Companies need a good hiring process to help them thoroughly assess sales talent and find the best fit for your position and your company.
Here are a few tips to help you hire great sales talent:
1. Define your ideal candidate. Before you start the hiring process, take some time to think about the type of person you want to hire. What skills and knowledge do they need to be successful today, and what traits must they have to adapt to their buyers’ needs in the future? What personality will they need to be a good fit for your company?
Here’s a list of the capabilities and traits I think reps should possess. Use this list to start your own.
Traits: Curious, Willing to learn, Self-motivated, Resilient, Adaptable, Success-driven, Organized, and Coachable.
Capabilities: Uses a defined sales process, has marketing and or printing knowledge, ability to write, speak, and present, is active on LinkedIn, comfortable using technology, and has a basic understanding of data.
2. After you know what you are looking for, write a great job posting. First, keep in mind that you will be competing with all the other companies trying to hire sales talent both in and outside the printing industry. Your post must get the attention of the type of rep you want. To attract great talent, job postings need to tell the candidate about the opportunity from their point of view. Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and think about what your position will offer to them. Does your role offer them flexibility? Does it offer an opportunity to build a larger sales organization? Will they have the autonomy to make decisions about where to focus? Will they have input into new product offerings? Do you want them to execute an existing strategy or build their own? Today good reps want to know how your company will support their efforts. If you conduct ongoing lead generation tactics, include that information in your posting. Share the developmental opportunities you offer, like attending conferences, association memberships, online training programs, and tuition reimbursement options. Be clear about salary and overall target earnings expected for the role in both year one and once the rep ramps up. Be sure to include information about your company culture and the characteristics the candidate should possess to be a great fit for your organization.
3. Put all of your oars in the water. Today you can’t rely on just one or two methods to promote your position. You have to get the word out across all of your channels. Make sure you post the position on job boards like Indeed and your website. Use social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your position. Make sure current employees know you are trying to hire a rep so they can promote your company to their friends and in their networks. Customers who love your company can also refer candidates, so let them know you are growing and hiring. Your supplier and professional networks can also steer candidates your way, so encourage them to spread the word.
4. Build an interview plan. Hiring is difficult, and it’s easy to make a mistake, so build a plan where multiple people can help you make the best decision. Will HR vet incoming applications to look for promising candidates? Who will conduct phone interviews to weed out candidates that aren’t a match? Which managers will interview candidates and when? Will you offer them the option to shadow an existing rep as part of their evaluation process? Will you use an outside assessment service to validate your thinking? Will you ask the candidate to create a plan for their first 90 days or make a presentation to your management team as part of the process? Who will check references when you have narrowed the field of candidates? How long should the process take? Today, great candidates are receiving multiple offers, so it’s important to set good expectations about both the steps in your process and how long it will take to complete them.
5. Meet in person. After conducting phone interviews and online interviews, your will want to meet with promising candidates in person. This is an opportunity for them to meet with different team members and get a feel for your company culture. Both online and in-person interviews give you a chance to assess the candidate’s preparation, their ability to think on their feet, and their energy levels. Still, in-person interviews help you and the candidate get to know each other better. The candidate will see your culture in action to help them decide if your position is a good fit and vice versa. Remember you will compete for this candidate, so meeting in person is an opportunity for you to show them how important they will be to your organization. Walk the path your candidate will take once they’re inside your shop. Will they stand in the lobby waiting ten minutes before anyone acknowledges them? Will they walk past trash bins piled high as they make their way to your office? If they use the restroom, will it be in working order? All these things say something about your company and how you feel about your employees, so put your best foot forward. Use signage to welcome candidates and be prepared with refreshments. When you show the candidate around your company, introduce your employees, and demonstrate that you know your employees and care about them as people.
The hiring process for sales reps can be tough, but it’s important to take the time to find the right candidate. The average cost to replace a sales rep today can be as much as $115,000 depending on the company. This includes hard costs for recruiters, online job posting services, interviewer time, testing, training, and losing potential customers and revenue. At the same time, a position is open during the ramp-up period. By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to finding someone who is knowledgeable, passionate, and a good fit for your company culture—someone who will help take your business to the next level!
If you need help assessing your current talent, hiring sales talent or training and coaching them, Evolve may be able to help. Fill out the contact form below and let’s have a conversation.
I’m a big baseball fan, and my favorite team is the St. Louis Cardinals. Hopefully, by the time you read this, they will still be playing and on their way to the World Series. But if not, it was a terrific season filled with memories. Part of the fun centered around the probable final seasons for three great Cardinals, Adam Wainright, Yadier Molina, and Albert Pujols.
