sales super stars | No Smoke and Mirrors

Accountability is not a 4 Letter Word When Fixing Sales Problems

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Are your salespeople accountable? When I ask you that question what is the first thing, first emotion, you feel? Why do you think that is? Did less than 60% of your salespeople hit or exceed their sales goals last year? Has someone on your senior management team said: “ we need to hold our salespeople more accountable “? How do we improve accountability and achieve the profitable sales growth we want and need?

If you have experienced discussions about sales accountability lately this post is for you and your team and you all need to read: How Did That Happen by Roger Connors and Tom Smith of the Performance Group.

I was asked to help a company whose sales had stalled for the last five years. In the first senior management team meeting I attended I heard:

The furious young President and CEO shared: “We need to hold our regional sales managers accountable to their growth goals”

Marketing quickly chimed in: (or threw kerosene on the fire…you pick): “Why can’t our salespeople follow up on the good leads we send them, if they did we would be hitting our numbers?”

Engineering decided they had best pile on: “Why can’t sales sell the innovative new products and features we launched”?

Which triggered the CFO to look up from his laptop and share: “ We need to start getting a return on all the investments we made to grow this business”

The COO needed to contribute; “Why can’t sales provide accurate forecasts? Its killing our manufacturing efficiencies, inventory costs and on time shipment goals”?

The Partner from the Private Equity Firm who is now attending meetings due to poor financial performance added: “ When will we see results? What specifically are you doing to turn these results around? Do we have the right salespeople?”

Their HR Vice President added: “Our salespeople who work from their homes need to stop cutting their grass and golfing and get out in front of customers and make some sales, they need to put in 12-15 hour days like we do”

I wish this was a rare meeting and the comments were unusual…but they were not and unfortunately I have heard the above or something similar with many of my past clients. Everyone assumes the solution is sales just needs to work harder and become more “accountable”. Some managers assume salespeople hate to be held accountable, as if it will somehow hurt their motivation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Top Performing Salespeople Hold Themselves Accountable”

– Mark Allen Roberts

The reality is top performing sales super stars love to be held accountable and serve on teams of accountable leaders. Sales super stars are like elite athletes. They are very competitive, they train relentlessly, and they are always learning and practicing their craft. From my observations over the past 35 years, most elite salespeople were athletes and now sales is their sport. Top performing salespeople own their goals and strive each day to hit their objectives and drive profitable growth for their organizations.

So where’s the disconnect? …And more importantly how do we fix this problem quickly?

The authors of How Did This Happen do an excellent job of explaining that accountability has two sides:

Taking Accountability For Yourself

Holding Others Accountable

What we often quickly assume, as the team above thought was a sales accountability problem is actually an organization wide accountability issue. (Sorry) While all of your team is firing missiles from their silos, the true problem is your entire organization lacks a culture of accountability and this must be corrected.

Have you ever worked for someone who assigned you very specific objectives and held you accountable to your goals but they never follow up on emails, signatures needed, budget approvals and other tasks they committed to? How did that make you feel? Were you more or less motivated to achieve your objectives?

So if our manager is accountable it impacts our performance? ….Absolutely!

The good news is your team is motivated by meaningful work. They want to help the organization grow profitability and in the process contribute and one day retire from your organization.

The elite salespeople are accountable. They are out everyday hunting for opportunities to serve your current customers and searching for new accounts with problems your organization solves.

Still doubt your salespeople are accountable?

Let me ask you a few questions…

Where else in your organization are people as accountable as your salespeople?

Their sales are tracked real time, you can see their activity and results
You can see what they plan to do next in the CRM
You can read what happened in the last meeting in the CRM
In your weekly call in meetings they share what they set out to do, what they did, what they will do and what help they may need from you
You can see who they are selling, what they are selling them and at what price
You get reports showing profit by customer, salesperson, region, district, country (there is no hiding in sales)
Their expense reports tell you if they are making good decisions based on return on investment, if they are managing their time appropriately and you can see where they have been and how long they were there
They often do weekly call reports
You complete customer surveys and ask about their service
Other executives attend customer meetings with them
If they do not make the sales to achieve their sales goals they do not make the targeted income they were promised

So again, are you sure you have a sales accountability problem?

The book: How Did This Happen is brilliant!

It introduces the concept of an accountability sequence that is broken down into two parts.

The first half is the outer ring as they call it. Here is where you form, communicate, align and inspect expectations. This is where most managers fail. This step is about your managers setting clear reasonable expectations.

The second half is the inner ring where you engage in accountability conversations in a professional way to deal with unmet expectations. (Emphasis on words professional way)

What I enjoyed most about this book is it sets the tone to lose all your emotional assumptions about accountability and it teaches you how to be and lead your teams in a professional and accountable way.

This book provides many tools and assessments to help you determine where your team is in the competency of accountability and guides you how to improve.

