Sales Management Training Tips: Coaching the Talented-Slacker

Jane is an experienced and successful district sales manager who could work in any industry and for any company. In fact, there are many Jane's in all companies. Jane is performance driven, a very good coach and a people person. Each month Jane is put to the test with different sales reps she must coach to success.

IBZ is a mid sized technology company. The company has had some tough years but has turned the corner. It pays it's reps a combination of salary and bonus for achievement of targets. This year the bonus plans has a super bonus portion which accelerates when a rep is 5% over quota.

Jane wants to get 2009 off to a great start. In one of our monthly coaching sessions Jane, was expressing her frustrations with one of her most tenured sales reps.

Jane took over an underperforming region last year and has helped lead the team to be in the top 25% of districts in the country. Jane's goal in 2009 is to be in the top 10% of the country. Her key areas of focus are finding innovative ways to grow the business and for her team to develop new business opportunities for lagging product lines.

As she reviews her team, one rep keeps coming up. Ray has been with the company for over 20 years and has worked with 10 DM's in his tenure. He has been on 2 personal improvement programs (PIP) and has won several sales contests in the last few years.

Ray knows his stuff, he knows his customers and he knows how to get others in the office to do his work. When Jane works with Ray she has a good day except that she wonders whether he works full days when she is not with him. He picks her up at 8:30 and drops her off around 4:30. The day is well planned and Ray has a good rapport with his customers.

Jane has invested a lot of energy trying to motivate Ray; she has spent a considerable amount of time giving him positive feedback on his skills and customer service, business plans and his year-end review. She would like to see how much more impact he can have by putting in the extra call per day.

When Jane reviewed Ray's 2009 business plan, she felt that Ray had not included any new target customers or innovative approaches to driving the business further. She is frustrated with Ray's lack of initiative and drive.

Questions:

• 1. How do you motivate Ray to put in the extra effort required to be a top rep?
• 2. How much time would you invest in Ray in 2009?

See my thoughts on page.....

Dear Jane,

Ray is an example of a rep that has all the talent but lacks consistent effort to be a top performer. The first thing we need to remember as managers is that it is not our job to motivate our reps. External motivation is short lived. It is not necessarily sustained when you are not with your rep.

Another way to approach Ray is to encourage him to focus on developing new business. He may think he knows best and he will appease you by picking a few accounts. He knows he will have a new manager in time and will out last that manager as well. Provide Ray with positive reinforcement only when Ray demonstrates that he is driving new business and initiatives. 

You can continue to invest in Ray's development but will get limited returns for the time you invest. With 8 other reps you can achieve a better ROI by investing in those reps that put out a consistent high level of effort and are self motivated.

Let me know how it goes,

Steven Rosen, MBA

Sales Executive Coach