The Salesby5 Blog

Years ago I wrote a short paper on de-motivation in the work place and steps to overcome it. I have referenced this many times in our posts and at events we speak at. We have people who write us on advice on how to deal with a de-motivator in the workplace, friends and clients. This post is geared to the bosses, leaders, managers and supervisors since the word has not gotten out.

Take this for example: You hear your employees laughing, joking, having fun.

You do the following:

A. Have a meeting to discuss lack of productivity
B. Yell at them to get them to quiet down
C. Have a talk with them to make them more serious
D. Join in and find out how to do this all the time, every day

A, B, and C, can be complete assumptions unless you know for sure productivity has been hampered. My office has their most productive days when we are having fun. D may not be the answer for everyone and maybe not even be for some but at least you should ask. If one person is disturbed by the enjoyment of others, they may need to have more privacy or move locations within the office.

Being involved in about twenty political campaigns, the biggest being the mayoral campaign of San Antonio, something has come to my attention—the candidate matters! Their brand, their words regarding the benefit they offer, how they will offer that benefit, and of course, their dramatic difference. What is most amazing to me is how their team can help sell or un-sell them! Poor communication, lack of understanding regarding technology, communication etiquette and lack of personable skills all matter to an extreme. One person that does not fit the brand of the candidate can make all the difference in having people want to support with cash or time. One person has the ability to de-motivate a team of people that would do almost anything for someone. This is not just in politics of course! It is life.  If you or the people that work for you are leading other people, you are selling! When they are de-motivating, giving orders, throwing assumptions out and not living the values you preach, they are un-selling, therefore making it easy to compete against you.  Are you setting your team up for success, secondary leaders and a the ability to lead tribes of their own?

How do you treat your co-workers or employees? Your actions can sell or unsell them. Remember, it isn’t about motivation, it is about not demotivating your team.

“You have to treat your employees like customers.” – Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines

photo from 37signals.com

We discuss inspiration, strengths, and motivation vs. de-motivation. We blog about many other topics, but the common thread is that it all has enormous amounts to do with sales – internally and externally!  Yesterday we had a customer visit from 400 miles away and tell us all how much we have helped them and have made a giant difference! At the same time several team members sent me emails that completely inspired me as they complimented my ideas and strategy in numerous meetings. Everything matters and yesterday was exceptional.  Use this as stimulus to see how your team is inspiring customers and, of course, one another! One last thought: our goal is to inspire 2008 people in 2008. Why? It fuels our soul! photo by coolmitch

Today we had an interesting discussion about our culture and how it has dramatically changed. We used to allow the unacceptable and in my previous business it got to the point of ridiculousness. So if you want to change it so that your people are not de-motivating (un-selling) each other, you, your customers, what do you do? Remember the flywheel Jim Collins referenced in Good to Great. Imagine a giant, heavy wheel that moves an inch after much pushing.  With continuously dedicated pushing in a consistent direction you start seeing it speed up. Finally it is spinning.

Once you have your purpose, core values, brand promise and goals and BHAG in place and the leaders are living them, the flywheel starts to move! It is not over a week, but the movement in one month can inspire.  The movement in six months will make you shudder at where you were six months ago and in a year, it is all clarity so you can focus on the vision (BHAG). It can be fun if you have a great coach or a great team pulling, pushing and providing the inspiration. Once you get to this stage, you do not get to rest or relax, you then get to make sure that everyone is realizing how each person is living that brand promise and living the company’s purpose. How cool would it be if everyone is moving in the same direction with enthusiasm?  This is similar to a rowing team. What if one person did not row in the same direction once? What if they did not row the same direction two of five days? The rowing team would not allow it, why should you?

Summary: Selling starts with an attitude and reaches success with momentum. Selling on the inside gets sales on the outside and keeps the flywheel moving.  When were things the best?  Who is rowing against the team now and how fast can you fix it?

This morning I dropped off my dry cleaning, with a coupon.  This evening, I picked it up.  On the way home, I noticed that I had not received the proper pricing so I returned, receipt in hand and requested an adjustment.  The gentleman responded “Sorry, nothing I can do.  Only the manager can make that adjustment.”   Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint about my dry cleaner.  During the normal course of business, my dry cleaner must have been de-motivated by an F Player who did the wrong thing.  In response, they added a rule they thought was correct, but that makes their customers lives more difficult.  What if we all worked harder on hiring smarter and applied only a handful of rules Give your employees and your customers the benefit of the doubt and fire those that don’t deserve it.

Action item: Give your people a numerical precision element of empowerment. For Example, "You have $50.00 to do with what you need in the best interest of our customers and company." If your company has core values and a purpose, this will work. If it has neither, it may be a problem and you need to call us at 210-403-3916 now to fix your values and purpose.

