Times are tough. The economy is bad. Sales are down over the same period last year, and we need more sales for the company to continue to exist. The sales staff is rarely in the office and we don’t know what they’re up to all the time. So, it’s time to micromanage the sales team! Right?

In the building services industry, we rely on a combination of external dynamics in order to bring in new business. This consists of a mixture of cold calling on new prospects, developing and nurturing relationships with prospective clients, being on the right bid lists, being at the right place at the right time ... and the state of the economy. In many situations, the salesperson can do little to compel the a prospective client to change vendors and must be professionally patient, quietly assertive and above all, come across as a resource and solution provider, not as a nuisance. But micromanaging isn’t the way to help the salesperson reach his or her goal.

In many situations, micromanaging builds structural discipline within the company, but with a sales team, it rapidly leads to a point of diminishing returns. One of the greatest “Sales Prevention Strategies” a company can implement is to inhibit the very people in the organization that have the ability to grow the business.

Much of that can be traced to the personality traits that make salespeople both successful in their jobs and challenging to manage. Building service executives must first try to understand their salespeople and their motivations before they can manage the team. Here is a rundown of some of those traits:

Confidence
When I speak to a group of salespeople, I ask if they know why the conference room has double doors. The a

nswer is, “so all of the egos can get inside.”
The great salesperson is energetic, optimistic, somewhat egocentric, self-assured and can take rejection on a daily basis. They exude confidence not only in themselves, but in the product or service they are selling. Strangers are considered potential customers or networking opportunities, and they never turn down a chance for a belly-to-belly meeting with a prospect. They not only know they are good at what they do, but are not shy in letting you know their sales attributes.

Granted, this type of vigorous personality can only be taken in short spurts by other people, but the dynamics of their individuality keeps them highly motivated and energized, and thus, ultimately producing new business so that the company’s economy is kept upwardly mobile.

Autonomy
A great salesperson never has to be jump-started, and functions best when left unsupervised for long periods of time. He or she has a very long prospect list and plans their day around how many people with whom they can get face time. They leap out of bed in the morning, dress in their best professional clothes, and start making phone calls on their cell phone before they even leave the driveway. They have a game plan for every day, and know that their time is money.

However, when autonomous salespeople are micromanaged, momentum is disrupted, and their game plans derailed. One of the chief mistakes a company makes with the sales team is to require they keep “normal” business hours, with lots of in-office face time so they can be “managed” and sift through piles of paperwork. This produces frustration and causes the reverse new sales affect — fewer sales.

Renegade behavior
While most salespeople can be described as downright bizarre, it’s this very renegade conduct that brings new sales into the business. The renegade salesperson sees sales opportunities or new business possibilities everywhere, and has learned not to step over the dollars to pick up the nickels and dimes.

Try to think of salespeople as “sales entrepreneurs.” They’re unique. They’re different. They cannot be put “into the box.” They’re also highly successful.

Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is defined as “the terror of being shut in a closed space.” Great producers getting itchy when sitting behind a desk for any extended period of time, and will get restless or begin screaming when shut in a closed office. The intuitive sales manager knows not to demand much desk time, but will encourage them to get out, and stay out, of the office.

Avoiding discouragement
All of these personality traits can be incompatible with micromanagement. The micromanager wants to clutch the puppet strings of their sales staff because they believe that unless they monitor their every move, the team will fail to achieve their quotas.

However, the opposite is true. Since the typical salesperson has a sizeable ego, their reward system often consists of encouraging words and positive feedback rather than by regaling them with discouragement and constantly shoving their quota in their face.

It is a proven fact in our industry that once on a roll, the salesperson will bring in a pool of new business for a period of time. Then, a natural lull may occur. The micromanager wants to intimidate and push the salesperson to bring in more sales when they might be caught in the industry economic dynamics that cannot be triggered by external/sales forces. To discourage the sales staff during a lull will prove deadly; however, by being their encourager and supporter, more sales will come in time.

A discouraged salesperson cannot and will not properly represent the company. Their discouragement will be displaced onto every prospect they come in contact with. Make sure you are the sales team’s advocate, not their chief opponent.

Compensation choices
A salesperson is also rewarded monetarily and uses the amount of money paid as a barometer to their success. Most BSCs pay their sales staff a good base salary, a percentage of new sales and a small percentage of residual sales, while the sales manager typically is paid a much higher base with an “override” of all new sales. This method of compensation for sales managers ensures they do not become the team’s competitor, but are paid the same amount whether they make the sell themselves or if one of their team members makes the sell. This reduces resentment among the sales team and will actually promote team work between manager and staff.

One typical mindset is when the sales team is earning more than high-level managers, it’s time to make drastic changes. The micromanager’s first instinct is to reduce the compensation, but by making the reduction, the reality is the company’s new sales will decline as well. When the commission structure is changed to the perceived detriment of the sales staff, they often won’t be motivated to sell.

Good salespeople are hard to find; great ones are even harder to come across and retain, so keep them motivated, encouraged, and out in the field. There are 365 days in a year. Taking time off for weekends, vacations, training and trade shows, there are only about 190 to 238 actual sales days in a year! This means only 1,520 to 1,904 hours per year to bring in new business, so make sure the sales staff is not kept from maximizing these hours to the best advantage.

Once micromanagers relax their grip, the team will begin to flourish because the staff has been empowered to do their job without restraints and begin to develop a high octane energy which, in turn, will bring more sales to the business.

Dannette Heeth, a veteran in the building services industry, is with Building Contractors Inc., a national service company with headquarters in Dallas. She will be presenting “Safety First: Learn the Critical Steps to Pass an OSHA Inspection” with Richard M. Heeth at the ISSA/Interclean 2003 show in Chicago on Oct. 15, 2003.




POSTED ON: 7/1/2003