While reviewing the recent sales assessment data compared with the same data from before the recession, two changes jump out at me.

The first is Excuse Making.  While the 74% who under achieve have always been big excuse makers compared to the over achieving 6% and the achieving 20%, there has been a marked increase in Excuse Making in the past 18 months.  Salespeople are pointing fingers outwardly rather than at themselves, a dangerous trend.  Until salespeople (and sales managers) take responsibility for their results, they won't change what they're doing.  Until they say, "I wasn't effective enough", they won't ask the follow up question, "What could I have done differently to get a better outcome?".

The second is Money Motivated. Has the criticism of Wall Street and the myriad of people who were living above their means caused salespeople to feel embarrassed about their desire to earn more money?  Nothing has changed with the elite 6% and the achieving 20%. But the under performing 74%, as a group, have become money indifferent!  If you can't motivate your B and C players in the most challenging times by having them set goals so that they can earn more money, then how can you motivate them?

You can always rely on recognition, competition, incentives (contests), promotions, and challenges.  But are they powerful enough to replace the ability to earn enough money to get more stuff, property and travel?  Have salespeople actually become a group of people who will sell because it's the right thing to do?

What are your thoughts?  We'll continue this discussion on today's (2-24-10) Noon ET episode of Meet the Sales Experts with my guest, Bill Eckstrom, founder and President of EcSell Institute.

(c) Copyright 2010 Dave Kurlan

Arno was kind enough to point my attention to this great video presentation from Dan Pink on the science of motivation. 

Dan uses science, examples and case histories to tell us that almost everything we thought about motivation is wrong....or is it?

He never mentioned sales, selling, the sales force and salespeople specifically, but we do know that he said this:

"When the focus and goal are clear - incentives work great."  

That condition is certainly in play for incentive programs, contests, rewards and awards.  And it's in play for many compensation plans too.  But are the focus and goal always clear?  When salespeople take our assessments, one of the questions asks by how much they exceeded or missed their quota or goal.  The data shows that a significant percentage of salespeople don't have a goal or a quota!  He also said:

"When you don't want the worker focused, and you want them thinking on the periphery, then incentives don't work."

That condition is certainly in play for new companies and start-ups who are finding their way, finding a market, finding partners, and have no existing revenue stream.  A salary is the appropriate way to compensate the first salespeople on board in this scenario.

If we look at the data from the 450,000 salespeople who have been assessed by Objective Management Group, the percentage of findings which show lack of money motivation (especially among higher income earners) has been increasing each year.  It's not that they aren't money-motivated anymore, as much as they aren't as money-motivated as they were earlier in their career, when their money-motivation got them to their current income level.

The bottom line for your salespeople is that everyone is different.  Everyone is motivated by different things and for those who are clearly motivated by money, and where you have a clear goal and focus for them, their compensation should and must be commission-based.  When you have people who are motivated more by recognition, awards, competition, time-off, public service, or philanthropy, your compensation program should be flexible enough to compensate them in an appropriate manner too.

If you found this article helpful, you might find these articles on the subject of sales motivation helpful too:

The Future of Selling - Understanding This Crucial Sales Competency is More Important Than Ever

Al Turrisi was kind enough to give me a book called the Power of the Kabbalah.  Its ancient scrolls originated around 4,000 years ago, inspired The Secret and predates Moses and the Bible!  Since this book is not the Kabbalah itself, rather a Cliff Notes version, it tends to read more like a self-help book. It is far more powerful than a self-help book though as it points to a number of rules that will cause a transformation in one's life.

Seven of the desired behaviors are consistent with the philosophies in Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball as well as Objective Management Group's Sales Assessments:

The importance of Desire. Read the Top 10 Factors for Salespeople to Overachieve.

It's not about you.  Over the past several months I have found myself telling an awful lot of salespeople and sales managers that it's not about them.  It's even become a finding in Objective Management Group's Sales Manager's Evaluation - The It's All About Me finding.