The book shares five reasons people do not hold others accountable:

Fear of offending someone or jeopardizing a personal relationship
The feeling they lack the time to follow up
A lack of faith that the effect will make a difference
A worry that by holding someone else accountable their may expose their own accountability failures
A reluctance to speak due to fear of potential retaliations

(Did any of the above resonate with you and your team?)

Lets get back to the small company. The senior management team meeting ended and the CEO and CFO asked I stay in the room. They were concerned I was taking notes but did not offer any advice or solutions. I shared I have a process and I have noted everyone’s concerns assumptions and perceptions and now I need the voice of your customers and your salespeople and we will develop a strategy to improve your bottom line results.

What did I find after spending just under six months in the market traveling with their salespeople and and doing voice of customer interviews with top distributors and end customers?

Customers openly shared how difficult the company was to work with
Their order follow up was poor and orders often had pricing errors
On time delivery was under 60% hurting distributor relationships with their customers
Their product was plagued with quality issues resulting in warrantee claims
Warranty claims just after purchase negatively impacted distributor relationships with end users
New products over the past 5 years were historically launched before they were ready. Distributors now wait at least 18 to 24 months before buying new products because they feel the company will have “worked all the bugs out by then“
Their salespeople, regional managers and distributors were never trained in commercial selling skills
Their salespeople were exhausted and spending more time of tracking late orders and warranty parts than selling
Their customer service team was never trained and over 70% of incoming calls went to voicemail
Their sales compensation plan was so complicated their salespeople did not understand it, trust it, and often found the company made errors in their commissions and it often took over 90 days to correct them

Did this company have a sales accountability problem or a company wide accountability issue?

In chapter 9 the authors give you a simple yet brilliant model to assess accountability. It starts with asking: Is the person above or below the line

Above the line

Do it
Solve it
Own it
See it

Below the line

Wait and see
Cover your tail
Blame others and finger point
“Not my job”

Accountability is not a 4-letter word to elite salespeople. They hold themselves accountable and they must know you are accountable as well. They are constantly training, learning and practicing to improve their skills.

We must also understand accountability moves above and below the line for your people ( and yourself) . Once you have read this book you will quickly identify when a victor has become a victim and you are provided tools to help coach them to get them back on track.

I highly recommend you add this book to your library, read it, share it among your leadership team then share it with your sales managers and salespeople.

As for the company above…their sales grew from $14 million to over $80 million in the next 6 years once everyone understood their customers expectations and aligned their strategies and goals to achieve them. We became customer centric and when we did the silo’s went away. We all shared cross functional goals and the bottom line became healthy. So healthy they were acquired a few years later.

I saved the tough questions for last.

How accountable is your team?

How accountable are your salespeople?

Has anyone on your team said: “Our salespeople need to be more accountable”?

How accountable are you?

If the last question hit a nerve then you really need to read this book and help your team understand what accountability is and how to hold others accountable in a professional way. We all drift above and below the line of accountability. This book helps you identify it sooner and provides many tools and coaching ideas to getting your team back on course to profitable performance.

The Oscar For Best B2B Sales Methodology Goes To: Value Based Sales

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What is the best sales methodology for B2B sales today? What are the most popular sales methods and why do so few B2B salespeople use Value Based Sales? In this post we will review a number of sales methodologies used to improve sales performance and why the Oscar for best B2B sales methodology goes to :Value Based Sales.

Sales has changed over the years. Salespeople and the companies they serve are constantly searching for the best sales method.

As I watched the Oscars the other night I thought how we need Oscars for sales and marketing strategies.

To understand why a Value Based Sales methodology outperforms other sales methods we need to briefly unpack how sales people sell and how sales has evolved over the years.

What are the sales methods salespeople have used and are using today?

Selling on Price

This is not a method most CEO’s and business owners want to hear. In this method you must have the lowest cost to manufacture and your team leverages this low cost-manufacturing competency to win and keep business.

Salespeople sell on price when they do not know or believe your value proposition or no one has trained them how to connect the dots between what you sell and the value proposition for customers.

Why this method is so common is it is what buyers want.

Buyers want to commoditize all products and services so the only differentiation is price. Just as we train our salespeople, companies like Karrass teach buyers to dismiss sales pitches and gobbledygook sales and marketing teams spew and quickly make the key buying decision all about price. If you have the lowest price you win today. When the vendor you displaced finds they lost the business what do they do? They drop the price and you loose. This starts a gross margin death spiral and the only one who wins is the buyer.

If you have never hear the term “gobbledygook” it means all those things we say and share on our web sites that no longer mean anything since everyone we compete against claims them too like:

Innovative

Best in class

Best Quality

Top performance

Flexible

Groundbreaking

Scalable

Robust

Cutting Edge

If you would like to learn more I encourage you to download the Gobbledygook Manifesto.

What I have found disturbing over the years when I ask salespeople why we lost a particular sale or account for that matter they say “price.”