I have followed Albert Pujols since he first joined the Cards in 2001 when he was a unanimous choice for the Rookie of the Year Award. Despite having plenty of other things to pray for, I’m pretty sure I sent up a few that the Cards would figure out how to resign him in 2011. Alas, they didn’t, and he headed to the Los Angeles Angels where he played until 2021. Much to the chagrin of Angels fans, he was never quite the player he was in St. Louis. In 2021, after being unceremoniously fired by the Angels, he finished the year with the Dodgers. Instantly, there were glimmers of his former greatness and he helped the Dodgers in a pretty good season which ended with a loss to the Braves in the league Championship Series.
Pujols showed that he still had a little baseball life in him with the Dodgers and the Cards signed him to a one-year contract for the 2022 season. Albert batted .270 after a low of .198 in his last year with the Angels. He hit 24 home runs, making his lifetime total 703 as I write this, fourth on the all-time home run list just behind Babe Ruth. Pujols has been instrumental in getting the Cards to the playoffs at the ripe old age of 42. Why the big change? I think it’s because he’s happy playing with his old friends Yadi and Wainright, happy he can meaningfully contribute to the team, and happy to be winning.
Here’s where the baseball story intersects with business. In my conversations with business owners, I’ve started to notice a trend. Many of them, especially in the last twelve months, have shared that they have noticed their employees being less than nice to customers and to each other. Owners describe these instances as if the employees are annoyed by customers or fellow employees to the extent that they want to end the interaction and just get back to their “to-do” lists.
Employee engagement is at an all-time low with Gartner reporting that only 21% of all employees worldwide classify themselves as engaged in their work. Unengaged employees create all kinds of problems for a business but owners often misread the signs. According to PerkBox, a global benefits, and rewards company, here’s what happens when employees aren’t engaged in their work:
· Productivity and the quality of work decline
· Employees withdraw from the team
· Employees take more frequent breaks and more time off
· Employees have no appetite for challenge or responsibility
· Employees are less likely to show up on time and they often head for the door earlier
· Employees call in sick more often
· Employees exhibit negative attitudes
· Timely response to requests and deadlines declines
· Learning and improving are no longer a focus
Some owners mistakenly think that a vacation or raise can impact an engagement problem. Time off and raises can help in the short term, but they don’t fix the problem in the long run.
Once workers become disengaged, it permeates the culture of the company and can take years to rectify. Unfortunately, if owners fail to recognize how deeply rooted their engagement issues are, it can lead to low profitability and closure.
When I hear stories that indicate an engagement problem, the owner is often burying his/her head in the sand. They think the symptoms of disengagement will abate as business picks up or as open positions are filled. More work pushed into a business that isn’t working productively makes the problem worse. New employees brought into a workforce struggling with engagement will either become disengaged themselves or leave quickly.
Happy employees aren’t necessarily engaged employees but engaged employees are likely to be happy. Research conducted by British Telecom firm BT, found that workers are 13% more productive when happy. More research from Harvard Business Review found that organizations with happy and engaged employees are 22% more productive than organizations with lower employee engagement and satisfaction rates.
Just like negativity, happiness is contagious. I was recently in a candy store in Louisville, Kentucky, and ran across a clerk who was practically holding court. He was so excited about the product, that he happily shared his thoughts on the ingredients, the production process, and the owner’s philosophy. People were drawn into the store from the street because of his enthusiasm. He happened to be training a new person who was on the other side of the store engaging with customers in much the same way as the training employee was. His happiness was contagious and that store was definitely selling more candy than had the clerks been scrolling through their cell phones or chatting with each other.
For business owners, I think it’s important to think about your teams in this new light. One of my clients recently shared how one department within his business just seems to be “on it”. He sees them as always pushing themselves to learn new things and work smarter and faster. As I probed, he began to conclude that the success in the one department had evolved over time and was linked to one employee who joined a few years back who was happy. He thinks the other employees gravitated to her and away from the leader of the department who tended to be negative. Within the year, the negative leader moved but the team didn’t suffer from the disruption, they flourished. My client felt, after thinking about it, that the team had been a catalyst for the whole organization to become happier and more engaged. This department decorates the office for holidays, runs contests frequently to get other departments involved in the fun, and seemed to have spearheaded an employee culture renaissance. This company has grown by over 25% annually since 2020.
