It's not rocket science to successfully manage salespeople. However for the rocket scientist, completing the duties of his or her chosen vocation may strangely come quite easily. While for the small business owner or CEO with sales people as direct reports, dealing with all of the different personalities in his or her sales force may feel like they are trying to land on a new moon that doesn't even exist. Check to see if you are unintentionally 'grounding' your sales team by not having the following three topics mastered.

Fact Based Account-Giving

Behavioral management is not glamorous work. This is why setting mutual activity goals between you and the salesperson is a must. If your management style happens to be a "sell this much each month or your fired" approach, you may have noticed your churn rate is unacceptably high. While it's absolutely necessary that you do meet your sales forecasts, you must manage the 'means' in how it's accomplished. And when sub par performance is demonstrated, you must be clear in your communication with the salesperson that this is not acceptable. First with a warning, then reprimanding them if it happens again, and as a final step, letting them go if necessary. There must be no ambiguity here. What you need to know are the actions required to be done on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to achieve your revenue targets. Only then, will you have the insight and clear understanding of why your sales team members are coming up short each month.     

Coach, don't Referee

It seems a lot of coaching energy expended by business owners and CEOs that manage sales people is pre-sale consulting and some 'hand holding' throughout the sales process. The old adage 'each time you point your finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you,' is often the case with ineffective coaching. Ideally, you would be meeting with your reps daily. Are you? If not, it may be time to re-prioritize how your time is spent each day. Your job is to dig deeper and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales person (and that of your entire sales force). You must identify and remove roadblocks, clean up the debris, and make the formerly 'less traveled' road to success more accessible.       

Motivating "Don't believe the hype that salespeople are self motivated"

What motivates you? Most likely there is an emotional component or a 'dream' associated with the activities you choose to do on a daily basis. If you learn how to inextricably link activity goals together with a salesperson's dreams, you will definitely see an increase of the desired revenue producing behavior. It's very important that you as small business owner or CEO with salespeople reporting to you to see and understand the psychological underpinnings of each salesperson.
If you're unfamiliar with motivational concepts such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, it would behoove you to start learning. For example, if someone is intrinsically motivated by satisfaction of a 'job well done' versus the paycheck that comes along with this achievement, then it's certainly not a best practice to begin your motivational talk discussing the commission generated from the sale. Surely, they already understand the benefits of financial compensation. Growth starts with understanding, period.

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Focus To Grow is sales accleration consulting firm, specializing in providing inbound marketing and sales execution support for small businesses. www.focustogrow.com