When I conduct Win-Loss interviews with buyers, “price” is rarely one of the top reasons why a buyer buyers or chooses not to buy.

In this model your salespeople do not understand or believe your value proposition and they do believe the only thing that matters to buyers is the lowest price.

Sales finds all kinds of ways to sell , selling on price internally like : volume discounts, sales incentive rebates, volume purchase discounts, blanket order discounts and so on.

All of these and more are sales based on price.

Relationship Sale

It is true people buy from people they like. Buyers will have an impression of you within 7 seconds. In this model the salesperson strives to be liked by the buyer. They work hard to build a friendship through social lunches, dinners, and ball games. As one relational seller told me years ago: “I was the only rep invited to this buyer’s daughter’s wedding. “

In meetings you often wonder whose side the relationship seller is on? The buyer’s or yours? This seller believes their relationship with the buyer is their value proposition not your product or service.

A relational sales methodology is all about building a relationship and reinforcing that relationship through acts of service.

When I work with relationship sales people they often bring donuts and bagels and “check in ” with buyers and purchasing decision makers. When the relational salesperson is in the customer’s building everyone loves them. Rarely do they close the sale, or ask for the sale for that matter. They never have a pre-call sales plan and believe they will win whatever business the buyer has based on their relationship.

After a sales call with target accounts you will hear a relational salesperson share “it was a good meeting” although the sale did not advance and they did not win an order.

We find relational salespeople in sales farmer roles because they are terrible sales hunters.

Do you have relationship salespeople?Look where your salespeople spend their time. Are they selling and creating sales presentations? Or, are they checking on orders, when orders will ship, how we can ship them earlier, following up with customer service to determine when something will ship? If so, you have a salesperson using the relational sales method.

This is the least effective sales methodology, but unfortunately the one most underperforming salespeople rely on.

Product Sales

In this methodology the salesperson’s product knowledge is leveraged to win sales. The thought here is your salespeople are trained in features and benefits of your product or service. As Mike Shultz President of The Rain Group shares “If your people cannot speak fluently about your product and service offerings and ask the right questions to uncover specific needs that your solutions fulfill, then they are leaving money on the table and losing you deals.”

Here you will find companies that are often very inward looking and not customer centric. They design and manufacture products but their salespeople are not trained on what specific types to customers to call on and what problems their products solve.

As I have shared in the past, I have observed salespeople trained in the product methodology “show up and throw up”. It’s like they are playing feature and benefit Bingo with buyers just hoping one buyer will jump to their feet and yell: “BINGO! I know a problem you can solve for me!” When you are working with a product salesperson they speak 80% of the time in the sales call and do not ask many qualifying questions. After all what they are selling is so amazing a buyer would have to be an idiot not to buy right?

Every seller must understand their products and services. However today , with as much as 70% of the buying process being over before the buyer speaks with sales this method is not as successful as it once was. Back in the day, before the internet of things, buyers had to meet with sales to learn about products and services. Today this buying criteria is just one mouse click away.

Product knowledge is a part of a top performing salesperson, but can not be their sales method today if they want to achieve quota.

The Lone Wolf / Sales Mercenaries

In this sales method the salesperson relies on their personal sales skills, abilities and experience to close the sale. They have been through the school of hard knocks, feel they have been there, done that and nothing will surprise them. They are very self-confidant and often deliver results even if they can’t share how they do it.

The Lone Wolf / Sales Mercenaries are often the product of a poorly designed compensation structure and a culture that does not value salespeople. They are hired sales guns that sell their sales services to the highest bidder. Salespeople who use this method are masters at following their own instincts, and writing the rules as they play the game. They win various games but often leave sales, money, on the table because they are only focused on what benefits them the fastest personally.

I had a friend share once:

“Salespeople are like water, they find the path of least resistance.”

Lone Wolf Mercenaries are often found at inward facing companies who believe their product or service is so smart “even a monkey in kakis” could sell it. Their company not only does not value and appreciate the salespeople; they treat them like a necessary evil. Salespeople are treated like they are only as good as their last…sale. Their compensation plan creates commission junkies looking for their next fix not strategic partnerships with clients.

Lone Wolf’s have a high utilitarian trait. Other words if I do this I expect to get that.

The shame is these folks could create much more value if they were valued and appreciated.

They will get-r-done many times but how they do it will leave a mess to clean up and they are very hard to manage.

Consultative Sales

In this sales methodology salespeople are trained in product features and benefits and how to find buyer pain and solve the pain. Salespeople are trained in markets, and common problems their products solve in these markets.

In these buyer calls the salespeople speak about 50% of the time and ask open-ended questions searching for a problems they know they can solve. They are problem solvers.

When you observe salespeople using this method it feels like the child’s game we played in the pool “ Marko Polo”. “Marko… do you have this problem?” “Polo…yes we do” and sales races to tag the buyer and close the sale.