A core group of employees can change everything and even one employee can be the catalyst. As we head toward 2023, it’s a good time to take stock of your employees. Who are the happiest and the catalysts that make others better? Also consider employees who may once have been engaged and productive but have slowly declined in productivity. Is it because they have lost a spark that used to make them happy? Can you surround them with people who could once again bring out the best in them?
Lastly, consider your happiness. Has the disruption since the pandemic started in 2020 caused you to lose a spark? Are you finding it more difficult to take on the serious challenges in your business and easier to just keep on doing the same old things? Are you engaged in developing your own business and its culture or are you just focused on getting to the end of another day?
If you are happy, you will attract happy people and that will lead to engagement and productivity. Are you Albert Pujols who just needed to be happy again to be productive? Focus on the things that make you happy and carry those things in your heart when you go to work every day.
If you are looking for a spark to reignite your love of business ownership, sales management or sales, executive or sales coaching or the Evolve Peer Group could be the answer. Use the contact form below to let me know and we’ll schedule a phone call.
According to Gartner, the average number of stakeholders in a business-to-business sale today is eleven, and that number can occasionally flex to twenty or more in larger organizations. When the Challenger Sale was published in 2016, its authors Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon pointed out the average number of stakeholders was 6.8, representing a 25% jump from the 5.4 average number from a 2014 study. For those of you counting, 11 represents a 49% increase in the average number of stakeholders in a B2B decision since 2014.
If you sell to smaller companies, the number of stakeholders in your target sale may be lower, but it’s still more than one. This matters because the likelihood of closing a deal decreases as the number of decision-makers increases.
As a sales coach, I know it’s essential to engage all of the critical stakeholders when trying to make a sale, but far too many reps count on one contact to do the selling for them. During coaching sessions, I’ll ask: Who are the key stakeholders? Almost 100% of the time (at least initially before we start working on it), the rep has one contact, and it’s often a lower-level stakeholder like a designer, traffic manager, or office manager. Not so coincidently, their pipelines are full of stalled opportunities.
In fact, 38% of purchase attempts end in a “no decision,” according to a 2020 study completed by Challenger. This number is high,largely because B2B sellersdon’t do a great job of engaging the right or enough of the stakeholders who will be in involved in the decision. When stakeholders are out of the loop, on different pages, unclear about the business case, and unsure of the reasons to choose a specific provider, decisions stall.
When I think of all the wasted time quoting and hoping that goes on within printing companies today, it boggles my mind. Now we have to add sourcing paper to the mix, which I’m told is taking hours if not days. If you put these two facts together, just think of the time wasted on the 38% of projects that will likely end in a “no decision”. It’s time to stop the madness.
Fixing this problem requires both short- and long-term changes.
Let’s start with the short-term changes.
Improve the qualification criteria before you quote or propose. Here are some questions to ask your rep(s) or yourself before quoting: Who owns the objective? If the objective is to generate leads, is the rep talking to the person who owns that objective?
Does the rep know what drove the customer to have their objective, i.e., the problems they are experiencing? Does the rep know what success looks like for the customer? What results must be possible for them to move forward with the project? What criteria must the supplier demonstrate to be selected?
Does the rep know how the customer will track whether they successfully accomplished their objective? If not, the project may be a “one-hit wonder” with no opportunity for long-term growth.
If it’s a new customer, does the rep know what supplier was doing the project before? Has the rep asked the customer if the opportunity exists for your company to become a primary supplier, or will this “new account” go back to their previous supplier when they have a better offer? What is the long-term potential of this account? If your rep doesn’t know the answer to this question, he or she could spend a lot of time on an opportunity that can’t grow instead of one that could.
Does your rep know all the stakeholders, and are they talking to them? If the rep knows them but isn’t talking to them, there is a high probability of a “no” or “lost” decision. In North America, only 9% of sales reps’ relationships are matrixed, meaning the rep has formed multiple relationships at different levels of the client’s company.
65% of customer relationships rely solely on one contact, according to the Demand Gen Report 2016 ABM Benchmark Survey.
Has your rep asked the customer what they need to see from you to consider you a long-term partner? If not, this customer could be shopping to keep their current vendor in line and plans to go back to the existing provider. Getting all stakeholders on board for a permanent switch will require a plan. If your rep asks the question, both the rep and you will be smarter about where to spend your time and resources.
When I ask a rep who isn’t focused on developing relationships with key stakeholders, they will almost 100% of the time try to sell me on the fact that their contact “loves them” and wants to give them the business. That may be true, but it probably isn’t enough to win the business.
Corporate Executive Board data found that 51% of customers who might be willing to buy from a supplier aren’t willing to advocate for the supplier internally to help get the deal done.
