This is exactly the situation that occurs for many salespeople when managers criticize, or fail to praise, productive activities like telephone prospecting, computer database skills, and similar beneficial tasks. For example, a salesperson who has a tremendous month of prospecting filled with numerous sales appointments but fails to achieve sales goals is often criticized by a manager who does not recognize the long-term seeds being planted. The manager, failing to consider that the seeds of sales often take months to germinate, ignores the positive contributions of his employee. By criticizing the performance, the manager inadvertently sends a message of negative reinforcement to the salesperson. Not only has the manager failed to reward a desired behavior, he has potentially stopped it with the “electric shock” of criticism. In short, the sales manager is now part of the problem because he is sabotaging good behavior.
One organization I worked with penalized salespeople for not holding their margins and, at the same time, insisted that the salespeople “never lose a sale because of price.” Thus, if they held the price, they might lose sales; if they lowered the price, they reduced margins. (I swear, as ludicrous as this sounds, this is a true story.) The salespeople were in a lose-lose situation in which they would literally be reprimanded whether they made a sale (at low margins) or not (by failing to reduce margins)!
On the other hand, many sales managers are astute observers of behavior and manage to find time to praise competent performance. A vice 2005 president of sales for one Chicago-based lumberyard consistently rewards and praises his sales managers for taking risks, even when the results of the risks are not profitable. He wants to instill an entrepreneurial spirit in his employees and his reward system matches his value system. The result of his strategy was a dramatic increase in sales margins within a year of his taking on the new position and a high-caliber sales management team.
A manager I know at an East Coast lumberyard channels his sales team’s efforts toward smaller, high-margin accounts. Salespeople are praised for the discovery and pursuit of such accounts. In fact, when salespeople boast of potential sales to large-volume accounts, they receive no credit on their prospecting records for these efforts. The result has been outstanding for this dealer, which has a solid base of small and mid-sized accounts that have created incredible margins and stability for the company.
Singing Praises If you want to channel the efforts of your salespeople, use praise to reinforce valuable behaviors. Try the following steps to accomplish your objective:
The value of praise is incredibly powerful. Sincere praise provides economic value that is often more effective than money. You know this because you are probably someone that, at some point in your career, would have sacrificed a little income in order to receive a bit more recognition in the work-place. Praise creates loyalty and establishes your credibility because people realize you are watching. It reinforces behaviors, builds morale, and makes you feel better about your role in the organization. There is no need to be frugal with a resource that costs so little and accomplishes so much.
Rick Davis is president of Building Leaders, Inc., a Chicago-based sales training organization. 773.769.4409. E-mail: rickdavis@buildingleaders.com
