Hi to everybody, Can you tell me how to motivate sales people? please explain in detail so that it would be useful and be elaborate for me in the training programmes. regards prabakar
From India
1From India
Article "HOW TO MOTIVATE SALES STARS "
Take a stroll up and down the halls. Peek into your salespeople's offices and cubicles. What do you see? What are your reps most proud of?
One displays a Salesperson of the Year trophy on her credenza, flanked by two plaques.
One has framed a letter from the CEO on the wall, thanking the rep for all the great work he has done on the senior managers' advisory council.
The walls of one office are almost bare. There's just a framed quote that reads, "There's no limit to what you can achieve if you don't mind who gets the credit."
Another office, by contrast, is cluttered: The rep has lined the walls with letters of praise from customers.
All four salespeople are top performers. All regularly surpass quota. All are equally driven--but by different needs. It's your job to find out what those needs are, which is no easy task. "Managers often fail because they impose one style of motivating on the sales force, forgetting that individuals are what make it go," says Roland A. DeSilva, a New York executive recruiter. "To be an effective manager, you have to know and motivate each salesperson as an individual."
Well, help is on the way. The Gallup Management Consulting Group has identified four general personality types: the Competitor, the Achiever, the Ego-Driven, and the Service-Oriented. You may have come up with names or categories of your own. Whatever the case, here are some suggestions, culled from sales executives and consultants, on how to motivate these varied personalities:
The Competitor One who wants to beat colleagues or the competition.
For competitors to really savor winning, someone has to lose -- or at lease finish second. "True competitors don't know what win/win means," says Donald O. Clifton, the Gallup Organization's chairman. "It's got to be win/lose."
It's no surprise that those competitors thrive on sales contests. "To motivate someone who's highly competitive, you've got to give them a clear sense of what winning is," says Jon Judge, assistant general manager of field operations for IBM U.S., in White Plains, New York. "They need some form of quota, some way to keep score, and contests usually provide this."
IBM's main contest is its Golden Circle program, which recognizes the top 10 percent of its sales force by sending reps, as a group, to a resort with their spouses. To join the elite ranks, salespeople must, among other things, meet clear-cut sales quotas and deliver customer satisfaction, as reflected in surveys. "There are measurable ways for you to become part of that top ten percent," Judge says. "Criteria a competitor can grasp."
"Competitors respond to any sort of symbol that shows they have won--monthly standings, plaques, perks," says Steven Rauschkolb, director of sales and medical education for Schering-Plough, in Kenilworth, New Jersey.
But contests don't always have to be formal. Smart managers can pit competitors against each other in more subtle ways. Just ask Rauschkolb--he was a young competitor once.
"Early in my selling career, I remember being the top salesperson in my office for three, four, and five months in a row, and I got complacent and cocky," he says. "Then a new guy came on board. We were selling similar territories, and he started to beat me out for salesman of the month. My manager, who knew I had been getting complacent, said, 'Hey, hot shot, this rookie's beating you up. If you don't pick it up, we'll give him your territory.
That fired up Rauschkolb, and the other salesman, too. "You had two top performers trying to beat the hell out of each other every month," Rauschkolb says. "It brought us both to a higher level. It really stimulated us."
That stimulation can be effective, but managers beware: Hyper competitors are often moody. Just as they love the stimulation of battle, so, too, do they hate -- hate!--to lose. "We've got a guy in our corporate office who comes right out and says he doesn't care what it takes, he just wants to win," says Mark Albert, general sales manager, AB Dick Products Company of Siouxland, Sioux Falls, Iowa. "But when he loses, man, it crushes him. I mean, he won't even face it for a couple of days. He'll get down on himself really heavily."
When that happens, Albert makes a point of trying to cheer him up. He reminds the rep of what he has accomplished. Once, Albert framed a flattering announcement about the rep that appeared in the company newsletter, and put it over his desk. "He loved it. He's a ham," Albert says. "But mostly, it reinforced that he's a great salesman, and that he has a lot to be proud of. When he's down, he needs to hear that."
The Achiever One who is almost purely self-motivated
For many managers, the achiever is the ideal salesperson. The dream. She sets her own goals, which are usually higher than those set for her. She's a team player, because she doesn't care who takes the credit, as long as the team wins. She's driven to accomplish objectives, not to satisfy her ego.