They may love the rep but not enough to fight for them inside their company. Opportunities that rely on one contact’s ability to sell you internally have a high probability of failure. That means all the time spent by sales and your estimating team will likely be wasted.
Now, let’s talk about the long-term strategies to improve your win rates.
1) Define your sales process and force your reps to use it consistently. Moving through a defined process, knowing the answers that you need to qualify opportunities, and using that process consistently will deliver 18% higher revenue growth, according to the Sales Management Association.
2) Define your account development process. Know your customer’s challenges and how print can help them address those challenges and use a closed-loop sales process to lead from one opportunity to the next.
According to the 2022 MarketHire Survey of Marketing Professionals, 75% of marketing professionals believe there is still a wave of resignations to come in marketing departments due to the “great resignation.”
Most marketing departments are experiencing 27% – 30% turnover. Your key stakeholders, mainly coming from the marketing ranks, are covering open positions and worn out. Things are going to bog down. If you aren’t using a strong sales process that leads from one opportunity to the next and engaging all stakeholders, you are going to leave opportunity on the table. Without a good process, your reps will be waiting by the phone for customers to call and not be in control of their incomes or your success.
3) Set goals for your reps and have regular structured conversations about their plans to meet those goals. Help them strategize, ensure they follow the sales process and help them understand when opportunities aren’t qualified and what they have to do to get them qualified. They should be spending their time on opportunities where the possibility exists for a long-term mutually beneficial relationship with a customer.
It’s more challenging to sell today than it once was, and many reps claim it isn’t fun anymore. But those reps haven’t evolved; they haven’t continued to improve their skills or sales process. For the reps who have evolved, they are still selling and having fun doing it.
What type of reps do you have?
Use the contact form below to start a conversation about your sales process and your sales team.
There is a sequel to The Great Resignation known as The Great Regret. There are some lessons that owners can take away from both phenomena to ensure they are doing everything possible to keep employees engaged and attract great talent.
The Great Resignation
The pandemic disrupted almost every business on the planet. The impact on organizations and employees’ lives has been unlike anything most of us have ever seen. As manufacturers, printers were luckier than many businesses because most employees still had to come to work. But that wasn’t the case for a lot of your customers.
According to McKinsey and Company, 87% of employees offered a chance to work remotely took it. The business world learned that 35% of job holders could work from home full time, and another 23% could do so part-time. That’s 92 million people from a cross-section of jobs and employment types who now have the option to work from home for all or part of the week. Your sales and customer service teams are dealing with this now and are likely seeing emails from customer contacts early in the morning and well into the night. You may have noticed that customer expectations have changed as their work hours have shifted. If it was hard to reach a customer before the pandemic, it’s even harder now. Remote workers have embraced buying just about anything over the Internet, and Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur digitally.
For sales reps, a successful “drop-in” is a rarity and even more annoying for decision makers than pre-pandemic. Today, decision-makers in the office for less than a week find their days loaded with internal meetings and have little time to meet with sales reps eager to find a problem they can fix. Reaching customers will only worsen for reps who can’t use insight to start compelling conversations via email, phone, or LinkedIn.
As remote workers became disengaged from their fellow employees, company cultures, and daily routines, they, in vast numbers, looked outside the company for new opportunities. This massive shift, known as the Great Resignation, saw more than 4 million workers per month leaving their positions starting in mid-2021.
According to Pew Research, workers sought greener grass for a complex set of reasons, but these are the top ones:
more money
new opportunities
they felt disrespected or underappreciated by their employer
their child care situation changed
they needed more flexibility due to changing work-family dynamics
felt their benefits were inadequate
wanted to relocate
wanted fewer or more hours
As the economy ramped up, more jobs existed than people to fill them. Employers started throwing money at the problem to fill spots, and wages increased. Wage inflation made it even harder for small businesses to compete for talent with larger companies with deeper pockets. Amongst the larger organizations, ever-increasing salaries, hourly rates, and perks continued to lure workers away from jobs they may have held for years had the pandemic not occurred.
For the printing industry, the employees most likely to leave were the good ones. Mediocre or poor performers didn’t have the skills larger firms were looking for or the initiative to investigate other options. They stayed, making it even harder for printing companies to improve productivity, and grow or lure good young talent to the company.
The Great Regret
It turns out that for many participants in the great resignation, the grass was not greener. A recent article in Forbes notes that one our of five employees who left their companies during the Great Resignation regret their decision.
According to Statista, these are the top reasons many of those who switched jobs later regretted their decision.
