By Rory Vaden
1. They understand the company vision – Sales gets monotonous when people forget the big picture of what they’re working towards. People need to be reminded of how their role contributes to something that is bigger than themselves. 2. They have a clear long term personal vision – The sooner you talk about a salesperson’s purpose instead of their production, the sooner you’ll see an increase in their productivity. When people aren’t producing it’s basically inevitable that they’ve lost sight of how their current position and activity today impacts their personal long term future. 3. They have proper expectations – One of the #1 causes of salesperson turnover is when a challenging circumstance or change in policy comes up that they weren’t aware of in advance. Whenever something negative happens that the salesperson wasn’t explicitly warned about there is a withdrawal from the manager’s (and the company’s) credibility bank account. If you have enough of those instances in a short enough window of time you will lose people 4. They have a proper place to work – Dealing with territory is one of the most frustrating and time consuming tasks for a sales manager. However, if you do not take the time to make sure that someone has a proper place to work and sufficient amount of leads to call in (with reasonably easy access) then you are guaranteed to lose people. And unfortunately we sometimes lose good people to this cause. 5. They have a system to execute – Salespeople are great at creating excuses. Eliminate their excuses by giving them proven step by step systems for them to execute. This includes sales talks and technical aspects of the job. If you give them a system then you are able to objectively confront their work habits. If you don’t give them a system then you will be in a perpetually subjective and emotional conversation about why things never work out for them. 6. They have a supportive and fun work environment – Considering about 1/3 of our live is spent at work, it is increasingly more and more important that people have healthy work environments. Make sure as a manager that you’re always trying to come up with fun and interesting things to keep things fresh. Pay attention to intra team conflict and confront difficult situations as fast as possible. 7. They have a leader who believe in them – This one characteristic alone can be completely responsible for a salesperson sticking with a company and turning around their performance. It is rare in the world today to find people who are selflessly “fans” of us. As a manager you have the rare opportunity to be someone’s #1 fan and to always pick them up and give them hope. This can create a lifetime of loyalty. 8. They see how the job helps them grow personally – Most of the world is interested in more than just a paycheck. Make sure that you’re maximizing the ways that you or your company is contributing value to people’s overall well being. Try to involve family and take a personal interest in people’s success and hobbies outside of work.