So how do you motivate sales people who are already self-motivated? Make sure they are continually challenged. Randall Murphy, president of Acclivus Corporation, a Dallas consulting and training firm, suggests devising a long-term, professional development plan with an achiever. "Sit down with her and identify three key aspects of her job: what she's good at already, what she can improve on, and what she's not good at that she needs to learn," he says. "Then, together, set goals for improvement in each of these areas. Maybe she's not strong in financial matters, so make that a training priority. You want to convey the sense that long-term growth is important, and that she's not just in a thirty-day rat race for revenue."
Some executives motivate achievers simply by leaving them alone. "Our corporate culture appeals to someone who is self-motivated, because people are expected to manage their own time, territory, and customer base," says Robin Tenneson, director of corporate training for Oce-USA, an office- and engineering-systems company in Chicago. "We hire achiever types because we don't want to have to babysit for them. We give them broad goals, and let them run with the ball. That freedom alone is a great motivator."
But don't mistake achievers for lone rangers. On the contrary, they are often motivated by helping the team or company reach its goals. Achievers possess a maturity and breadth of vision, executives say, that make them ideally suited for management.
So, here's an obvious way to motivate achievers: Groom them for the executive suite. "They have all the right qualities for leadership," says Dean P. Andrews, vice president and managing director of the Omni Hotel at Charleston Place, in Charleston, South Carolina. "If they show an interest in management, we'll invest in them. Train them. Get them to schools that teach better negotiating. To keep them challenged, you have to pull them out of the pure sales environment, broaden their vision and spheres of influence."
"It will pay off," Andrews adds, "because achievers are the types of people who can step in, and think and act like an owner. They can think strategically, set goals, and take on responsibilities."
But whatever you do, don't micro-manage achievers. It's unnecessary, and they may resent it. "You can give an achiever ideas on how to tap a market, or how to boost sales. You can steer them, but don't give them orders or mandates," says Mark Sutherland, vice president of sales and marketing, Carolina Ribbon Corporation in Greensboro, North Carolina. "Let them be their own boss."
The Ego-Driven One who thinks he's the best, regardless of the competition.
Where the competitor says, "I am better than you," the ego-driven salesperson says, "I am the best--who could possibly compete with me?" This is someone who wants much more than plaques or trips. Someone who wants to be an expert, a mentor. More than anything, ego-driven salespeople want to be significant. And smart managers give them exactly what they want.
"We'll let an ego-driven top performer take young reps under his wing, to coach them and mentor them," says Paul Fichtman, director of sales and support for the network enable sales organization of Unisys Corporation in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. "Ego types like it when a young rep puts them up on a pedestal. We like it, too, because it drives that ego person to keep producing. After all, if he achieves his sales targets, it validates him as being a mentor. You can't be a mentor without the bottom-line performance to back it up."
Nothing motivates an ego-driven rep more than being asked advice, says Mick Zangari, managing director of the Gallup Management Consulting Group. "Put them on the president's advisory council, or on significant committees. Consult with them."
In some cases, doing so can prevent an ego-driven top performer from leaving the company. Zangari tells the story of a rep who was named salesman of the year by a software company with which Gallup consulted. He had out-sold his colleagues two-to-one. Upon receiving his award at a black-tie banquet, he asked the president of the company if he could, impromptu, take the mike. The president obliged.
The salesman then thanked him and the vice president of sales for their support. There was applause. He turned to his colleagues and said that they have a unique opportunity to succeed, because they have a great product and work for a great company More applause.
Then he dropped the bomb. "He said that he understood there was a task force meeting to change the compensation system, and to eliminate one product from commission," Zangari says. "The salesman said, if the company did that, he would walk.
"The president of the company took him aside later and basically said, 'If this means that much to you, we'll put you on the task force.' The rep agreed, and while the company did eventually eliminate the product from commission, it managed to keep its top producer. "The lesson is, include the ego people in your decision-making," Zangari says.
The Service-Oriented One whose strengths are possessing empathy and building relationships.
This type may be the most neglected of salespeople. Perhaps it's because they don't bring in the blockbuster accounts, like killer competitors do. Or they don't have egos that are larger than their territories.
