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November 18, 2010
 By Mark Faust
Many companies have an old set of value statements, written by a founder or previous management teams. These values might hang on the wall or be passed into collateral. Whether these speak of the priorities of customers and service, or of treating others with respect, there are several steps any management team can take to make this essential element of your strategy fuel to accelerating growth.
Do you have conflict within your salesforce and/or is growth not as fast as it could be? What is the cost of conflict on productivity and effectiveness?
Most conflict within teams or a salesforce can be traced back to a lack of understanding or enforcement around company values. To have values work as a tool for improving teamwork and reducing conflict, having your team answer two questions each year in an all hands on deck exercise can help to reinforce the desired attitudes and actions.
These two questions are: 1. How do you and customers want to be treated in the workplace? And 2. How will we deal with it when someone doesn’t live up to these values?
Since people tend to support that which they help to create, everyone should have input into these answers.
To supercharge the values in an organization and transform them into strategic growth oriented values, also ask sales teams:
“How would we need to:
• conduct our work,
• work with each other and customers
and what kind of environment do we need to foster
• in our company,
• in our work
• and in our relationships
in order to absolutely maximize joy in the workplace as well as the growth rate, profitability and stability of this company?”
 Use these team oriented strategies to accelerate growth Have every sales associate openly discuss the top traits, qualities, ways, habits, environments, attitudes…i.e., values, that we need to live and work by, and list this out in a long list that will usually have several dozen potential values.
Then ask each individual to privately list out the top six values that they feel are the highest priority values that will most accelerate growth and improve satisfaction, happiness and profitability in the workplace. Then have sales associates team up in twos and agree on a top six together, then repeat the same process in teams of four, then eight etc. until the entire team has come up with what they have prioritized and agreed to what can then be a list of the top six to ten values that will create the optimum environment.
Conduct a similar facilitation around the question, “How will we deal with it when one of us doesn’t live up to our value statements?” the much tougher, but more important question, and yet key to ensuring that the values become reality.
The team or committee could work on also building out working definitions of each value, and perhaps examples. The final word-smithed document can be printed on a poster and ceremoniously signed by the entire team.
Leadership should regularly and publically recognize employees being good examples of walking out the values.
Most teambuilding exercises like ropes courses and falling backwards into your co-workers arms are a waste of time compared to having the team create growth oriented values and strategic growth objectives that will work to accelerate growth as these exercises help to Create Emotional Ownership, the C.E.O. of your growth oriented culture. I’ve seen this process double the size of companies while making it a much happier workplace. Are you ready to grow?
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November 11, 2010
By Mark Faust
One of the best shows on TV is Undercover Boss. Undercover Boss is a metaphor for life, business and God.
Getting choked up watching this show is as predictable as its format which guarantees laughs, tears and cheers all in a prescribed order.
The Process - In ways, every episode is the same, and yet each show is unique. The boss commits to going undercover to work in various jobs throughout the company for a week. Presenting the reason for the video camera shadowing him, as being part of some documentary. The employees have no idea who they are dealing with.
 Improve your Salesforce by Becoming an Undercover Boss Imperfect Gods – Management is like God, a God that can humble himself to walk in his salesforce’s shoes and in the end can deliver sales teams from pain and woes or remain insulated from the sales teams’ realities and become like a demonic guardian of pain and fear.
Trust – At the onset, the boss confides to his inner circle about the mission he is about to embark on. He assumes their trust and asks for final input before donning the armor of disguise. Like kings who led charges in medieval wars these bosses head straight to the front lines of the battle.
Humility – Management is part God, part hero, only to the extent of their humility. In every show, leaders walk in the same dirt and danger as their front line best, and are shocked at the sacrifice, commitment and love their employees have for their jobs, customers and teams. On most shows, we see grown men break down in tears at night as they retreat to their Motel 8 room as they realize how their insensitivity has allowed their best people to experience unnecessary pain and strife.
America’s Best Heroes Are CEOs – While it has become cachet to put the American businessman and especially management as the most iniquitous enemy of the people, the fact is many CEOs are actually the greatest heroes of our time…or at least have the potential to be.
The Final Reunion– Like going to heaven, the employees who endure training the Undercover Boss on the rigors of their job, and other team members are brought together to see video clips of themselves saying things like “he just doesn’t have it in him for this kind of job” or “this guy will never make it here.” But in the utmost of humility and compassion the boss brings innovative solutions and opportunity to each of the participants.