40% found it more challenging than expected to find a new position.
22% miss the people at their old job.
17% don’t think their new job is what lived up to its advanced billing, with 9% saying that the culture and management are bad.
3% said their new job was not worth the higher pay.
The Big Lesson
The free time associated with the initial shutdowns and the general disruptions to daily lives forced workers to consider what they wanted out of their work-life balance. Many workers had been on the proverbial treadmill for years. They hadn’t taken the time to consider what they wanted from their positions, employers or lives. They ranked a more fulfilling role, a higher salary, greater flexibility, and recognition of their worth at the tops of their lists. Many weren’t getting those things in their current roles and didn’t get them from new jobs either.
Since 2020, I have had many conversations with business owners who lost a great employee or were trying to save one thinking about leaving. Many owners responded to the threat by raising pay, but they didn’t stop to revise job responsibilities. They raised payroll costs but not necessarily productivity or profit.
While money is essential, it’s not the only thing employees are looking for, and many owners have failed to capitalize on the non-monetary things they could offer their employees.
Here are my tips to craft positions that meet the needs of today’s workforce.
1) Greater Flexibility – in 2021, one of the owners I work with lost a great employee because the owner insisted that he come back into the office. His position as the “data guy” is one where working remotely can improve efficiency. He needed quality time with fewer interruptions, and working from home at the start of the pandemic gave him precisely what he needed. His owner feared that others would want the same flexibility, so he denied the request. The employee loved his job and didn’t want to leave, but he felt he had earned the right to more flexibility. When his owner denied his request saying, “If I let you do it, I’ll have to let others,” he felt unappreciated and left the company.
I have another owner who just landed a great sales rep because of his flexibility. The new hire is also a college football referee. He needs to leave early on Fridays for out-of-town games. This owner didn’t see this request as something that would take the rep away from his work. He was happy to work something out with the employee and now has an incredibly gifted and grateful employee.
I work with another owner who employs a “data/digital guy” with a special needs child. The owner gives him the flexibility he needs to be a great Dad. The employee happily works more hours than required and saves the company money because of his commitment to proactive problem-solving and process improvement.
I coach a senior manager for a company outside the printing industry. A great employee resigned to fulfill his dream of traveling through Europe with his wife before starting a family. He had saved his money and planned to be gone for six months. My client didn’t want to lose his excellent employee, so he figured out a way for him to work remotely in another area of the company for 10 hours a week while traveling. The employee earns money while traveling and fulfills a vital role where the company is shorthanded. The senior manager devised a themed game for the team to track “Jack’s Travel” with pushpins on a map as he moves from country to country. The whole team is having fun with it, and the company will keep its great employee because they were willing to try something they hadn’t done in the past.
Get to know your employees both as workers and as people. Find out if your job gives them what they need to lead fulfilling lives. If they need more flexibility, try to provide them with what they need. A company with a great culture cares about employees as people and productive employees and will look for ways to give employees the flexibility to perform both roles well.
If you are clear about position responsibilities, have open and direct conversations about the flexibility you can offer and what you expect in return. Flexibility can be one of your best tools in retaining and recruiting talent.
2) Recognition of Worth – Many of the owners I work with have their heads down working in their business and fail to recognize the efforts of their employees. I know they want to do it, but they think they will get to it as soon as they’ve cleared their “to-do” list. Their “to-do” lists are never-ending. Some may think they need to do something big to thank employees, but the big thing keeps sinking to the bottom of the list of things to do.
I talk to employees all the time who don’t think their owners see what they do or appreciate their efforts, mainly because the owner never says anything positive to them. They only hear from their owners when they haven’t done something.
Great employees need to be seen. They need to know that their hard work is recognized, and when they don’t receive validation, they stop caring. When employees stop caring, they are disengaged, make more mistakes, are absent more often, are less happy at work, and are less productive. Disengaged workers cost US businesses $550 Billion annually.
I spoke to a sales rep today whose role is completely disconnected from the position defined by his owner when hired. He has years of expertise in the industry and thought he would be joining a team that welcomed his new ideas about what to sell and how to produce it efficiently. That isn’t happening. He feels his suggestions are falling on deaf ears, and he is frustrated and doesn’t see how things can improve. On a joint call with his manager, the rep was trying to point out that sales were up YOY in his area. The owner didn’t even respond to the statement. The rep was looking for an ‘atta-boy,” and the owner completely missed the chance.