Frequently, management feels about service types the way Unisys's Fichtman does. "Honestly, I'm lukewarm on this type because they're really not out there thrashing new ground," he says. "They may keep out the competition, but they won't move you forward. Besides, I can train a hyper competitor to service customers, but I can't train a service type to be competitive." (Or, as one manager puts it: "It's easier to file down the claws of tigers than to teach sheep to attack.")
It's ironic, because service types may be the most customer-driven, and everywhere you turn, Corporate America's mantra is: delight the customer, delight the customer, delight the customer.
Well, one way to motivate these silent heroes is to tell their stories publicly. "We'll recognize great service through company-wide memos, and by telling war stories at company functions," says Robert W. Stichman, vice president of sales for Wyo-Ben, Inc., a mining company in Billings, Montana. "We once had a situation where a customer received material that didn't meet his specifications. The salesman found out what the problem was, went back to the production people, and worked very closely with them until they corrected the problem. Then we sent the new shipment of material to the customer, who was delighted. He actually came to me and told me how happy he was, and how he couldn't say enough about the efforts of our rep and the production people."
Stichman wrote a two-paragraph memo praising the rep, and sent it to everyone in the company. The rep was held up as a role model. "Everyone came out a winner: the rep, the customer, the company," Stichman says. "You can't let the opportunity pass to recognize great service."
Part of the reason it hasn't been recognized is that companies are slow to measure service in the way they measure meeting quotas. One way, of course, is to survey customers. Another is to collect letters of praise from clients. Still another is to measure customer retention.
Whatever the method, the measurements pay dividends. "The cost of acquiring new business is much higher than that of maintaining current accounts," Rauschkolb says. "It follows that if you have people who are adept at servicing accounts, then they should be well-rewarded."
Since service-driven reps aren't bringing in new business--and so aren't getting the huge commissions--Rauschkolb suggests awarding them coveted perks. "You might give them larger expense accounts than other people have, or give them bigger car allowances and nicer cars," he says. "This makes sense for business, too, because they spend so much time entertaining and keeping in touch with current customers."
In the end, Rauschkolb says, the service-driven salesperson's contribution should be weighed against the demands of the marketplace. "Someone who just maintains their business in a region where the industry has grown twenty-five percent could be fired for falling behind," he says. "But a salesperson who maintains business in a territory that is highly competitive may be a real hero. And if he's a hero, then treat him like a hero."
By
GEOFFREY BREWER
JSF
From India, Bangalore
Take a stroll up and down the halls. Peek into your salespeople's offices and cubicles. What do you see? What are your reps most proud of?
One displays a Salesperson of the Year trophy on her credenza, flanked by two plaques.
One has framed a letter from the CEO on the wall, thanking the rep for all the great work he has done on the senior managers' advisory council.
The walls of one office are almost bare. There's just a framed quote that reads, "There's no limit to what you can achieve if you don't mind who gets the credit."
Another office, by contrast, is cluttered: The rep has lined the walls with letters of praise from customers.
All four salespeople are top performers. All regularly surpass quota. All are equally driven--but by different needs. It's your job to find out what those needs are, which is no easy task. "Managers often fail because they impose one style of motivating on the sales force, forgetting that individuals are what make it go," says Roland A. DeSilva, a New York executive recruiter. "To be an effective manager, you have to know and motivate each salesperson as an individual."
Well, help is on the way. The Gallup Management Consulting Group has identified four general personality types: the Competitor, the Achiever, the Ego-Driven, and the Service-Oriented. You may have come up with names or categories of your own. Whatever the case, here are some suggestions, culled from sales executives and consultants, on how to motivate these varied personalities:
The Competitor One who wants to beat colleagues or the competition.
For competitors to really savor winning, someone has to lose -- or at lease finish second. "True competitors don't know what win/win means," says Donald O. Clifton, the Gallup Organization's chairman. "It's got to be win/lose."
It's no surprise that those competitors thrive on sales contests. "To motivate someone who's highly competitive, you've got to give them a clear sense of what winning is," says Jon Judge, assistant general manager of field operations for IBM U.S., in White Plains, New York. "They need some form of quota, some way to keep score, and contests usually provide this."
IBM's main contest is its Golden Circle program, which recognizes the top 10 percent of its sales force by sending reps, as a group, to a resort with their spouses. To join the elite ranks, salespeople must, among other things, meet clear-cut sales quotas and deliver customer satisfaction, as reflected in surveys. "There are measurable ways for you to become part of that top ten percent," Judge says. "Criteria a competitor can grasp."
