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Why Salespeople Fail and What Managers Can Do About It |
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Written by Keith Rosen
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"Why do salespeople fail?" A question that managers, as well as their salespeople have asked for decades. Whether your team consists of one thousand salespeople or just one, the simple fact stands; avalanches roll downhill. It starts from the top. That's why the first of six principles managers need to incorporate in order to build a world class sales team is this:
Strategy # 1: Take Full Responsibility For Your Salespeople
While there are many symptoms as to why a salesperson fails, it is the reluctance on the manager's side to take on this full accountability which is the leading cause of a salesperson's failure. Here are just a handful of excuses that managers have used to justify why their salespeople fail.
1. I inherited my sales team. I didn't hire these people.
2. We don't have time for a sales training and coaching program.
3. Turnover is just something we just have to deal with.
4. We can't offer competitive packages like other companies can. It's straight commission.
5. The salespeople are really independent contractors. So if they need help, they should get help on their own.
6.. Needed help? Then they should have come to us. We would have helped them.
7. It's hard to find good sales talent out there now. Our market is super competitive and this is what I have to work with.
Since you are evaluated or compensated by how successful your team is, then tolerating these excuses will come at a heavy price. Once you take full accountability for yourself as well as each person on your sales team, you are now able to empower others to be fully accountable for themselves.
What follows are five additional strategies that any manager can begin to implement in order to build a team of sales champions. For those salespeople who are reading this and feel these strategies only apply to management, consider this. The more awareness you have around the role you and your manager play in your overall success and failure, the more you can educate and help your manager best support and manage you around these areas which you may feel you have less control over.
Strategy # 2: Develop your Skills as a Coach
The coaching model is based on the belief that the question is the answer. Coaching isn't about giving information. The coach is responsible for people finding the answers themselves and developing their own problem-solving skills. And being able to self generate solutions and solve problems on your own is the premise of coaching; a competency that; like learning any new discipline, sport or hobby needs to be learned and developed over time.
Strategy # 3: Consistent Weekly Coaching
While some managers tell me they don't always have the time to meet with their team, think about the things that are taking you away from coaching and meeting with your team. Many of the issues and the problems you're dealing with are actually a result of not coaching and connecting with your team. If you have a team of five or ten salespeople, it's much easier to manage your time and your schedule to accommodate weekly, one-to-one meetings. It's when you have a larger team that makes it more of a challenge strictly due to time constraints. While group or team coaching is also an option to fill in some developmental gaps, there is still no substitute to providing individualized attention. I suggest a minimum of two individualized coaching session per month for each member of your team, understanding that weekly one-to one coaching sessions would be ideal.
Strategy #4: Develop a 30 Day New Hire Strong Start Orientation Program
Regardless of your product or sales cycle, every manager needs to be able to confidently assess whether or not someone is going to 'make it' within their first thirty days on the job. If you feel you're unable to do so, it's because you haven't taken the time to outline what the measurables are--What do you expect from a new hire within the first thirty days? What do you want them to learn or achieve each day?
There are other factors you can use to gauge if you made the right hire, such as their commitment, their sales acumen, assimilation of product and industry knowledge, pre-selling activities and their overall attitude. Are they following through with any preliminary work that needs to be completed before they're ready to sell on their own? Do they have a routine and a selling system that's ready to be executed? Are they doing the basic, (e.g. showing up to work on time)?
Strategy #5: Develop More Diligent Hiring Procedures
Many companies institute additional steps into their hiring process to help better gauge the person's work ethic before they're actually hired. For example, have the new candidate go out and ride with the manager for a half day or with a salesperson you trust to get a good sense of who they are, and for the candidate to get a feel for what their day-to-day responsibilities would look like. The number of interviews plays a huge role in reducing failure amongst salespeople. The more interviews you conduct, the more interviews the candidate has with various people within your organization, the less of a chance you will make the wrong hiring decision.
Strategy #6: Develop and Implement a Tactical Turnaround Strategy
There are a myriad of reasons why a salesperson fails and why a turnaround strategy is a vital component needed to ensure their long-term success. Managers need to be acutely aware and sensitive to the fact that some turnaround situations will result in termination or the salesperson deciding to leave on his own accord. Regardless of the underlying reason why a salesperson isn't performing up to desired expectations, a four week turnaround program will help you identify what's really going on and provide you with the framework to quickly determine how you can turn around an underperformer in less than thirty days or whether you and your company are better off without them.
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Keith Rosen |
| About the author: |
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Keith Rosen, President of Profit Builders, is the executive sales coach that top salespeople and managers call first. As a prominent, engaging speaker and Master Certified Coach, Keith is one of the foremost authorities on assisting people to achieve positive, measurable changes in their attitudes, in their behaviors, and in their results. A best selling author, Keith has written several books including, Time Management for Sales Professionals, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cold Calling and Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions. For his work as a pioneer in the coaching profession, Inc. magazine and Fast Company named Keith one of the five most respected and influential executive coaches in the country. Software Sales Journal named Keith's company one of the Top Nine Best Training Firms. Keith is also a frequent contributor for Selling Power Live, CBSNews.com, Sales and Marketing Management and has been appointed as the Expert Sales Advisor for AllBusiness.com. For more resources or to inquire about Keith's coaching and training programs, visit Keith Rosen at www.ProfitBuilders.com where you can also order his proven prospecting and cold calling template, Permission Based Prospecting that's guaranteed to get you in front of more qualified prospects, fast. Call Keith at 516-771-1444 or email him at
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. Subscribe to his newsletter, The Winners Path, http://www.profitbuilders.com/winnerspath.htm .
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