He is a great rep, has tons of successful selling experience, and he’s a flight risk. The owner is busy with a zillion owner worries and doesn’t realize the extent of the problem. This employee is struggling to overcome the inertia of a team that’s been together for years and doesn’t want to extend itself. The new rep doesn’t feel appreciated or as if he is positively impacting the company. The owner had a chance to reassure him he is valued and the problems will be fixed, but he said nothing. Without intervention, this employee will find another position.
According to Gallup, only 32% of employees today consider themselves engaged, and 17% are actively disengaged. This year’s survey also showed a sharp drop in employees who strongly agreed that their employer cares about their overall well-being. Owners who don’t listen to their employee’s concerns or demonstrate an effort to investigate and resolve the problem are saying, “I don’t care about you or what you think.”
Employees of large corporations can argue that they feel like a number, but that should never happen in a small business. Owners and senior managers need to walk around, talk to their employees daily and give every employee one-on-one time throughout the year. Owners should ask their managers which employees are doing a great job and ensure they seek out the employees, recognize their efforts, and thank them.
One of my favorite customers makes it a point to serve every employee on all three shifts when the company has significant events. She works for 24 hours straight but has the opportunity to talk to every employee and thank them for their efforts. She has more than 250 employees, but she does it twice a year because it’s important. I work with a couple of her employees, and they would run through fire if she asked them to do it.
3) A More Fulfilling Role – This is as close to an ace in the hole as small businesses can have in today’s post-pandemic world. All employees, good and bad, want something from their role. Some may want to fly under the radar and work as few hours to earn as much money as possible. But I think most want to contribute to the success of their companies. The good ones want to grow, learn new things and take on new challenges. Learning something outside of your immediate position is not easy in larger organizations. A customer service rep for a large enterprise who may be interested in starting a new business will not have the opportunity to learn about accounting, HR, or production functions in a large corporation.
Small businesses can offer that to employees interested in learning other aspects of the business. One of the businesses I work with has a bookkeeper who loves the company and wants more hours. The owner can’t give her more bookkeeping hours, but he did need someone to follow up on his lead generation campaigns. He asked her if she would be interested in learning how to do that, and she jumped at the chance. I’ve only coached her for a few weeks, but she is eager, hardworking, and a fast learner. I have worked with many sales reps in my career who aren’t any of those things, so her enthusiasm is a step in the right direction and a big indication of whether she’ll succeed.
Owners need to talk to employees about what they find fulfilling in their current roles and what they don’t. Great questions to ask are:
How does what you do daily compare to what you thought you would do?
How are you having an impact on the company?
What things would you like to learn outside of your current role?
What other ways could you help the company move forward?
4) A Higher Salary – employees always have competing goals. They may love your company and their position but have households and retirement to pay for, so the prospect of earning more matters. But in today’s post-pandemic world, many have also learned that the big paycheck may not outweigh the other important things they want.
As a small business owner, you may be unable to match the salaries offered by larger organizations or desperate competitors. But the more you understand your employees and the needs of prospective employees, the more options you have to put together a package that helps them achieve more of their goals on their terms.
The only way to know what an employee or candidate wants is to ask them about their professional and personal goals. Don’t be afraid if they want to travel through Europe, open a business themselves one day, retire at age 50 or become an NFL Referee. People with goals work hard to achieve them, and you can capitalize on that motivation for your business if you construct jobs that give them a path forward while they help you achieve your goals.
Be open to more options to reinforce your commitment to existing employees and attract great candidates. Seek out employees looking for more than just a paycheck. Capitalize on the fact that you are a small business and have a greater ability to be flexible. Offer a wider variety of professional experiences to employees interested in learning and growing. Finally, demonstrate your commitment to the health and well-being of your employees and their families by helping employees construct jobs that give them room for both.
There are positive sales reps and there are negative sales reps. There always have been but the negative ones seem to be spiraling given the chaos since 2020. Here’s a couple of things I’ve seen with reps that contribute to spiraling negativity:
1) I’ve been on calls with reps, had a great conversation with a customer and come out thinking “wow, lots of opportunity”. On the walk to the car, the rep apologizes for taking me on an unproductive call. I heard opportunity, the rep didn’t. We talk about what I saw and next steps the rep should take to keep it moving but rarely does the rep take those steps. They just didn’t see the opportunity and if you can’t see it, you can’t move toward it. I think it’s because these types of reps want things to be easy. They want the customer say “here’s an order” or “give me a quote on this” and If they don’t hear that, they don’t think there’s anything there. I work with other reps where they see opportunity all over the place. In the parking lot, we talk about the priorities and next steps and the reps take those steps. They see it, so they more toward it. The first step in seeing opportunity is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and think about what impacts their ability to their job. Developing personas for each customer type can help with this in a more formal way. In an informal way, reps should take the time to think through what the customer does, how they do it and what obstacles they are likely facing. This will give the rep more empathy for their customer’s situation and new insight into how they can tap into the customer’s challenges.