This model produces results if the buyer can connect the dots from the product or service to how it will impact their business drivers.

The Challenger Sale

This methodology became popular in the book The Challenger Sale, authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson present a sales model to give buyers new ideas to solve problems they may or may not be aware they have. In this book the author shares 40% of high sales performers use this model. More than 50% of sales superstars use this method.

In the for what it’s worth column this was my sales method for a number of years.

This model teaches the selling to take control of the sales process.

You will find some sales calls feeling more like a debate than trying to solve the buyer’s problems. In this model you uncover issues the buyers may have they are unaware of that need solved.

I continue to recommend this book to business owners and salespeople wanting to improve their skills.

I have some advice if you choose to use this model:

First, it requires you to have some experience and knowledge about your customer, their industry and the business of their business. When I have seen young salespeople try to use this model is when they lacked the emotional intelligence and situational awareness to pull it off. They failed to earn the trust early in the relationship so their challenge felt like a canned marketing pitch not a real solution.

Second, I don’t want salespeople feeling they are in charge of the buying process. You are not. You can influence the buyer’s process but if you think and act like you are in charge you will fail. Top performing salespeople clearly and intimately understand the buyers buying process and criteria and they help move the sale by giving buyers what they need at each step of their buying process.

Don’t believe me?

Ok, how many of you reading this like to buy stuff? Almost all of you right?

How many of you like to be sold? Oh, big difference yes?

Enough said.

Agile Sales

A recent article in Selling Power shared how Agile Sales is the best method. You can read this article here and it shares the methods top sales performers use. The article is basically saying don’t get all hung up on one sales method or another. Top performing salespeople have situational awareness and they adapt their sales method based on the situation and buyer.

This thought leading article poses the question: what if we taught our sales teams 4-5 top sales methodologies and trained them to know what to use when? The author’s share having agility, flexibility does not imply we want sales teams “winging it”. We want them to have the EQ and situational awareness to be agile within defined parameters established in sales training.

I guess what gives me pause, is so many sales teams I have been asked to help lacked a formal repeatable sales process. Their leaders and owners thought they had one. How would we implement 4-5 when sales is not even executing on the one you thought they were using? Secondly, companies often provide very strong product training and little if any situational and sales scenario training. Companies will need to do voice of the customer work prior and identify the most common sales scenarios before training their sales teams.

I have adapted my sales method based on the industry, buyer, buying process and buyer personas over the years.

The difficulty is in tracking what worked when and where and in what scenario so it is difficult to scale throughout the sales team.

I believe Agile Sales Methodology is a smart strategy but is has so many moving pieces it will be difficult for most companies to implement and scale.

Value Based Sales Methodology

This is by far the best sales methodology I have experienced over the past 34 years of leading sales and marketing teams.

In this model you know your product or service. You know your market and ideal customer profiles. You have built rapport with the customer so you can have a meaningful business discussion. You know the problems your product or services solves and you have content and case studies to prove it. Your salespeople understand business acumen and speak in the language of business. They help buyers connect the dots between their proposed solution and how it impacts one or many of their key business drivers like…

Increase Sales

Reduce Costs

Increase Net Income

Improve Efficiency

Increase Market Share

Reduce the Cost of Sale

Increase Sales Close Rate

Increase Gross Margins

Salespeople who use a value based sales method are about creating value for their customers and in so doing win the sale today and create lifetime customers.

Don’t get me wrong, these salespeople are likable, but they are also not afraid to challenge customers. They help buyers connect the dots to how their product or service speaks to one or many of their business drivers.

This sales method has seen tremendous success and when used properly you will see it impact your business by:

Faster selling cycles

Higher Gross Profits per sale

Higher lifetime value of customer revenue

Higher sales to close %

Higher customer satisfaction

… but admittedly it is not easy!

From my own experience less than 10% of salespeople use a value based selling method. The reason why so few salespeople use this model is they too often struggle with connecting the dots between what they are selling and the value impact their customers receive.

As I have shared before salespeople who are not adequately trained in your value proposition assume the position of your product or service. The value based sales method requires mastery in commercial sales skills, business acumen, product knowledge and understanding of your value proposition, knowledge of the customers’ industry and common pain points, competitive analysis and the ability to propose innovative ideas professionally.

In this sales method you qualify and identify ways your product and or service can impact one or more of your customers’ business drivers.

Is that why so few of salespeople use it? They lack an understanding of how to impact a businesses’ bottom line?

Salespeople have told me this model is hard and takes way too long.

My argument is how can you enter into any negotiation with a customer until you understand and establish value? Or is that why so many salespeople resort to relationship and selling on price? Salespeople trained in value based sales know how to impact the customer’s bottom line so they can establish and reinforce value.

What Sales Methodology do you want your salespeople using?

What Sales Methodology are they using?

How do you know?

When was the last four legged sales call you went on to inspect what you expect?

Is there any scenario value based sales would not be the best sales method for B2B sales?