What You Can Do – Despite setting your Tivo for Sunday night on CBS, the very same principles that entertain us the most in this show are the solutions to growing your business. Using a third party to conduct in-depth interviews with customers and employees as well as being involved in such listening efforts is just the beginning to implementing an ongoing effort of improved communication and continuous innovation.
If you’re willing to listen to the salesforce you serve, there will be an abundance of ideas that will deliver your company to a whole new level. So when it comes to your company’s growth and its people will you be a paladin or a pain?
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October 28, 2010
By Mark Faust
It is effective management and not charismatic leadership that builds sustainable competitive advantage, and fosters the process of innovation. Now, more than ever, better management is needed to grow companies and organizations.
Charismatic leadership is a dangerous fad, and “leadership charisma” is not a sustainable basis for successfully building a company or managing any type of organization, salesforce, team or even a nation.
At the heart of many floundering organizations and teams is the struggle between charismatic leadership versus an effective management process. Where is your company focus?
When a salesforce surrenders to a charismatic leader; throws hope behind an individual and not process, charisma and not logic, speeches and not dialogue, then we are surrendering our own responsibilities, and thus our own freedoms.
 Leadership What does this mean to you as director over a salesforce or team in a business? Focus less on your style and desire to inspire or motivate your salesforce with emotive effort and focus more on the process of management, continuous improvement, systematic innovation, logic, and focus on the customer. As a result you will build sales, profits, and the quality of your team.
If you are an owner, president or top manager, you must focus on effective management not leadership. Here are the operative meanings of these two words:
• Management – maximizing the strengths of resources around you (human and otherwise) while minimizing the impact of the weaknesses in order to reach agreed upon objectives.
• Leadership – motivating groups or individuals to follow your direction, vision or desires bya variety of possible means (charisma, persuasiveness or power)
Hitler, Mussolini and Mao were powerful leaders, but poor managers who followed few of the essential elements of effective management. They led by threats rather than mutual dialogue. Perhaps, you could think of a few more modern “leaders” currently in power around the world. Are they good managers though? Truman on the other hand, was not known to be a good leader, but he is recorded as a president who was one of the best “managers” in the presidency, and was highly effective, despite some mistakes politically he may have made.
Washington and Lincoln were not known for their charisma as much as they were known for earning and giving respect. They didn’t dictate as presidents, they managed.
By this time you may be thinking, “This is just semantics.” No, this is a battle to shift the focus in business from too much weight being put on relationship and charisma to more emphasis on the process of value creation, systemic innovation, logic and focus on the customer. For example, great managers are good facilitators who help their team continuously clarify and refine objectives and the measures of success.
Are you helping your salesforce or teams continuously refine their individual and organizational objectives?
Here are steps you can take to become a better manager and help your salesforce or organization eschew the lure of charismatic leadership.
1. Work with the team to clarify goals…quarterly not annually.
2. Take responsibility. Don’t feel threatened by ambitious subordinates, but celebrate their triumphs with them. Don’t point blame on others. Understand that responsibility ultimately lies with you (be the anti-Donald Trump).
3. Earn trust by being consistent, managing expectations, clarifying and reinforcing clear values that your organization believes in and helps build.
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October 21, 2010
By Mark Faust
On the wall of an employer hung the sign, “In business as in life it’s all about three things: 1. Relationships 2. Relationships 3. Relationships.”
While recently participating in a conference of sales VP’s, we heard from researchers and panels of successful sales leaders who shared some contrarian insights. University professors Dr. Chris Plouffe and Dr. Arun Sharma shared a variety of insights from their extensive research on selling and sales effectiveness.
One discovery was that younger salesforces tend to outperform older salesforces. Now this did not mean that a sales team of twenty somethings will consistently outsell those with ten or twenty years more experience, rather sales teams with average ages lower than companies very similar to them consistently had better results. They mentioned the younger salesforce performance factor because it related to another more important finding; effective relationship sellers are significantly out sold by those that focus their selling on added value.
In fact, sales reps that are not as well liked as others on a team are often significantly outselling reps who rate very high on rapport and relationship because they sell value well.
 Relationship vs. Value Selling This didn’t mean that relationships were not important; rather, what these new studies are showing is that in our new economy, selling value is more important than ever, and selling value is getting better results.
This has brought to mind the many experiences of our smaller agricultural company clients whose most experienced reps have been losing business to “young punks” from the larger multinationals. While our clients weren’t often certain why they lost the business, and the sales reps were pointing to that “special deal” or “special pricing” as the reason for the lost business, our research finds otherwise.