2) Joint Calls – going on sales calls with a colleague changes things up and gives reps a new perspective. The second person often hears different things than the person leading the call. Reps see what other reps do and say and take little bits away to incorporate into their processes. Reps should do more joint calls and not just with their manager or a technical resource but with each other. Having just one sales call during a sales cycle with multiple participants from your company makes the chances of closing the deal 258% more likely than flying solo during the entire sales cycle.
I personally love the idea of changing your surroundings. Coming in to the same desk every day, walking to the same coffee pot, talking to the same people can create a rut especially if those people are their own ruts. Taking a walk, going on a joint call, working from a coffee shop or moving to different locations in your house if you are working from home help to change perspective and hopefully new possibilities.
I previously posted an article about how to tap into what motivates each sales rep on your team. In this article I’m going to talk about things that owners do, often unintentionally, that de-motivate their sellers.
When I graduated from college, I had planned to go to law school but needed to earn some money first. Both my parents were in sales so that seemed like the most logical thing. I remember my mom distinctly saying that she thought the world would be a better place if everyone had to spend at least some time in a sales position. My mom, like Thomas Watson Sr., an early president of IBM, believed “nothing happens in business until something gets sold.”
Thomas Watson was right but despite their need for sales, I still run into owners who have little respect for professional selling. There are lots of reasons this happens but it could very well be a “chicken and an egg” thing. Do they think poorly of sellers because theirs have been bad? or do they have bad sellers because they don’t respect the position?
I tend to think it’s the latter. Because they have a bad or incorrect perception of professional selling, they don’t hire correctly and end up with reps who fulfill their prophecy.
Lacking respect for selling comes in different forms. Owners don’t like to be sold to and they don’t realize that those bad sales experiences are because the rep isn’t using a professional sales process. It’s not enjoyable when a rep pitches products that you don’t think you need, doesn’t help you understand why it makes sense for your business or badgers you to make a decision. Professional selling is about finding people with the problems that your solution can fix, not selling people something they don’t need.
“She’s a Good Talker”
Some owners think that selling is easy. A lot of owners think a good sales rep just has to be able to talk to people. This can’t be farther from the truth. There are more extroverts in sales for sure but I think this is often because they didn’t have another career choice. Since they were talkative and personable, others who didn’t understand what professional selling was about, told them that selling would be a good career choice. This is probably the reason that 55% of the people making their living in sales don’t have the right skills to be successful. (Brevet Group) In reality, introverts are just as successful, if not more, than extroverts in selling positions.
Owners who think that selling success comes from just getting out there and talking to people, often get just that. They get reps who waste time “popping in” to see customers who don’t have time to talk to them, reps who drive two hours to meet with a customer with no specific objective in mind, and reps who end up selling on price because they are just peddling products. This type of rep can also deliver a “double whammy” to their companies because the rep talks the ears off of their colleagues. Not only are they unproductive sellers, but they also have a negative impact on the productivity of their colleagues. Selling success is not about being a good talker or a people person.
Professional selling requires a high degree of business acumen, research, and a plan. The best sellers will spend more time thinking and planning than doing. Thinking and planning make their “doing” more productive. A lot of owners don’t see the value in the thinking and planning part so they say things like “why don’t you get out of the office and go see some customers?” A poor rep just takes their lack of a plan on the road which racks up expenses and often annoys potential customers. When an owner or manager tells a good rep to get out of the office, the rep feels their process isn’t respected, their skills are unappreciated and they become an attrition risk.
Not Noticing the Little Things
The other thing that great sellers do is see beyond what’s in front of them. When I’m coaching reps and we’re discussing a new opportunity, I always ask them what they see beyond this first opportunity. Mid-range or poor reps never see the account’s full potential. I’ll get answers like “they buy a lot of print”. Great reps see beyond the here and now to what could be and they start to methodically do the things necessary to make the larger opportunity materialize. They answer my question with more specificity. They see programs, branded print portals, and more and bigger opportunities. They often understand how their customer is connected in the marketplace and understand how success with that customer will help them get into other accounts.