Check out Seth Godin’s similar riff regarding answering the phone.

You get to decide as a customer, a buyer, and a parent what that may be.  As a buyer, for instance, you decide if it is okay to pay you in one day, 60 days or 120 days. If you let people pay you in 60 days, you have made it acceptable. If you are employed, would you continue working for a company that paid you in 60 days or 90 days when your check was supposed to be ready every two weeks? We each decide what is acceptable or unacceptable. If you do not decide, you have accepted.

What does this have to do with sales, Erik? Everything! If you are de-motivated by your boss, partner, co-worker- UNACCEPTABLE! If your customers are dragging you down by not paying you on time or complaining about 2 cents on every invoice: FIRE THEM! Set your standards and you will sell better and smarter. The best part is you can focus all your positive attention helping the people who deserve it versus the ones who are unacceptable!

So lately we’ve talked a lot about de-motivation. It can knock a sales person off their natural sales high and take a CEO from confident to wanting to leave and sell out from the company.  It comes from all angles.  It happens when your payment comes a month late, your commission check is in question and going to take a few more weeks, or your review has been postponed until next month.

There are hundreds of other situations, but the worst that SalesBy5 sees is to say one thing and do another. For example, we know of a few companies that have core values written BIG and BOLD on their office walls. The problem? They have a leader who does not follow, live, or enforce the values! This person lives by their own values or lack their of. They have much to do with communication and ethics and they affect the entire company. Core values are sets of behaviors that are in companies and organizations. They are behaviors that people respect/do not respect, love/loathe, and want to work for/run from.

People get hired by and quit companies people. How are you doing? How are your bosses doing? Actually, we know the answer for most of you.  Congratulations to the people who have a boss, teacher or supervisor who recognizes and appreciates your strengths and who compensates for your weaknesses!

 Today, tragically, a friend accidentally hit and killed Chester, Erik’s family dog with his car.  This evening he came by and apologized to the family.  Erik’s daughter, Devyn, gave him something he needed – forgiveness.  An amazing feat for a seven year old who just lost a member of the family.  She probably didn’t realize the new seed of peace she planted for everyone.

Have you hurt or demotivated an employee, team member, client or vendor?  Maybe you’ve been on the receiving end instead.  Take the opportunity to say “I’m sorry” or “I forgive you” quickly and genuinely.  Even in the most unfortunate cases, new opportunities for hope, peace and rebuilt relationships can sprout.

Farewell Chester, you brought happiness and joy to all those you touched during your special life.

This is from a real salesman and marketer from birth. This means it is my passion, my drive, my life, and it’s not a choice or option unless I want to be miserable!

When you market (develop warm leads) and sell (turn leads into customers and/or influencers) you get big highs! Highs not because of money, unless that is your only purpose, but highs that make you want to do more, help more, sell more and meet more people. If you are fortunate, you are this person or have someone like this working for you or with you.

Here’s what not to do: lower commission after you hire this person.  I quit a job managing 70 sales reps because my boss lowered all of the people I had just hired at 15% commission to 12% because “he needed to save money."  The 3% was enough, due to principle not money, for most of the salesmen to say goodbye with no regrets! The best way to de-motivate a sales force is make them sit in weak or pointless meetings (good ones are rare – ask us why our meeting rhythms rock a salesforce) or listen to an “arm chair warrior."

Here are some tips:
1.  Sales people that are naturals at it have highs because they love their job.  Find out how not to de-motivate them and keep them high! Here’s what Dell does:  The top 20% of sales people are not messed with at all, they let them use their strengths to be awesome! The middle are managed/lead to get better. The bottom percentage are in sales rehab or about to go work for Best Buy.

2.  Listen as much as you possibly can to both customers and people.  If your people want more print materials or folders to do their job, get rid of them, they are making print companies happy printing their crutches for weak sales. Great sales people need and use "see, feel, touch experience."  Marketing materials have a place, but it is not a substitute for a relationship built by real salespeople.

3.  The leading causes of de-motivation on sales people reside in a few issues. Salespeople are Ferraris, race horses, or greyhounds. The great ones are meant to race, go fast and will be less than optimum with hauling a trailer (making them a sales manager) or sitting in a barn (desk work/telemarketing).

4.  Great sales people love a challenge! My first challenge was self created and was a simple graph to make sure I was doing better each month. I cared more about the graph than the money and yet the two went hand in hand.

5.  If you have three sales people, the first with no goal, the second with a goal and the third that has a goal with numeric precision, the second sales person with a goal will hit 2x the revenue as the first and the third will hit 3x the revenue of the first.  The point is to have numerical precision (you will make $97,000.00 this year) for every sales person.

More to come in future blogs. The biggest tip is to watch out for de-motivators!