As is customary in our work, we interview champion customers, customers with potential for significant growth, and lost customers. The customers lost to the large multinationals do occasionally mention certain “deals” they may have received or some attractive pricing offer, but more often than not, they speak in terms of how the package offer is a better overall value and how they feel and hope that by going with the new supplier they are going to make more money. While some will sometimes point that the “more money” is coming from a lower price, in the same breath those lost customers are asserting that the quality, effectiveness and result from the product and service is basically the same, but most lost customers believe that there will be an increase in performance/value/profits/net return. They were consistently sold by the “young punk” on value, not relationship.
So what can you do to insure that all of your team is improving their focus on value?
The Value Quota – Metrics for Success
In the dashboards and metrics that we help sales management build to better manage their team; we often suggest a measurement, coaching around and inspection of Value Clarification. Rather than starting the focus on “how much do you think you can sell customer X?” start the focus on “how much added value do you think you could bring to customer X and why?”
How do you think your customers wish you would sell them? Wouldn’t they prefer that you created a list of not just the biggest customers, but a list of those whom you thought would have the most financial gain from your solution? Suppose target lists were managed not on the supplier’s benefit and profit, but on the customer’s. Your sales will go up; we know it, because we see it all the time.
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August 22, 2010
By Mark Faust
My son worked for one of the world’s top dog handlers who taught him one of the keys to her business success. When she was asked for what was a top strategy for continually growing her business, in a heartbeat she quipped; “Get rid of the idiots!”
Who are “the idiots?”
Anyone who robs your intended customer from any part of the value your business is meant to deliver is in this woman’s mind “the idiot.” This could be your worst customers, poorest performing salesforce employee, and even the poorest performing products or methodologies of your business.
We’ve all heard it many times, someone complaining about their “worst customer.” Frankly most businesses would have no problem listing out their top 20 worst customers. These customers don’t only cost your business profits by being high maintenance, they cost you business and profit in a myriad of ways. They are probably bad mouthing you and thus costing you potential referral business or lowering your salesforce’s closing ratio in their geography.
 Improving Sales The “worst/idiot” customers probably negotiate the lowest margins and worst yet, they probably rob your sales and service teams a load of valuable selling and service time that other more valuable/profitable customers are warranting. Ultimately the idiots cost you valuable sales time and an exponential amount of growth potential.
There are also idiot products and services. These are the hardest to deliver, lowest profit margin dogs that are legacy products that should have been abandoned long ago. Yet because of the lack of a strategic abandonment process in your company or because of a nostalgic yearning for yesterday’s product and people, these profit drainers are still around.
Most companies also have “idiot” sales performers, teams, or employees who deliver abysmal performance or walk out horrid character traits, and thus your company is suffering a tremendous drag. Jack Welch grew GE for many years with significant results from firing the bottom 10% for a period of many years.
Here is a three step strategy that can help you “get rid of the idiots.”
1. Have every sales rep list their “worst customers” based on profitability, pain or overall “drain.”
2. Conduct topgrading throughout your salesforce team and employee base; A performers, B performers and those who ideally you’d like to replace…for whatever reason, but especially for poor character and poor selling performance.
3. Make a list of all products, processes and protocol in your company that if you were beginning anew, would not make the cut in today’s environment
Now create teams for each of the above lists. Strategically “fire” your idiot customers who cost you growth and who rob your intended ideal customer market. If you are afraid to make the step, just do it with a fraction of the idiot customers, choosing only the worst of the idiots and watch closely what happens in those territories.
Next, closely consider who you could replace with better talent. This current economy presents one of the greatest employer markets for finding and hiring top talent. It is almost impossible for companies with a salesforce of more than 20 people to replace the bottom 2 and not make a marked improvement in production.
Finally consider all of the worst products, services and procedures of your company and have teams systematically eliminate and replace as many as you confidently can. This is a heart of continuous improvement, innovation and profit improvement.
Great opportunity abounds for the companies who aren’t afraid to fire the idiots and focus on their ideal customer. With your ideal employees and your best products and services this is the market in which the “idiotless” will thrive.
August 18, 2010
 By Rye D’Orazio rdorazio@rayandbarney.com
As Organizations focused on Sales, it’s important that we take time to assess ourselves internally. Are we doing the right things? Focusing on the activities that are important? Are we structured in such a way as to motivate and reward our teams? Often the best way to answer these and other important questions, is to view ourselves from the outside looking in. What better eyes to use than those of new Sales recruits?