Need for Approval or what happens when you need people to like you.  This is the second most powerful weakness in all of selling. Here's an article about that.

Becoming Emotionally Involvedor reacting instead of proacting.This is the third most powerful weakness in all of selling. I wrote an article about this.

Resistance or the great challenge that presents itself rather than an obstacle.  I wrote a an article about this earlier this month and another one a couple of years ago.

Certainty or having faith that what you say, ask, or do will get the desired outcome.

Doing What's Uncomfortable.  I wrote an article about this a while back too.

Many of the articles I linked to were Baseline Selling Tips.  Speaking of Baseline Selling, this is the third anniversary of the publish date of the book, a good reason to reread or order it.

So in summary, simply by having your salespeople overcome their sales weaknesses, doing the very things they are uncomfortable doing, having faith in their abilities and having a strong desire for success will cause those very same people to experience life changing experiences.

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan

Some of our many readers at Understanding the Sales Force leave their comments when they feel so moved to do so.  One reader, who chips in with a comment from time to time, identifies himself as Chubby Davis.  Look at the tremendous value that Chubby adds to our discussions:

Out of the dozens of valuable comments from the Best Sales Advice in a Single Sentence, Chubby wrote, "Your client is lying to you!"

From the article,  How Long Does it Take for a Salesperson to Get It?, Chubby wrote, "...Bean Town Bullshit !!"

From the article, Verizon Wireless - Tech, Lies and Audio, Chubby wrote, "Welcome to Amerika".

Among the many great suggestions contributed to Managing the Sales Force - The Calendar, Chubby contributed, "Can hit the local 'Titty Bar' !!!" 

From the article, 5 Sales Management Tips From My 5 Year-Old, Chubby wrote, "That's it, me have no kid = not enough sales !!!" 

And in last week's, How to Find the Compelling Reasons for Seth Godin's Intangibles, he commented, "Of course it's a 'fairy tale' ..who wants to hear the f%cking truth" 

Chubby's antics remind me of the bad-apple, renegade, maverick salespeople that many companies are stuck with.  I say stuck because most executives can't choose between having a functional sales force versus a top producer that is also the local cancer distributor. 

I've met hundreds of these individuals during the past 25 years and they're all pretty much the same.  They're loud, arrogant, know-it-alls that crave attention and will say pretty much anything to get it.  Their act includes insults, teasing, and jokes at somebody else's expense; Publicly complaining about company policies, managers and products; Failure to show up when expected and showing up when asked not to; Hitting on individuals of the opposite gender at their own company and at their customers, and late night partying; And running up the company expense account after spending way too much money bringing their customers to night clubs.  These people make Manny Ramirez look like a good citizen!

As bad as these people are, they aren't the real problem.  The real problem is the manager they report to, who enables them,  protects them, gives them permission to do what they want, defends them in times of trouble, and even shares a few drinks with them to celebrate; all in the name of revenue.

You can do more with less.  Addition by subtraction.  That's how the Red Sox looked at it with Manny and that's how companies should look at it when they have people like this.

Chubby, we hardly know you, and until we do, we'll use your invaluable comments and insights to crusade for functionality and sanity on sales forces around the world.

(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan 

Is there data which actually illustrates and supports what drives sales performance, hiring great salespeople, and developing salespeople?  Is it meaningful?  If the data is compelling, would you modify your views, beliefs, practices and behaviors? 

I've written a number of articles based on my research, our data from assessing 2,086,251 salespeople, statistics and/or pure science.  Some of the articles pertain to sales performance, while others are based on the hundreds of thousands of salespeople whom we have assessed.

This article series is called Sales - What the Data Tells Us.  While some of the articles simply report the research and/or data, others share either my insights about the data or provide data to support my insights.  Here are the articles:

Are Millennials Who Enter Sales Better or Worse Than the Rest of the Sales Population?

