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When Sales Goals Change but Behavior and Results Don't

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Suppose that you need your salespeople to find significantly more new business. Perhaps you've wanted this for a while but it's only recently that you communicated this to your salespeople. You've changed the goal but after a month your salespeople's behavior and results haven't changed at all.

When Sales Goals Change but Behavior and Results Don't

Suppose that you need your salespeople to find significantly more new business. Perhaps you've wanted this for a while but it's only recently that you communicated this to your salespeople. You've changed the goal but after a month your salespeople's behavior and results haven't changed at all.

Let's compare this to weight loss. You decide that you will finally lose that 30 pounds you've been carrying around for several years. Your goal changes but after a month, the weight hasn't begun to decrease. Did the behavior change? Was there a change to either diet, lifestyle or exercise? With weight loss goals, it's usually very apparent that the weight won't come off until at least one of those three behaviors change.

Unfortunately, with salespeople, it's not always apparent that a modified goal requires modified behaviors. As much as salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance, sales managers tend to enable them by not holding them accountable and not providing the right type and amount of coaching and motivation.

You can change salespeople's behavior but it takes more than asking or demanding. You must be able to provide a reason, explain the benefits, share the plan, set expectations, and have a time line. You must be able to coach to the new goals, hold them accountable to the new behavior, and be willing to enforce consequences when you don't see the anticipated change.

Or, you could simply allow them to continue doing what they've been doing...

I wrote an article on just this subject back in September. It was the Hierarchy of Sales Coaching - How to Change Behavior.

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Article Tags: behavior change, br, consequences, diet, exercise, hierarchy, lifestyle, motivation, new business, new goals, path of least resistance, sales managers, salespeople, set expectations, time line, weight loss goals



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Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
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