Geoffrey James in his blog, “Geoffrey James Questions to Answer” provided a comprehensive list of interview questions for sales professionals. This list of 21 questions, focusing on 5 central Sales areas, can aid all Sales Professionals looking to assess potential employers as well as act as a starting point for employers looking to assess their Sales organization. Here is James’ list:
COMPENSATION:
- What is the base pay, commissions and perks?
- How soon are commissions paid after deals close?
- Is there a ramp period?
- How are commissions handled during that ramp-up period?
SALES PROCESS:
- What is the sales process for this company?
- How is the sales process documented?
- What sales process training will be provided, when and from whom?
- What product knowledge training will I receive, when and from whom?
- What is the typical sales cycle and how long does it take?
SALES TOOLS:
- What sales tools will be provided?
- What marketing materials will be provided?
- What sales technology is available?
- Does the company provide computers and/or cell phones?
OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
- How are prospects identified?
- What percentage of your sales comes from customer referrals?
- What role does marketing play in lead generation?
- When a customer is dissatisfied, how is that handled?
MANAGEMENT STYLE:
- What are your expectations of your sales people?
- How and when do you communicate with your sales people regarding their performance?
- What kind of coaching can sales people expect from management?
- How frequent are sales meetings and what happens at them?
These are great questions to act as a “gut check” for Sales Leaders. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what our sales culture is all about in order to make the right decisions moving forward. What about the CEO/President/company leader, could they better lead and manage if they had this perspective on their sales organization too? To best lead and manage your sales leader with confidence you, as the company leader, need to have the knowledge of how your company’s sales organization operates. “Knowledge is power to control where you want to lead” James Rores Pipelinecoach.com founder says.
Here are a few additional questions to help you focus your knowledge of sales in your internal assessment:
COMPENSATION:
- What is the sales team incented to do and does the incentive align with what we want the sales people to do?
SALES PROCESS:
- How well are your Sales, Marketing and Product/Service Packaging aligned?
- Do these 3 groups understand their roles in the sales process?
SALES TOOLS:
- How well is the Sales team in line with the sales process?
- How do the sales reps consider the tools they use; for reporting to management or a valued part of the sales process that helps them perform better?
OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
- What type of sales associates make-up of the sales team and what are their roles? Account Management, Hunter and Opportunity Lead Generator, Solution development, etc.
MANAGEMENT STYLE:
- Is it a one way is the only way? Is it results oriented focused and not style focused?
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Pipeline Coach provides the following simple scorecard for sales assessments, the knowledge that gives visibility to lead:
How well does your sales organization consistently
… 1. Needs Improvement 2. Meets Expectations 3. Exceeds Expectations
Document and follow a well-defined sales process? 1 2 3
Balance each step in the sales process? (e.g. opportunity generation,lead incubation, buy-cycle management, solution development, proposal writing, negotiation, closing, and account management 1 2 3
Collect and report accurate pipeline metrics? 1 2 3
Collaborate and share best practices? 1 2 3
Compensate producers consistent with overall business goals? 1 2 3
Meet forecast sales goals? (e.g. what will close, when, for how much) 1 2 3
Properly qualify and prioritize opportunities? 1 2 3
Avoid price as an objection? 1 2 3
Effectively cross-sell and up-sell? 1 2 3
Add new clients? 1 2 3
Schedule and run effective internal sales meetings? 1 2 3
Recruit, on-board and retain top sales talent? 1 2 3
We have to ask ourselves are we better leaders when we have this knowledge, is it worth the investment to know your sales organization?
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August 5, 2010
As COO of a S&P 500 company, Sandy Costa led a growth initiative from $90 million to $1.6 billion in six years. While there were many acquisitions in those five years, over 60% of that growth was organic. This was just one of many teams he led through high sales growth improvements using management strategies any company can implement to accelerate growth.
Here are the top strategies Sandy prioritizes as keys to fostering sales growth.
Leverage Relationships – Most people have relationships with hundreds of individuals. One of the most underutilized assets in any sized company is the leveraging of the relationship potential that exists throughout the organization. Share a list of your targets throughout the company and discuss any possible connections that may accelerate meeting, engaging and building trust with your top prospects.
