spends his time criticizing and putting down his sales people. Trust me, you’ll get nowhere with that approach.

Here’s an example of how you could praise your underperformers as a way to condition them for the next goal. Lets say they were going into a call and did an excellent job using target data prior to the call that uncovered a specific client need. You might say this:

“I really like how you used our targeting data in your pre-call sales plan to uncover the client’s true needs during that last call. It was brilliant how you matched those needs with our product’s benefits. That was some really nice work.”

Pause for effect. Then say,

“So for the next meeting, I want you to focus on finding out what’s really holding the client back from buying our product. I’ve seen what you can do, and I’m sure you could pull this one better than our other sales people.”

You are using this one thing as a launch pad for even greater success. This is elementary human psychology, and it works!

You may also choose to follow up with a question after the initial praise. Remember that humans (and sales people are one of those), even underperformers, would always prefer their ideas over yours, simply because it’s their idea. As a top-performing sales manager, you must acknowledge this fact and incorporate it into your style.

For example in this case, you may follow up with:

“What do you think is the next logical step we should take to uncover the client’s reasons for not yet signing the deal with us?”

It’s that simple. A true sales manager acknowledges the power of his or her sales people to make a decision—yes, even underperformers. It is then his or her responsibility to guide the sales people to the right path to success.

Focus on the small everyday battles to win the war. Praise now for things done approximately correct…and don’t wait until later. And lastly, where appropriate, empower, don’t dominate.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

Filed under: Leading, Motivation, Underperformers by ralphburns