"Competitors respond to any sort of symbol that shows they have won--monthly standings, plaques, perks," says Steven Rauschkolb, director of sales and medical education for Schering-Plough, in Kenilworth, New Jersey.
But contests don't always have to be formal. Smart managers can pit competitors against each other in more subtle ways. Just ask Rauschkolb--he was a young competitor once.
"Early in my selling career, I remember being the top salesperson in my office for three, four, and five months in a row, and I got complacent and cocky," he says. "Then a new guy came on board. We were selling similar territories, and he started to beat me out for salesman of the month. My manager, who knew I had been getting complacent, said, 'Hey, hot shot, this rookie's beating you up. If you don't pick it up, we'll give him your territory.
That fired up Rauschkolb, and the other salesman, too. "You had two top performers trying to beat the hell out of each other every month," Rauschkolb says. "It brought us both to a higher level. It really stimulated us."
That stimulation can be effective, but managers beware: Hyper competitors are often moody. Just as they love the stimulation of battle, so, too, do they hate -- hate!--to lose. "We've got a guy in our corporate office who comes right out and says he doesn't care what it takes, he just wants to win," says Mark Albert, general sales manager, AB Dick Products Company of Siouxland, Sioux Falls, Iowa. "But when he loses, man, it crushes him. I mean, he won't even face it for a couple of days. He'll get down on himself really heavily."
When that happens, Albert makes a point of trying to cheer him up. He reminds the rep of what he has accomplished. Once, Albert framed a flattering announcement about the rep that appeared in the company newsletter, and put it over his desk. "He loved it. He's a ham," Albert says. "But mostly, it reinforced that he's a great salesman, and that he has a lot to be proud of. When he's down, he needs to hear that."
The Achiever One who is almost purely self-motivated
For many managers, the achiever is the ideal salesperson. The dream. She sets her own goals, which are usually higher than those set for her. She's a team player, because she doesn't care who takes the credit, as long as the team wins. She's driven to accomplish objectives, not to satisfy her ego.
So how do you motivate sales people who are already self-motivated? Make sure they are continually challenged. Randall Murphy, president of Acclivus Corporation, a Dallas consulting and training firm, suggests devising a long-term, professional development plan with an achiever. "Sit down with her and identify three key aspects of her job: what she's good at already, what she can improve on, and what she's not good at that she needs to learn," he says. "Then, together, set goals for improvement in each of these areas. Maybe she's not strong in financial matters, so make that a training priority. You want to convey the sense that long-term growth is important, and that she's not just in a thirty-day rat race for revenue."
Some executives motivate achievers simply by leaving them alone. "Our corporate culture appeals to someone who is self-motivated, because people are expected to manage their own time, territory, and customer base," says Robin Tenneson, director of corporate training for Oce-USA, an office- and engineering-systems company in Chicago. "We hire achiever types because we don't want to have to babysit for them. We give them broad goals, and let them run with the ball. That freedom alone is a great motivator."
But don't mistake achievers for lone rangers. On the contrary, they are often motivated by helping the team or company reach its goals. Achievers possess a maturity and breadth of vision, executives say, that make them ideally suited for management.
So, here's an obvious way to motivate achievers: Groom them for the executive suite. "They have all the right qualities for leadership," says Dean P. Andrews, vice president and managing director of the Omni Hotel at Charleston Place, in Charleston, South Carolina. "If they show an interest in management, we'll invest in them. Train them. Get them to schools that teach better negotiating. To keep them challenged, you have to pull them out of the pure sales environment, broaden their vision and spheres of influence."
"It will pay off," Andrews adds, "because achievers are the types of people who can step in, and think and act like an owner. They can think strategically, set goals, and take on responsibilities."
But whatever you do, don't micro-manage achievers. It's unnecessary, and they may resent it. "You can give an achiever ideas on how to tap a market, or how to boost sales. You can steer them, but don't give them orders or mandates," says Mark Sutherland, vice president of sales and marketing, Carolina Ribbon Corporation in Greensboro, North Carolina. "Let them be their own boss."
The Ego-Driven One who thinks he's the best, regardless of the competition.
Where the competitor says, "I am better than you," the ego-driven salesperson says, "I am the best--who could possibly compete with me?" This is someone who wants much more than plaques or trips. Someone who wants to be an expert, a mentor. More than anything, ego-driven salespeople want to be significant. And smart managers give them exactly what they want.
