Stop Being Positive
We worked with Howard, a very good manager who was frustrated with his sales team. He wanted his reps to actively use an input and output sales dashboard, but the reps kept making excuses and wouldn’t update it.
Howard finally called one of the reps and asked him directly, “What is standing in the way of you guys using the dashboard?” The rep said the team was afraid of using it because it would require even more work and commitment from the staff, plus it might be somewhat exposing.
Once Howard helped the reps recognize that their resistance was an issue of attitude, not of competence, they were soon using the dashboard – and their closing percentage improved.
No matter what a person’s sales ability, length of service, or technical expertise, the determining factor in performance is attitude. If he believes he can do something, if he expects to succeed, if he believes closing a sale is possible, there’s a strong likelihood that he will do it. Most people call this having a positive mindset.
Conversely, if someone lacks confidence because…
He is unfamiliar with a new product that he has been tasked to sell.
He feels dejected because he can’t find prospects who will listen to him.
He is worried because sales aren’t happening and he just lost the sure deal he was counting on.
He is all bent out of shape because the service department has let him down.
He’s afraid he isn’t going to make the cut.
...the chances of making a sale are predictably low. A negative attitude just isn’t going to produce consistently solid sales results.
Every sales manager wants his staff to be in a positive frame of mind not only because better sales will follow, but also because it’s no fun dealing with negative people who whine, moan, and complain.
Most sales managers take it upon themselves to cheer up their team so they can get back to selling. After all, your reputation and job security depends upon getting your people to sell. Managers try a number of ways to get people to be positive:
They try humor.
They try being a therapist.
They try incentivizing.
They give them a couple of hot leads.
They buy them a drink.
They give them a pep talk.
They tell war stories.
They model being really positive.
Sometimes these approaches work, but only in the short term. Invariably, there will be some bad news and then the negativity returns.
As a sales manager, either you resign yourself to the belief that you have to keep propping people up, or you stop taking responsibility for something that isn’t yours to take. Then you can start doing something that empowers your employees to take full responsibility for their own attitude.
First, you need to understand that the subject of attitude is far more nuanced than the labels ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ convey. Both of these words are generalities, not specific descriptions of mental states that generate behaviors that either produce or inhibit sales success.
Let’s keep it simple for the moment. We find it helpful to think about one’s attitude either being ‘up’ or ‘down.’ When training and coaching sales managers, we often draw a horizontal line and refer to attitude being either above-the-line (ATL) or below-the-line (BTL).
ATL is a mental state in which people are constantly seeing new possibilities, new paths to take - no matter what is happening.
BTL is anything less, culminating in an attitude of impossibility, where people feel victimized and believe they have no options other than having to do what they’re already doing.
When most sales managers sense a team member is below-the-line, they feel this person’s state of impossibility and get hooked. They take it upon themselves to try to cheer them up.
Unfortunately, this is exactly the wrong thing to do!
Being happy-clappy will not solve a down attitude. At best it’s a temporary fix. At worst, your sales people know you’re faking it and simply can’t picture themselves acting like you.
At the same time, being angry, avoiding, or threatening won’t solve the problem either. It will just make things worse.
The real question is -- what can you do to teach your salespeople to take responsibility for their own attitude and to quickly shift back to a state of possibility when the wheels feel like they have come off?
The next time one of your team is below-the-line, try this:
Speak to them privately, and ask them directly what is bothering them.
Listen carefully – don’t interrupt, give advice, put a positive spin on what they are saying, or otherwise try to cheer them up. Let them express their negativity for a few minutes. Just take notes and repeat back to them what they’ve said.
When you sense they’ve said it all, then ask this critical question: what do you want instead?
Again, listen carefully, repeat what they say, and ask why that’s important to them. After they’ve spoken, add the words, “and you want that because…” and let them continue to speak.
Watch as they lighten up and relax. They’re attitude will continue to rise as they think about and express what they want.
Now help them find a solution to their problem and a specific very next step they can take.
Attitude is a significant component of sales performance, and you will reap the dividends if you can teach your team how to bounce back quickly when they’ve fallen below-the-line.