The Official 2017 List of 21 Sales Core Competencies

Are Millennials Who Enter Sales Better or Worse Than the Rest of the Sales Population?

HBR or OMG - Whose Data Really Differentiates the Top from Bottom Salespeople?

Those Who Follow Sales Best Practices Don't Necessarily Become Top Performers

What Percentage of New Salespeople Effectively Reach Decision Makers?

Surprising New Data Busts the Myths about Relationship Selling and Social Selling

New Analysis Shows the 5 Biggest Gaps Between Top and Bottom Sales Performers

I have written many articles based on the insights of our son, most when he was between the ages of 3-7.  Each article has profound lessons and they're fun to read. Readers have enjoyed these particular articles so much, and found the lessons to be so good, that I compiled this series called Salespeople are Like Children.  As you might expect, some of these articles are my all-time favorites too.

Baseball and Selling Revisited - A Powerful Analogy

Salespeople Must Use & Embrace Life's Most Embarrassing Moments

Selling Styles - How Many Styles Should Your Salespeople Have?

Sales Coaching Lessons from the Baseball Files

Gaining Sales Traction is Like Talking to Kids

The Difference Between Sales Commitment and Desire

25 or 6 to 4 and Your Sales Force

The Lion King - Watching a Movie Again Improves Sales Effectiveness

Salespeople Should be More Like Children

Dicing, Shoveling and Training Salespeople

MLB All-Star Game Unveils a Sales Prodigy

Over Achievers on the Sales Force - We Have it Wrong

Will your Salespeople Change Behaviors to Improve Their Sales Effectiveness? 

Getting Excited About Sales Metrics

How To Get Salespeople to Leave Their Comfort Zone

Prospects Are Like Children

Turning Order Takers into Salespeople

The Emerging Boy, the Lingering Toddler

Helping New Salespeople Succeed

5 Sales Management Tips from my Five Year Old 

The Impact of Unhealthy Relationships on Salespeople

If Your Salespeople Can Spell They Can Sell

Salespeople Aren't Made of Glass

How Long Does it Take a Salesperson to Get It? 

What Can a Trip to Italy Teach You About Managing Salespeople?

Salespeople are Like Children

Making it Easy for Salespeople to Succeed

Improve Sales Competencies at the Salesperson's Hall of Fame

Compelling Reasons to Buy

How to Start a Sales Call Over

Get Prospects to Make Decisions

The Importance of Practice

How Stealing 2nd Base is the Secret to Success in Sales Today

Back on Wednesday, I was part of a panel, along with Lee Salz, author of How to Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager and Mike McCue, editor in chief of Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, at the Incentive Marketing Association conference in Boston.

One of the attendees asked how she could change the compensation for her highly paid, salaried producers, in order to provide the incentive to sell more.

If that's all it takes, getting salespeople to sell more would be easy!  One of the many areas we analyze when we evaluate sales organizations is to what degree the salespeople are motivated to earn more money.  In a sales force like hers, we would likely find that the salespeople are not very motivated to earn more money and would likely rebel if the compensation were changed to pay less in salary and more in commissions.  There are two important points to understand:

1. If a higher risk - higher reward plan would excite them, they wouldn't be working for this company in the first place.
2. There is an enormous difference between wanting more money ("pay me more") and being motivated to go out and earn more (what must I do to earn another $50,000 this year?")

It all goes back to hiring the right people in the first place.  Salespeople who are looking for security will never be your top producers.

(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan 

Our Boston Baseball team is having an acute case of Manny being Manny.  For the past seven years, when Manny felt like being Manny, it was sometimes comical, like when he recently made a great catch, high fived a fan in the middle of the play and then threw a runner out to complete a double play.  There were the two times when he entered the left-field wall to use the facilities and to talk on his cell phone.  But there have been other occasions when he wasn't so comical.  There were serious, but not career-ending moments like when he failed to run out ground balls or, during a pinch-hitting appearance, when he failed to take the bat off his shoulders. This year Manny has been the aggressor in two well documented shoving matches and there were two important games where he asked out of the lineup.  Now, for the 8th time in 8 years, he is asking out of Boston again.  It used to be that Manny being Manny was harmless fun, but when Manny has become a serious distraction to the entire team, all the home runs and RBI's in the world won't compensate for his behavior.