"We'll let an ego-driven top performer take young reps under his wing, to coach them and mentor them," says Paul Fichtman, director of sales and support for the network enable sales organization of Unisys Corporation in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. "Ego types like it when a young rep puts them up on a pedestal. We like it, too, because it drives that ego person to keep producing. After all, if he achieves his sales targets, it validates him as being a mentor. You can't be a mentor without the bottom-line performance to back it up."
Nothing motivates an ego-driven rep more than being asked advice, says Mick Zangari, managing director of the Gallup Management Consulting Group. "Put them on the president's advisory council, or on significant committees. Consult with them."
In some cases, doing so can prevent an ego-driven top performer from leaving the company. Zangari tells the story of a rep who was named salesman of the year by a software company with which Gallup consulted. He had out-sold his colleagues two-to-one. Upon receiving his award at a black-tie banquet, he asked the president of the company if he could, impromptu, take the mike. The president obliged.
The salesman then thanked him and the vice president of sales for their support. There was applause. He turned to his colleagues and said that they have a unique opportunity to succeed, because they have a great product and work for a great company More applause.
Then he dropped the bomb. "He said that he understood there was a task force meeting to change the compensation system, and to eliminate one product from commission," Zangari says. "The salesman said, if the company did that, he would walk.
"The president of the company took him aside later and basically said, 'If this means that much to you, we'll put you on the task force.' The rep agreed, and while the company did eventually eliminate the product from commission, it managed to keep its top producer. "The lesson is, include the ego people in your decision-making," Zangari says.
The Service-Oriented One whose strengths are possessing empathy and building relationships.
This type may be the most neglected of salespeople. Perhaps it's because they don't bring in the blockbuster accounts, like killer competitors do. Or they don't have egos that are larger than their territories.
Frequently, management feels about service types the way Unisys's Fichtman does. "Honestly, I'm lukewarm on this type because they're really not out there thrashing new ground," he says. "They may keep out the competition, but they won't move you forward. Besides, I can train a hyper competitor to service customers, but I can't train a service type to be competitive." (Or, as one manager puts it: "It's easier to file down the claws of tigers than to teach sheep to attack.")
It's ironic, because service types may be the most customer-driven, and everywhere you turn, Corporate America's mantra is: delight the customer, delight the customer, delight the customer.
Well, one way to motivate these silent heroes is to tell their stories publicly. "We'll recognize great service through company-wide memos, and by telling war stories at company functions," says Robert W. Stichman, vice president of sales for Wyo-Ben, Inc., a mining company in Billings, Montana. "We once had a situation where a customer received material that didn't meet his specifications. The salesman found out what the problem was, went back to the production people, and worked very closely with them until they corrected the problem. Then we sent the new shipment of material to the customer, who was delighted. He actually came to me and told me how happy he was, and how he couldn't say enough about the efforts of our rep and the production people."
Stichman wrote a two-paragraph memo praising the rep, and sent it to everyone in the company. The rep was held up as a role model. "Everyone came out a winner: the rep, the customer, the company," Stichman says. "You can't let the opportunity pass to recognize great service."
Part of the reason it hasn't been recognized is that companies are slow to measure service in the way they measure meeting quotas. One way, of course, is to survey customers. Another is to collect letters of praise from clients. Still another is to measure customer retention.
Whatever the method, the measurements pay dividends. "The cost of acquiring new business is much higher than that of maintaining current accounts," Rauschkolb says. "It follows that if you have people who are adept at servicing accounts, then they should be well-rewarded."
Since service-driven reps aren't bringing in new business--and so aren't getting the huge commissions--Rauschkolb suggests awarding them coveted perks. "You might give them larger expense accounts than other people have, or give them bigger car allowances and nicer cars," he says. "This makes sense for business, too, because they spend so much time entertaining and keeping in touch with current customers."
In the end, Rauschkolb says, the service-driven salesperson's contribution should be weighed against the demands of the marketplace. "Someone who just maintains their business in a region where the industry has grown twenty-five percent could be fired for falling behind," he says. "But a salesperson who maintains business in a territory that is highly competitive may be a real hero. And if he's a hero, then treat him like a hero."
By
GEOFFREY BREWER
JSF
From India, Bangalore
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