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Outside the Box: Don't Give In to the Gloom
December 30, 2008
By David Chittock
We sales folk may as well hang it up for 2010, right? We've all heard that the New Year is going to be scarily slow. Incentive budgets are being cut, reward trips being eliminated and sales staffs are being trimmed. Prospects are refusing meetings, slashing buying budgets and making themselves scarce (or disappearing altogether).
It's a challenging time to manage salespeople, a time that many managers and salespeople have never seen. The natural instinct for many in our profession right now is to crawl into the fetal position, hunker down and let the whole thing pass on by.
In such an environment, it's easy for salespeople to let a malaise set in…a feeling that no matter what one does, sales aren’t going to grow. When that happens, the typical daily activities that lead to success—planning, researching, prospecting and follow-up calls—fall by the wayside, and the dread of lower sales growth can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Managers must remember that many salespeople are petrified right now; they're not just afraid that it's going to be a slow year, but scared that their jobs are in jeopardy. Certainly, fear breeds paralysis, which only slows many salespeople down even further. Even the top 15% to 20% of sellers will be challenged during this period, so managers need to be particularly aware of motivating everyone during this slowdown.
Sales and marketing managers need to think about the following three actions as first steps in dealing with a sales slowdown:
• Be a visible, strong leader. Great leaders shine in tough times. When London was being bombed incessantly, Winston Churchill spoke bravely on the radio every week, letting his countrymen know he was confident in their ability to fight through the Battle of Britain. You, too, must stay in front of your team. Communicate more often than usual. Let them know that you believe in them and that, together, you'll get through this thing.
With all the fear out there, your salespeople will take their cues from you and your attitude. If you're scared, they’ll be scared. If they sense that you’re feeling too much pressure, they'll put too much negative pressure on themselves. So first make sure your attitude is positive and you believe, despite all of the doom and gloom, that you and your team can be successful.
With available technologies, you can easily use e-mail, v-mail and Flash videos to quickly reach all of your people on a regular basis. Even more importantly, personal calls and visits to your people to offer encouragement and support can have a huge impact this year, right now. Even the most cynical, hardened sales veteran will need pumping-up next year.
• Keep and expand incentive programs. The bean counters will be pressuring sales management to cut costs by eliminating or reducing incentive programs, contests, promotions and sales trips. Sales and marketing managers have to be strong and fight the numbers guys to keep or even add incentives. Remember, now is the time when incentives are most needed, because managers have to use every tool possible to keep the troops motivated and selling. Remind the accountants that the beauty of well-structured incentive programs is that they are self-liquidating; if folks don't hit the numbers, then payouts are minimized.
If you have the ability to change or add to your incentive offerings, you might think about two twists for 2010. The first would be to reward the near-term actions that lead to long-term success. That would include rewarding for increases in activities such as cold calls, initial contacts, proposals generated and face-to-face sales calls. The second would be to add a short-term spiff during your peak selling season—something like a three month spurt program for year-over-year sales increases.
Be sure to focus on incentives with tangible rewards—either merchandise or travel. There are three reasons for this:
1. Numerous studies have shown that tangibles drive performance better than cash, because of the way that tangible rewards are perceived in the brain.
2. Despite the fact that sales income might be down next year and one would think that extra cash would be a good motivator, I believe just the opposite. My gut tells me that salespeople will internalize the need for cash to pay for everyday bills, which is actually demotivational. Guilt-free rewards always motivate.
3. Tangible programs are extremely promotable, while cash is virtually unpromotable. Expand your communication campaign to support your incentive program(s).
• Reinforce sales basics. When people get scared, they stop doing the daily tasks that lead to long-term success. Like a basketball player in a slump who must go into a gym for a few weeks and work on shooting and ballhandling fundamentals, salespeople need to rely on selling fundamentals during times of slow business growth.
Think of ways to promote a "back-to-basics" approach to selling. Identify the daily, weekly and monthly actions that have been proven critical to sales success in your business, then promote those behaviors. Find ways to communicate the best practices your top salespeople have exhibited and encourage middle-tier sellers to adopt those practices. There are easy ways to promote best practices, including sales tip cards, links on your Intranet site, sellers’ blogs and refresher sales classes.
One of General George Patton's favorite sayings was "Audacity, audacity, always audacity." During the next year, if you are going to succeed, you'll need to be audacious and look at this environment as an opportunity to gain market share at competitors' expense. Remember that a good place to start is with the sales managers' fundamentals: leadership, motivation and sales basics.
S&MM columnist David Chittock, president of Incentra, focuses on helping leaders achieve their business goals by "increasing the value of the people vital to success" through integrated incentive and recognition solutions. He manages a diverse business that offers strategy creation, Web performance platforms, print and electronic communications, administration, training, program analysis and rewards fulfillment around the globe. He can be reached at dchittock@incentra1.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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