Most sales forces have a person - a maverick - like Manny; a top producer who marches to the beat of his own drummer.  We have a different set of rules for these producers and as long as they're not causing difficulties for anyone else we tend to tolerate what they do and don't do.  They don't attend all the meetings, aren't held to the same standards, regularly give us a load of crap and we tolerate it as long as they continue to produce.

Can you imagine Manny on your sales force?  He pushes your HR VP to the floor, slaps your hardest working salesperson, refuses to listen to your coaching, tells everyone he hates the company, doesn't attend company events or sales meetings, but comes through and brings in the business you need, just when you need it.

But when Mavericks become serious problems I usually get a phone call.  "I don't know what to do!" is the typical comment.  And it makes sense, right?  If this person didn't outperform everyone else in the company, the decision to put them on the first plane out of town would be an easy one.  Nobody would miss the antics and aggravation.  But all that revenue - the thought of losing it and the possibility of a competitor getting it - is too much for most executives to handle so they inevitably call and ask me what they should do.

I'm fairly consistent on matters like these.  As Bill Murray says when Walter Peck is being kicked out of the Mayor's office in Ghostbusters, "Bye."

Most companies do more with less.  After two basketball players are encouraged to quit the team in a disciplinary move, team members yell, "they were our top two scorers last year!" Coach Carter, in the movie by the same name, says, "then we'll have new top scorers this year!" 

If you were to interview the salespeople who are impacted by the behavior of your top producers, you would learn that they would be quite happy to see your Maverick depart.  It's not like they thought they could outsell him...and guess what will happen to their sales when they finally believe  that they can become the top producers!

Bye.

(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan 

Sometimes, I'll write an article and think it's one of the best 4-5 paragraphs I've ever written on the subject of sales excellence - and nobody will care.  Other times I'll write an article and think nobody will care - and I'll get more feedback than I can believe.

Such was the case yesterday when I wrote this article for Baseline Selling Tips.  The title was How to Use Fear to Maintain Your Edge but the real basis for the article was that you shouldn't let fear prevent you from doing what you must do; you should use fear as a way to be more prepared to achieve the best possible outcome.

Well this article caused more people to write and express their thanks than any article I've ever written and between this Blog and Baseline Selling Tips, I've published more than 400 articles on Sales and Sales Management Excellence.

Read the article first.  Now rate each of your salespeople relative to how fear impacts them.  Be brutally honest in your appraisals:

A. Fearless  
B. Use Fear to Excel
C. They Sell in Fear
D. Fear Prevents Them from Being Effective
E. Fear Causes Paralysis

Now score your results.

A: 4 points x # of salespeople.
B: 5 points x # of salespeople.
C: 2 points x # of salespeople.
D: 1 points x # of salespeople.
E: 0 point  x # of salespeople.

Now take the total score and divide by the number of salespeople.  The resulting number is your Sales Force Fear Factor.

5 - awesome! 
4 - excellent
3 - good
2 - you don't have a sales force
1 - set the date for closing your business
0 - why are you still reading this?

(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan 

If you stayed up late and witnessed the Celtics domination of the Lakers last night, you witnessed more than their first championship in 21 years or their 17th overall.  You saw what it was like to have an entire team totally united and committed to a single goal - a championship - and the emotion - 7 foot tall grown men crying - that overtakes people when they achieve their greatest goal in life.

That's why it's so important to get your sales force totally united on the team goal - a big stretch goal - and committed to doing their part.  And when the team achieves that goal, let's hope that your salespeople will celebrate and experience the thrill of victory the way that the Celtics did last night.

(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan