Bad Apples: The Blight On Your Sales Biz – And What To Do About It (Part 3)

Part 3 of 4 Parts - Orig. Written as a Test Sample Chapter for a Sales Book

Flexibility:

Remember that there are different ways to approach a problem and that you can help your salespeople become even better without hurting their feelings or causing conflict within the organization. By tailoring your managing style to fit their personalities, you can have a stronger and better sales team that will be able to meet goal after goal. This is where a sales manager can benefit from being something of a psychologist.

So Socratic – Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BC) taught his students by asking questions, and encouraging them to figure out the answers for themselves. This approach is still one of the most respected teaching methods today, and can be a great format to use for coaching salespeople.

The Burned-Out: A fairly common state in the high-pressure, rejection-heavy world of sales. You might benefit by having this kind of salesperson try something entirely new. Give him a completely new cold-calling script, or have him write one himself. Or try a sales channel never used before.

However – the burnout may be beyond repair, and may indicate he’s ready for a different career – and release from your company.

Bad Influence: This is the salesperson who likes to live it up – long lunches, nights out, late to client and office meetings...and his behaviour may reflect drugs and/or alcohol. The field of sales is, I hate to say it, somewhat notorious for addiction. This is not to suggest that if you go into sales you’ll become a drug addict. But often addictive personalities, and those who thrive on highs and lows, are drawn to this field. Substance abuse is a chapter in itself, and one we’ll explore soon.

Remember This About Bad Apples: Their influence can spread to infect the rest of the company. Rather than hoping the ‘badness’ will dissipate or be balanced and outweighed by the good of other salespeople, you should be beware of how the rot can set in and spread.

You can’t afford to let that happen. Good leaders are communicative and address problems. They don’t turn the other way – which is one sure way to watch your company go downhill and to lose your team’s trust. It’s up to you to deal with the misfits, and simply those who are not performing for the benefit of your company.

That Group Effort: One bad apple can bring down the energy of the whole team, with them less-than-inspired to put in their best work and commit to their daily, weekly, quarterly, and yearly tasks and goals. You might feel like your A-players should be able to perform no matter what, but the truth is that they’re human, and it’s difficult for anyone to do their best work in a negative environment.

Yes, just one person can foster a negative environment, just like that one apple can ruin a bushel, or that one moldy spot can spread to spoil a whole loaf of bread.

Bottom Line: Whether you realize it immediately or not, a bad apple impacts your bottom line. A weak and/or negative employee could be failing to meet their goals and therefore bringing in less revenue. Their lackluster bottom line could be due to selling less product as a result of weak sales conversations, losing clients due to unprofessional interactions, and a slew of other reasons.

Whatever your business model is, a bad apple doesn’t bring in as much revenue as a positive, hardworking team member. Furthermore, that person brings down team morale across the board, leading everyone to lag. Need more evidence that one bad employee impacts your bottom line?

GOOD BASIC STRATEGIES:

If you see a bad-apple situation at work, you can approach it with a simple four-step process:

1) Sit down with the salesperson to review recent performance and identify any weak areas. 2) Figure out a plan together for fixing those problem areas.

3) Both of you commit to carrying out each step of this plan over a certain specific time frame.

4) Finally, schedule a meeting at the end of this time frame to see if the plan has helped your salesperson improve her performance, and to discuss the next steps.

And of course (before you sit down to review with her) you will first need the accurate metrics for that person, the hard data on the sales activities she’s doing, and results she’s getting.

Moving The Magic Needle: When the situation is quite general, with non-prospecting sales reps being the ‘bad apples,’ it may totally benefit from the right training, coaching and motivation, a kind of detailed kick in the rear – that actually can move the activity needle in less than a week.

With the prospecting improved, the sales follow. As an aficionado of Jeb Blount and his examples, I know well that a company can turn around to make its year-end number and move forward in the $10 million it was behind by, in a few months – and why their CEO said it was “a miracle, like magic.”

* There are only two elements to measure when evaluating the value of a salesperson, or any employee. You measure their behavior and their results, and they both matter.

A General Pro-Active And Active Approach: Consider each day a testing ground for the future. Try to be direct and honest – as well as impersonal. Do this by giving each person frequent feedback, once a month or so. Be specific, with examples, so it doesn’t seem like a personal attack.

A peer-to-peer feedback system also is a good idea. Negative team members – and others – can benefit from a once-monthly 15-minute check-in from you, and being paired up with other employees to give each other feedback every two weeks. Both ways provide the means for open communication lines – and less of a surprise at review time.

Specifics: Rather than talking about a “bad attitude,” tell them you’ve noticed a drop in sales in the past quarter. Providing a few examples of possible causes is more objective. By sharing this kind of information with your team, they can learn to give each other effective feedback, rather than go judging or attacking each other.

After all, your goal as a manager dealing with bad apples and their potential company-wide rot is to make your organization healthy and productive.

Setting deadlines and dates for behavioural change is a good idea too – as good for you as for your salespeople. You don’t want to lose track of the issue, or push it under a bushel so you don’t have to face it. Confrontation isn’t easy, even for the best managers, and we need to push ourselves.

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*** Part 4, Next...