Congratulations… the Oscar for the Best B2B sales methodology goes to Value Based Sales.

Best supporting Oscar without any drama goes to Sales Enablement.

What are the top 12 ways to keep and attract top sales super stars?

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By Mark Allen Roberts

I believe there is a problem festering deep within a number of companies that may, if left untreated be the single biggest threat to your team achieving sales, profits and your bottom line objectives. A study not long ago said 60% of your employees plan to leave when the economy improves. Well the economy has and is improving? Is your organization at risk? Most companies think they clearly understand salespeople, what motivates them and how to motivate them to achieve super human sales results…and most are wrong. In this post I will share what sales super stars need, why sales stars will leave, and how to keep and attract top sales performers.

Like all my posts this post has been swirling around inside my mind for weeks. This one however has bounced around much longer. I have my opinions based on leading sales and marketing teams for over 30 years…do I share them? what if the experts have different opinions? My desire when I write it to share what I have found to work to help you make strategic corrections , adjustments before you find your business in a crisis of chaos. So how do I best serve you? The more I thought about it the more I delayed following up my last post; Why Do Star Salespeople Leave? (it is not what you think)… I decided to share what I have experienced and provide thought leadership from others in hopes of helping better serve you and your organization.

When I am asked to help a company turnaround their sales, increase sales, I always use the same process and it starts by identifying current market truths. I bring them into the light as the Bible guides us to do for once in the light we can clearly see them and address them before they become terminal. Then I seek internal truths about your companies’ true strengths, weaknesses and ideally clearly define your distinctive competence in the perception of your market. Once we have this information we can shape and design a go-to-market strategy that drives explosive results. So I want to use this same process to identify what I am referring to a “Sales Force Sink Hole” that could result in one….two…or even three of your top sales producers leaving your team and crippling your results. I hear that voice of clients past saying; let them leave I will just hire more… Before you quickly jump to being defensive you need to ask yourself some practical questions;

How long does it take for a new salesperson to gain traction and start truly adding value to your bottom line?

What is the cost of lost revenue when a Sales Super Star “just leaves”?

If you are truly honest, it takes much longer than it should for a new salesperson to gain traction and losing a top producing salesperson (or two or three) is estimated to cost you up to 10 X their annual compensation package. Note; When I keep saying one-two- or three it is because when your top salesperson leaves, studies show there is a high probability your other top performers will leave as well. So why not intentionally create a culture that keeps and attracts sales super stars? Why not understand what truly makes sales stars tick and meet those needs?

What are the top 12 ways to keep and attract top sales super stars?

Trust

Be a company that has a history of doing what it promises, doing what it says it will do for internal and external customers

Communication

Take the time to clearly articulate expectations, objectives and why those objectives must be met, and quickly follow up on questions and concerns

Competitive

Top sales people are competitive, they need it, and they thrive on it so intentionally build it into your culture

Be a winning team

Top salespeople win, its what they do. They win new business, more orders from current customers and they desire to be on teams of other winners. Do you have a team of winners or do you need to fix areas of your company that are underperforming and have been for some time?

Driven

Most executives that do not have a sales background assume its all about “money”, but in reality top salespeople thrive in organizations that are driven to be the best just like your top salespeople.

Leaders have High Emotional Intelligence

Teams that are open and transparent, that welcome new solutions attract and retain top salespeople, they have the courage to say “I don’t have all the answers today but I know a process to find them, and I will”

Strong Values and Integrity

Do not ask your salespeople to compromise what is best long term for the market and its customers to hit short term financial objectives

Strategic Compensation Plan

A results driven plan that is easy to understand, reinforces desired objectives of your strategic plan, and has no cap, no claw backs

Listen

Organizations that learn to actively listen to identify and bust through common roadblocks in the sales process, listen and sense their market, that are agile and adapt quickly to strategic shifts in how buyers buy and the criteria they are now using to make buying decisions

Sharpen the Saw

An almost paranoid drive to constantly improve your people and processes with training and new technology

Passion

Make what you do about more than you, your numbers, make it a quest , top sales performer embrace objectives much bigger than themselves

Lead and Coach, do not Manage

We lead and coach people, we manage processes, don’t confuse the two

If you are committed to focusing on this area and intentionally creating a culture that keeps and attracts top sales performers then I recommend you also visit the below links to content to serve you and your team.