Create a “Must-Win” list and review regularly. Sandy facilitated worldwide calls regularly that reviewed the progress on key targets, new opportunities, challenges, missteps and questions. This enhanced focus of idea sharing accelerated sales cycles in a positive upbeat form of accountability.
Incent and compensate all of your people for profitability, not simply revenue. Too often, companies build quotas and compensation only around revenue and customers. Allow the entire team to contribute ideas that improve profitability and have a clear connection between compensation and the amount of profit cultivated by sales reps and others.
Find and share best practices regularly. Sandy would have the salesforce meet annually to review why they won business and what specific and scalable practices were key to winning business. Start a best practices “bible.” Add to it and review regularly.
Top leadership must be close to the salesforce. Despite being a COO of a 20,000 person team, Sandy would go on sales calls. He dedicated approximately 25% of his time to interactions with key clients. We’ve seen team sales calls involving owners and other top leaders increase closing ratios, accelerate sales cycles and foster sales improvements and innovations. Make team calls on your largest customers and most competitive situations and watch success multiply.
Put people first. Most important to Sandy was keeping “Humanity At Work” which is the title of his new book. By this he means making sure people know how important they are to the organization. This is the bedrock to fostering growth and can be accomplished by considering the following:
Treat employees like volunteers. Too often management looks at staff with an attitude of “hey they are well paid and lucky to have such good jobs” but when a spirit of gratitude is consistently emanating from leaders, the esprit de corps is higher and people sell and serve the extra mile.
Bring objectivity and patience to your most emotionally charged challenges. “Fear evaporates when facts come on the scene” says Sandy, “most people don’t bring all of the facts to the conversation.” Its leadership’s job to ask as many questions as it takes to have all of the facts and restore objectivity and fairness to challenging situations. Rarely is conflict as charged if all of the facts are shared.
Humility is the most important leadership character quality in Sandy’s opinion as it is the “sire of all virtues.”
Forgiveness is another key character strategy to maximizing a team’s aggressiveness and courage. “I would tell the team that I expected to make mistakes today and that mistakes are part of business” says Sandy. “People who beat people up for mistakes just send them into a shell… I normally did not have a problem when people made mistakes, only if they didn’t learn from it.”
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June 18, 2010
Rye D’Orazio rdorazio@rayandbarney.com
I recently had the pleasure of attending an Innovation Summit put on by Tech Columbus (www.TechColumbus.com). During this Summit, we were exposed to many of the successful Innovative ideas businesses are currently using. Innovation can help a company develop product and service offerings and gain competitive advantage all while increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. We discussed a myriad of Innovative ideas, including:
- Yahoo Hack Days
- Call Center guidelines for help desk workers to ‘just solve the customer’s problem’, with no time limits, no number of calls tracked
- We heard about an electronics retailer offering total flex time for retail workers
All of these Innovations resulted in increased performance and profits, new offerings or superior customer service.
This got me to thinking, what are things we can do as sales professionals to stir a culture of innovation, out of the ordinary thinking? Would, perhaps, a day a month to explore innovative ideas help us to increase sales performance and generate revenue? Maybe as Sales Professionals we can use Innovation to get more meaningful meetings, to get in front of our target prospects, to keep clients and consumers. We need to consider how we, as sales professionals, can discover Innovation, particularly in relation to marketing, product development or service delivery teams. We need to ask ourselves, have we looked at Non-traditional ways to foster innovation and creative thinking?
Professor Neeli Bendapudi quoted Albert Einstein, “Not everything that counts can be counted, not everything that can be counted counts.” We often are so numbers and metrics driven that we may miss the valuable things outside of what we count that really count. Part of the TechColumbus Innovation conference was a talk by bestselling author Daniel Pink, who discussed the science of behavior and the mismatch between how businesses work and how they incent. The power of incentives for innovation worked on simple problems, but not where creative, perceptual or cognitive thinking was required. The more complex issues were solved quicker by the non-incented group. Daniel Pink calls it intrinsic motivation. Here is a video with more info from Daniel Pink:
As Sales Professionals, we need to look at how we incent and if it is broadening or limiting creativity.
Are you willing to maybe have a paradigm shift in our thinking and in how we incent and motivate? In what other Sales areas might a jolt of innovation help improve the success of our work?
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May 25, 2010
By Mark Faust Echelon Management
 Our sales improvement business has always thrived during recessions, and one reason is what a recent Harvard Business Journal report showed in how the faster growing companies with aggressive management have been shown to invest in growth strategies during down times and reduce costs during the up times contrary to the typical approach of business. Thus it is easier for us to sell the better companies on growth strategies during a downturn.
