Sales Managers, Stop Threatening Salespeople

I can't count the amount of times I've heard or seen a sales manager say to their salespeople...

"If you don't hit your sales target I can't guarantee you'll keep your job"

In what world is this a successful way to lead your team to success??!!

Where in the "Effective Leadership" book does it tell you to put an immense amount of pressure and fear into your team to get them to be successful in their role? That's right, it doesn't. Why is it then that so many sales managers, sales directors and other leads feel it's acceptable and productive to do it?

Here is a?CRUCIAL?reality...

That pressure that you put on your sales team when you threaten them...

It will get passed straight on to your CUSTOMERS!

When your salespeople feel the pressure they put that pressure right onto your prospects and customers. Is that really what you want?

Putting pressure on prospects isn't a successful way to increase sales or win deals. Most of the time it will just scare them off, sometimes forever or worse yet, create a bad reputation that will spread.

Here is my advice...

Try a different approach. If a salesperson or your team is struggling to hit target, don't put pressure on them, SUPPORT them.

Work?WITH?them and not against them.

Don't make them fear for their job, make them feel safe.

Simon Sinek puts it perfectly in this video, it's all about showing empathy.

Here's the funny thing though...

That's EXACTLY what we tell our salespeople to do with their prospects and customers!!

We tell them to show empathy, to have a strong EQ and utilise Emotional Intelligence yet as a leader they do the opposite.

I have seen so many amazing salespeople managed out by terrible managers. All they needed was a bit of support.

Here are my top tips:

• TALK to your salespeople and sales team and LISTEN to them. Again this is what we expect them to do with prospects and customers so it is important you treat them the same way. Actually listen to them, understand why they may be struggling and then work with them to find some solutions.

(One platform that we recommend to sales leaders to help equip their team with the best tools is Pipedrive, the CRM built by salespeople for salespeople, used by over 100,000 companies and voted the easiest to use CRM (and cost-effective). You can try it completely free for a whole 30-days and if you like it, you'll also get 20% discount on your whole first year -?Find out more here )

• Don't just tell them what to do, in fact don't just show them what to do, do it with them. If they need to make more calls, make more calls with them. If they need to send more emails, send emails with them. If they need to book more meetings, book more meetings with them.
• Make them feel SAFE. Make sure they don't fear for their job or feel pressure, make them feel safe, appreciated and supported. You'll get a significantly better response and performance from them this way.

Have you ever had your job, or seen someone in your team have their job threatened because of missing target before? Equally have you had managers that have been supportive when someone has struggled?

Let me know in the comments!

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This article is supported by?Pipedrive, one of the world's best CRM's that's built to help salespeople sell more. It's used by over 100,000 companies in 179 countries.?You can try it for free for 30-days right here.

They normally offer 14-day free trial but if you follow one of our links in this newsletter you'll be able to get an extended 30-day free trial and as a bonus, if you choose to use?Pipedrive?after your trial, you'll get?20% discount?on your first year.

If you're potentially interested in trying?Pipedrive ?out, we have a few extra resources that might help:

VIDEO -?The 5 best features of Pipedrive CRM

ATICLE -?10 reasons salespeople LOVE Pipedrive CRM

VIDEO -?Import prospect details instantly from LinkedIn using Pipedrive

ARTICLE -?Why salespeople are switching from their current CRM to Pipedrive CRM