Clayton Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7007.html

Micromanagers: 6 Reasons your Employees Don’t Like You

http://www.recruiter.com/i/micromanagers-6-reasons-your-employees-dont-like-you/

War underway for top sales talent http://blog.sellingpower.com/gg/2013/06/3-reasons-to-apply-for-our-50-best-companies-to-sell-for-list.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fgerhard+%28SellingPower%29

10 laws of successful sales management http://www.thepeasegroup.com/_blog/Articles/post/The_Ten_Laws_of_Sales_Management/?goback=%2Egde_2392593_member_246416948

Communicate clear expectations http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57586930/great-leaders-manage-expectations/

How to hire, find a sales star http://www.salesforcesearch.com/download/eBook-How-to-Find-Assess-and-Hire-a-Sales-Star.pdf

Hire recruiter if you can http://web2.salesforcesearch.com/bid/148121/How-Can-Sales-Recruiters-Benefit-Your-Business?goback=%2Egde_71410_member_246012667

10 tips to motivate people http://humanresources.about.com/od/motivationrewardretention/a/motivating_employees.htm

How people are motivated to work http://humanresources.about.com/od/rewardrecognition/a/needs_work.htm

How to motivate sales people http://sales.about.com/od/trainingasalesstaff/a/Motivating-A-Sales-Team.htm

Want to Jump Start Sales and Morale? Write a “Passion Statement” For Your Business…. https://www.nosmokeandmirrors.com/2010/05/24/want-to-jump-start-sales-and-morale-write-a-%E2%80%9Cpassion-statement%E2%80%9D-for-your-business%E2%80%A6/

Does my business need a “passion statement”? Take a short quiz… https://www.nosmokeandmirrors.com/2010/05/26/do-i-need-a-passion-statement-for-my-business-take-the-short-quiz%E2%80%A6/

I hope you found the above useful and you agree keeping sales happy and productive is about much more than just “money”.

“Sales Super Stars leave when their intrinsic needs are not met and they validate this decision with extrinsic conditions”

– Mark Allen Roberts

What have you found to keep and attract your top sales performers?

Do you agree with the above 12 ways to keep and attract top sales super stars?

Which of the above do you believe is most important? Why?

Why Do Star Salespeople Leave? (it is not what you think)…

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I received a call from a past client a month or so ago, the CEO of a manufacturing company, and I could tell he was very upset. Being the typical busy business owner he jumped right into the reason for the call; “why do star salespeople just leave, no warning, …poof …they are gone , jumped ship, and now what am I going to do?” I asked a few more questions and Tom who had been his top salesperson for years just resigned and announced he will be working for another manufacturer in their industry that has some products that compete with my past client’s company. As we talked, it was clear this was first a big surprise, and CEO’s hate surprises that could interrupt their plan. Second, this experience has caused major unrest throughout the sales and senior management team. Third, he was concerned because Tom had most of their large key customers …What would they think? What has Tom said to them? …Is there a risk in losing their business? Last the CEO had a hard time describing what he was personally feeling, but what heard was; betrayed, hurt, and concerned. “I just can’t believe it, after all Tom and I have been through he just leaves?”He was very concerned about how this exit would impact what should have been a high sales growth year. I agreed to connect with Tom and find out what made him jump ship so abruptly.

In any given year a business will have salespeople come and go. It is the nature of the sales beast. We created a high performance driven culture with a high degree of accountability in the work we did years earlier so it was not unusual to cull the sales herd and this typically resulted in under performing salespeople leaving of their own accord. However, when a sales star, a sales super star, A player in this case, leaves it can be devastating.

Why do sales super stars leave?

I have seen this situation happen at a number of companies so I decided to spend some time in this blog discussing why sales super stars really leave.In my last blog post I shared the results of a survey I did in my various Linked In sales groups and networking with sales stars I have worked with over the years. I reviewed the most common reasons that sales mangers and business owners believe as to why sales leaders leave organizations; money, promotion, boss is a jerk…. I also asked sales super stars why they left past teams or why they would leave their current team.

What company leaders must realize is the reason most sales super stars leave is not “money”, money is one extrinsic measuring stick they use to measure how much your A player intrinsically feels you value their contribution.

Intrinsic needs include feeling valued , trusting those they serve, and appreciated. They also include feeling challenged and learning new things as well as being proud of the work they do and the contribution they are making.

Extrinsic needs are things like base pay, commission, benefits, vacation time, bonuses, expense reimbursement , company car, vacation time policies and so on.

Sales super stars leave when their intrinsic needs are not being met and this is validated by extrinsic conditions.

Keep in mind we are discussing” sales super stars”…these guys and gals who charge into a new market and open new business….they “just make it happen“…when a new product is launched they crush their numbers…your customer satisfaction surveys for them all come back A+….they consistently exceed sales quota…..their profit per sale is higher than the team average….their close rate is 20% greater …..and their cost per sale is the lowest. If you have a hard time determining who your star / A players are, you can find a great tool to do so here. These are the people you dream about finding, hiring and keeping so it should be no surprise when they leave it is often a shock. Sales super stars know how to drive results. In this post I plan to share the real reasons why they leave, actions you or members of your team have done ( or not done) that have asked a sales super star to leave. What I am not discussing are personal life issues that cause a sales super star to leave like needing to care for their children or an elderly parent, or a health concern that makes them have to leave the job.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs work he shared the continuum of needs most people have.

