BONUS MATERIAL: Stop Giving People a Second Chance

To improve your ability to really understand what is impeding the sales performance of your people, it helps to listen through the ‘filters’ of Attitude, Competence, and Execution. That way you can apply the right solution to the problem at hand. Here are some ideas of what to look for when you use the RACE® framework:

Look for evidence of Attitude problems:

• Are they telling you a lot of stories, or giving you excuses and reasons why things aren’t happening?

• Do you hear them blaming customers, colleagues, processes, etc. for their performance? Are they complaining?

• Do they appear confident and optimistic, or are they faking it? Or do you see them acting discouraged and lacking direction.

• Are they turning up late for meetings or submitting reports?

• Does evidence of their work (sales reports, CRM updates, etc.) demonstrate pride and purposefulness or is it messy, incomplete, or hastily done?

• Do they make solid commitments to you that actually get done, or do they forget, hedge, or otherwise not completed them? Do they keep their promises to you?

Look to your MI (management information) for evidence of Competence problems:

• Slow speed of deals through the pipeline

• Low conversion rate

• Low sale value

• Close date keeps slipping

And look for Competence issues when you are observing them in action:

• How well do they connect with customers? Is it too short or too long? Do they put people at ease?

• Do they really listen to find the problems their customers are trying to solve? Do they listen long enough? Do they pepper people with questions to force the conversation in a certain direction, or do they follow the customer’s line of thinking?

• Are they asking the customer to calculate the cost of his problem if no action is taken to solve it?

• Do they respond well to the customer’s expressed needs, or do they give a ‘plain vanilla’ presentation that lacks a compelling case?

• Do they close every customer meeting with an agreed, specific next step or do they leave it vague and general?

• How well do they handle removing blocks when the customer won’t commit to a next step?

Look for evidence of Execution problems:

• Are they seeing the right prospects? Are they seeing enough people?

• Are they investing their time in the right activities or are they just staying ‘busy?’

• Do they tend to ‘shoot from the hip’ when they visit customers or are they organized?

• Are they careful or careless in their sales planning? Are they tracking each step with their customer in the CRM and using it as a forward looking sales tool or are they using it as a backward looking history, constantly ‘keeping it up to date?’

A final word about dealing with attitude.

Unsolved Attitude issues are the number one reason why giving people a second chance rarely works. When your people’s Attitude is ‘up’ and they are fully committed, they can sell brilliantly. They will release tremendous capability to figure things out, work creatively, solve problems and feel undaunted by any challenge. They will take responsibility for their performance and make things happen.

Always address Attitude issues first because this is the component of RACE® that drives change the fastest. After you solve attitude issues, then address competence and execution challenges.

Become great at spotting an Attitude problem early on and address it promptly. Don’t hope it will change on its own. And don’t play the tough guy by commanding your salesperson to change his attitude or else.