Big deals and large revenue accounts don’t happen easily. They are the culmination of many little steps leading to the big opportunity. If the owner or manager doesn’t respect the rep’s methodical approach to developing bigger opportunities, they tend to think the rep is too focused on small stuff or that the rep should leave the small stuff to others in the company so they “can back out and sell”. For a great rep who is doing those little things with a purpose, it’s demotivating to have an owner who doesn’t understand. All the owner needs to do is ask the rep about their plan. A great rep will have one and be able to share the “why” behind the little things they are doing which may not look big at the moment. The owner in many cases just doesn’t ask.
The reason this happens may well be how the business started. If it started as a retail quick print shop, the owner will likely think with a retail mentality. The owner may still believe that all the rep has to do is bring the first job in and the internal team will ensure customer loyalty. In today’s competitive environment, this just isn’t the case. While it’s important for the internal team to deliver a great customer experience, that alone will not maximize customer lifetime value. A professional sales approach is needed to find the right types of customers, develop bigger and more lucrative opportunities and close them.
“He’s so lazy”
Another way owners show disrespect is by talking about their sellers in negative ways to others in the company. This is not something you see when the sales rep is good but you see it all the time when reps are mid-range or lower performers. I was visiting a company recently and overheard an owner telling a customer service rep that the sales rep was lazy. The rep may, in fact, be lazy but undermining their credibility with their co-workers is not the best way to motivate them to change. In this case, it may not have been the rep’s fault at all. The company was lacking in solid processes, the rep hadn’t been trained and wasn’t being given good direction about where to focus. It’s entirely possible the rep isn’t lazy at all but simply doesn’t know what to do or how to do it. If this is the case, the rep’s credibility has been undermined and their efforts to change likely will be too.
Snide Remarks About Compensation
Casting aspirations on a rep’s compensation is another way that owners show disrespect to their reps. This is of critical importance for a high-performing rep. As I mentioned in last month’s article, great reps don’t do it for the money. The money is a manifestation of their intrinsic motivation to solve problems, have an impact, help their company grow, accomplish goals, and win or not lose. When an owner questions their compensation, it’s like saying “I don’t see or respect what you are doing.” A surefire way to create an attrition risk with a great rep is to nit-pick their compensation or make snide remarks about how much the rep is being paid. Even if the owner thinks they are saying it in jest, the rep will hear it as disrespect.
Years ago, I went to work for a value-added reseller of mini-computers. The company was a higher ed software solution company but had a legacy division that sold hardware to general markets. I was the only rep in that area. The plan was for me to learn about computers and then move into the division selling software and hardware to colleges. The manager who hired me was great. She respected how hard I worked and the processes I used to sell. She helped me grow as a rep and couldn’t have been happier when I got big commission checks. I flourished and even though I was in an obscure division of the company, was one of the top sellers in the whole company.
My great manager eventually left the company and I ended up reporting to someone with a primary operations background. He didn’t spend a lot of time talking to me so didn’t really understand how I continued to exceed my goals. Every time he had to sign off on a commission check, he would make a snide comment about how I made more than him. I don’t know if he actually respected what I did or not, but I didn’t think he did. I just remember walking out of his office multiple times angry and thinking I needed to find another job. That’s exactly what I did do. When I resigned, he tried to talk me into staying but I was leaving him more than I was leaving the company.
Mediocre reps spend their time going through company sales reports trying to put their name on things they had little to do with in order to get a commission. Great reps may have small jobs too but they are the groundwork for larger opportunities and the small commission is, for them, the beginning of a larger plan coming together. Owners have to know the difference or they risk reinforcing bad behaviors with poor reps and demonstrating a lack of respect for good reps who have a long-term plan.
Lack of Feedback
The last thing owners can do to de-motivate their best reps and those in the middle, who could be good, is to ignore them. Great reps and reps who are trying to improve need feedback to grow. They need to brainstorm and they need reinforcement that their managers see the things they are doing that may not have borne fruit yet but will one day. Managers who don’t give reps time or reinforcement, look like they don’t care. Reps who don’t think their managers care about them leave. On the other hand, bad reps like to fly under the radar so if their managers aren’t talking to them, they are happy because no one is holding them accountable. Without feedback, bad behaviors fester, good behaviors go unrecognized and performance isn’t maximized.
Understanding what motivates your sales team is critical to getting the best out of each person. But it is equally as important to avoid shooting yourself in the foot with negligent behaviors that de-motivate your sales team. I find that much of this happens inadvertently because owners are distracted by running their business and just can’t find the time to invest in developing their sales rep or sales team. Your “to-do” list will never be complete and if you find yourself in this situation, get help. You risk losing the reps who can help your company grow or worse, keeping the ones who are in the way of your growth.