We’ve noticed these companies tend to gain market share during down times. If they can do it, why can’t you? Isn’t your competition facing the same pressures as you? Aren’t the sales reps of competitors as likely to use the recession as an excuse as anyone? Much of what it takes to beat a recession is the concerted effort and decision to not let it happen to you, but to take it head on and innovate your way out of being a victim of lower sales.
Here are just three of the many strategies a company can take during the midst or beginnings of a recession to actually increase sales.
1. Talk about it, decide as a team to no let it be an excuse
2. Begin building a list of innovations in the marketing and selling of your business then prioritize and act on them
3. Create a list of reasons as to why you are the best company to do business with during a recession
Some examples of selling and marketing innovations are:
- Create a marketing campaign that can be as simple as 3 inexpensive mailings followed up by strategically timed sales calls with your top 20% customers and highest growth potentials.
- Create incentives for tying up business with you, or buying more from you. Focus on creating incentives that don’t cost you much or anything at all, but actually should be lowering your total COS/Cost of Sales. Your customers benefit because they are securing a better than average cost during the recession.
- Survey your customers for what they most fear during these times and what problems most impede their performance during a recession, and then find unique solutions your team can deliver to those needs. The survey in and of itself, if done over the phone or face to face will act as a selling accelerator. Never conduct surveys through email or in the mail.
- At the same time while conducting depth interviews with your customers in a way that is an open ended qualitative face to face or phone approach; ask about what makes you different, and why they prefer you or the competition. This helps to further clarify your positioning in the marketplace. This analysis helps to prioritize your competitive advantages and weaknesses. The process also helps you to better target your idea customers, demographics etc. Improving the focus your sales and marketing efforts have on the right prospects will improve sales results as well.
- Hire more sales people, put a company-wide focus on new sales and marketing strategies and create new incentive packages or sales rewards for securing new customers.
- Getting the team to set a mission critical company growth goal and have every one identify ways that they individually can help reach that central sales growth objective brings the entire team’s focus onto the most important focus during a challenging economy.
- Only focusing on cost savings gives a company a fraction of the potential in the profit improvement process as costs can only go so low. Sales and production are the open ended and often unlimited potential areas of focus for health sales and profit improvement.
Bring the team together immediately and start on the three steps toward growth in these challenging economic times.
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April 26, 2010
 By Brad Ristas bristas@rayandbarney.com
How do you keep your top reps from jumping ship?
This is a very important question in this challenging economy.
The first thing you need to consider is whether you are aligned with the reps own goals. Get to know your sales force better by asking questions and spending some time with them. This investment in your time upfront and early on will pay back in so many ways over time (and it’s never too late to begin).
These meetings could include collaborating on their career roadmaps or just giving them a place to ask questions and make comments about anything that concerns them. You can become their “go-to” person when they have questions about next steps. Remember, often times these sales reps are out there by themselves for long stretches of times trying to find new ways to penetrate accounts. Their entire workday is not always so clearly scripted. They want to hear from you if they feel that the information you are funneling to them can assist in building their business. You can gain a better understanding of what motivates your Sales Force to do a particular job if you build this initial relationship on Team Building and Trust.
Some top Sales Reps are truly representative of the organization from day one. They demonstrate their loyalty by their abilities to get out there and get done whatever is necessary to promote the well being, growth, and profitability of the organization. These key Sales Reps understand being of service to the customer first, and then of service to the organization. This doesn’t mean you can ignore the Sales Rep who is strictly “coin operated,” as there is room in the organization for them also. You just need to know that you should handle their needs differently from how you handle the true team player who has bought into a program of internal ownership for your sales process. Just because the latter Rep is motivated more by money, and that may not be aligned with your own strategic long term goals, it doesn’t mean that they cannot be a Team player. Appeal to them at a different level. There are still a lot of good Sales Reps in this category as well.
So the answer is quite simple if the communications is simple also. Both are retained by always improving these communications processes, coaching them equally through good and bad times, and enforcing the ideals that it is a Team approach and that you as a manager share in both the successes and failures he/she enjoys. Put yourself on the same page by sharing their route with them, giving them the feeling and understanding that they aren’t out there alone. It isn’t them against the world, but rather, they are looking to build a successful business practice, and you are their partner and advocate in getting them to where they want to be.
You do this successfully, and you’ve likely given them every reason to stay with you.
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