The needs start with the basic Physiological needs for things like food, water and so on and graduate to self-actualization needs for things like creativity, spontaneity, and morality to name a few. The ERG theory followed with a simpler model (Existence, Relatedness and Growth). This model is what market leading business owners intuitively think about as they develop their sales cultures and compensation programs. However the disconnect I argue occurs in sales super stars at non market leading companies because business owners think if they take care of basic extrinsic needs their sales stars will be happy. Sales super stars however know their value and are driven by something much deeper and pay is something they know they can earn and expect anywhere. To put it another way, they are good, they know they are good, and they are not worried about being unemployed for long should something occur in their current job that is unacceptable. The threat of a compensation decrease does not scare them into submission like it does average or below average salespeople who have nowhere else to go. Sales super stars know how to help buyers buy and they know if not treated well where they are they can confidently and quickly find new employment to meet their basic needs for food, shelter and so on. These sales super stars have a much greater need to feel valued, trusted, and to trust those they serve with their skills. They also see themselves as winners and must feel they are on and supported by a winning team . To make their value even greater a recent article it shared how the gap between good and great sales people seems to be growing wider…and sales super stars know it.

A better model can be seen from the work of the famous book: The five dysfunctions of a team as shown below.

The reason why this is much more relevant to sales super stars is it is built on a foundation of trust, an intrinsic need. This model was designed to be used with teams of people to create a strong foundation that ultimately leads to best in class performance. In this case I want you to consider the above in the context of a sales super star. Your sales super star is a star at what they do and will be your star as long as there is a foundation of trust. How much do they trust you? How much do they feel valued by and trusted by you? If there is a break in that foundation; intrinsic trust, they will seek extrinsic factors to validate their belief, and when they find them…poof…they just leave.

I hear some of you saying…enough of the Psycho mumbo jumbo…so let me share common scenarios that illustrate why sales super stars actually leave.( and it did not happen in just a “poof “instant)

Scenario One: they left for more money

What you heard was they left for more money…here’s what really happened.

A lack of trust occurrence– they sold something and it had huge quality issues, they are asked to sell a new product that is not ready to go to market yet, they are given an unrealistic goal since they seem to crush their goal every year anyway. They made a large sale and when they receive their paycheck they are informed the compensation plan changed. They made a large and profitable sale and no one said atta boy…

Feeling they are not appreciated – may have been called out in a meeting in front of peers over something that was not their fault, criticized for misspelled words in their monthly report that highlights once again they blew past their sales goals or some other minor issue while they continue to crush their key sales performance indicators.

Validation of feelings of being unappreciated– a change in pay, maybe a change in benefits, a new compensation model, a new expense limit program, take away company credit card asked to use personal credit card and expense reimbursement is very slow, change of sales territory, and a new targeted income model with a capped pay plan (nothing demotivates a sales super star like a cap on compensation).

Put out some feelers about job opportunities…

Poof they just leave…

Scenario two; Left because boss was” a jerk”

What you hear is they left because they thought their boss was “a jerk” a real “ass-kicker”.

Not trusting new boss/ boss kicks ass and provides no help or assistance to help him hit quota- boss lacks product, market and management training, in a recent survey of sales people only 34% of salespeople believed their manager and leaders knew what they were doing, boss believes the beatings will continue until the performance improves. New boss implements micro management tactics and challenges how the sales super star spends their time and who they meet with although they continue to exceed sales performance indicators. Sales star feels he is not trusted, does not trust boss, does not trust where the company seems to be going.

Concerned about the direction of company if they would hire someone like this – they feel a cultural shift, often not an intentional strategic shift. They refuse to be on a team managed by someone who adds no value to growing sales. “Help me hit my numbers or get out of my way.”

No longer trusting ownership and senior leadership- they have to know this is happening right?

Feeling new boss does not appreciate nor value their contribution to the team’s overall sales performance, access to upper management cut off my new boss

Possibly has a run in with boss privately or publicly- new sales managers with low emotional quotients are often intimidated by sales super stars

New boss does not back sales super star with customers or upper management when conflict occurs- new sales manager has strong political experience and plays it safe and fails to address real issues

Sales star loses relationship with owners who in the past have shared how much they valued his contribution – you always had an open door to your team, particularly when you were much smaller , but you have grown and hired people to manage the front line so you can run the business.

Puts out a few feelers

Poof …Leaves team

Scenario three: They left for a “better opportunity”

What you heard was they left for a “better opportunity”.

Quality changes for the worse, product, service, communication, lack of new innovative products, no new sales tools, poor marketing, no leads

Feeling of being disconnected, alone in the market and unable to share all the quality issues that are hurting the achievement of sales results because it is not “politically safe” and they are accused of “just making excuses”

Not trusting the company, what it says, or the products you are selling will do what they are promised to do in your literature

Concerned about personal reputation in market

Missed a sales quota and gets less commission or no commission

Lost a key account to a competitor with new innovative solutions that do not have quality issues

Unresolved product quality issues from past sales sucking them into conflicts when they should be selling new opportunities

Relationship with long term key account strained

Less commission again, had to explain why to their spouse

Put out feelers

Poof…Leaves team

Scenario four; Sales super star got a great offer they could not refuse

What you heard was the competitor made them an amazing compensation offer.

Sales star sees favoritism to under performing sales associate(s) – basically poor results are not addressed and under performance is ignored and politically correctness is rewarded.

Sales Star is financially impacted by poor performance of under performing team member – the group’s sales number are down so everyone suffers, maybe the under performing team member is in product development and they keep throwing products over the wall the market does not want…need… or are not finished, or marketing failing to produce qualified leads, or manufacturing.

Sales star disciplined for results out of their control – your comp plan is weighted to drive new product sales and the new product you launched is poorly designed, late, and has numerous quality issues so the sales star fails to hit compensation levels. The launch is late but the sales goal by month stays the same. Marketing does a “soft launch” and there are no or very little qualified leads and or support.

Under performing team members allowed to go on unchecked- poor performance issues not addressed, situations do not change, but sales star told ; “ you are not paid to tell me why you can’t sell, you are paid to hit your numbers, just make it happen”

Sales star wants to be working with other winners not B and C players- super stars want and need to be on teams of other super stars. They lack an understanding or the patience to accept team members who are not accountable

Put out feelers…

Poof…they leave

Scenario five; offered a much higher position with more responsibility

What you heard was he or she was offered a much bigger job, role , with a competing firm.

No new products for 18-24 months – sales person sees competition launching new products, new marketing support tools and your team has not launched anything new.

Focus on making more profit from current customers and not growing market- the mood, strategy seems to have shifted and salesperson is hitting their numbers but can achieve those results with three-four hours of work per day.

They become bored- they are not having their intrinsic need to feel challenged, learn new things , “take new hills“, met

No Longer proud of what they do

Put out a few feelers…

Poof…they just leave

As you can see a sales super star does not just wake up one day and decide to leave. As a matter of fact sales super stars are actively recruited on a frequent basis because they are so good. They stay when they trust you, your company and feel their extra effort is appreciated. They listen to new job inquires when their trust is broken, they feel they are not supported, not valued, asked to sell something of poor quality and or find themselves on teams that lack a commitment and accountability to the goals of the organization.

What my past client was feeling was a lack of loyalty after all these years, and the sales star selfishly chasing bigger bucks for the short term. When I called Tom what I found was the reason he left was rooted in a thought that became a belief many months earlier and only validated by some external, extrinsic needs changed. As the CEO’s business grew he hired a number of new people; CFO, COO, VP of Sales and Marketing. Tom felt distanced from the CEO and his efforts to reconnect were seen as “not following the chain of command” and he was reprimanded by the new VP of Sales and Marketing. Tom was hitting his numbers out of the park, but now the new team members were changing the compensation program, implementing a number of new rules regarding expenses and limiting what Tom can do out in the market without their approval. Tom felt unappreciated he lacked faith and trust in the new management team, and felt he would be valued more somewhere else. The competitor has been after him for years and as Tom shared and it took one meeting over coffee to receive an offer. The offer was a little more money upfront, but he would once again be reporting to the CEO, and they had a number of new and exciting products to launch into current and new markets. The variable portion of his compensation was uncapped once again and he saw a huge opportunity and challenge.

The intrinsic fuse was lit when they stopped trusting you….and Poof they are gone when that fuse meets some external validation.

Have you lost a sales super star on your team in the last 12 months? Why?

What is the value of a sales super star compared to an average sales person in your organization?

Do your sales super stars feel appreciated and valued? How do you show them?

Or are your sales people treated like sales mercenaries and told to “just make it happen or I will find someone else who can” ( if so I promise they are already looking for new teams to serve)

As a leader/owner of your organization do you know how your salespeople are being treated? If so how, what have you put in place to prevent an “ass kicker” from chasing away your best people?

The economy is rebounding and our customers and potential customers have cash reserves they want to spend to solve problems they have needed to solve for years. It is the perfect condition for sales super stars to create sales velocity for your team and add real dollars to your bottom line. Will your huge growth year be sucked into a sales force sink hole when one, two or even three of your top salespeople leave? How can you be sure your year is built on a strong foundation for sales growth? In a recent survey 60% of employees said they will change jobs when the economy improves . What would happen in your company if the 60% who leave are all your A players ( and may become competitors)? In my next post I will discuss how to keep sales super stars on your team and how to attract other market leading sales super stars to want to join your team.

As the owner and or leader of your business I can hear some of you saying; “Mark, the above examples are obvious reasons why anyone would leave including a sales super star. However in my company this would never happen.”

Are you sure? I have seen each of the above, and many more occur in companies just like yours.