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Picture, if you will, an invisible glass ceiling over each one of your salespeople. And the ceiling height is limited by the amount of talent that each one possesses for ultimate success in that role. And that ceiling height is determined maybe by the inherent limitations of those talents or maybe the lack of talent in some case which is essential for ultimate sales success.

Now can a salesperson that lacks or is difficient in certain core talents to the job ever be hugely successful in the role? The answer to that is: no.

The average sales manager believes that if they diligently work on each individual sales persons weaknesses or maybe lack of talent, trying desperately to get them to make up for those weaknesses through hard work, extra effort, training, they’ll eventually turn them into successful salespeople. That sales manager might send their sales person with deficiencies to conferences, remedial training, all in hopes that they’ll eventually turn it around, develop those weaknesses, and achieve the associated enhanced performance.

At performance appraisal time the average sales manager spends the majority of their time talking about these areas of opportunity for each sales person, hoping and believing that if the sales person just improved a few things then they could achieve even better performance.

In direct contrast to the average sales manager that tries to fix each sales person’s weaknesses, top performing sales managers work to draw out more of the inherent talents of those sales people, namely the things that they are good at. In previous shows we have referred to this as “harnassing talents”.

What the great sales manager does is that he highlights those talents that catalize success in the role, while minimizing, if he can, any kind of weaknesses.

Here’s my point: the best, high performing sales manager look at their sales people and observe them and they figure out what they are really best at. In one of or
In one of our previous shows we ask you to ask your sales people what they feel they are good at in sales.

The combination of that answer as well as your own perceptions and observations, you can come to the conclusion to of what they are really best at. The best sales manager notice these certain core talents, and take mental notes of their sales people and they also notice their weaknesses. They can leverage their talents as a launching point to coax even greater performance out of those sales people.

Let’s get to an example. Let’s compare two top performing sales people. Maybe these are two sales people that your managers have on their teams, both having achieved the highest sales awards in their companies with great track records of success. These are taken from my personal experience and I am sure that you have something similar to this on your team.

The first example is Joan. And Joan has an incredible talent for building rapport, easily weaving conversation into her sales pitch. Her manner is easy going, laid back, she hides this profound inner drive. She is completely in control of the situation at all times and asks lots of layered questions Instead of being “all business”, she builds rapport, she talks about jewelry and kids other kinds of non-business stuff. But when it comes to the end, she really doesn’t close, per say, as much as she just assumes that they’ll be moving on to the next step. She doesn’t use a lot of references materials or studies, instead she relies on this easy going, trust worthy manner to build her credibility. So that is Joan.

In contrast, we have Tom. Tom is incredibly persistent, he is often awkward in his approach sometimes. But people really respect him due to his aggressiveness and this “never taking no” kind of mentality. When he is in a sales call, he is all business, no rapport building whatsoever. He maybe asks a few precisely worded questions to uncover the need. But just like his initial approach, when he hears objections, he aggressively asks the reasons behind the objections. He is much more aggressive and forthright, the classic sales person, “Tom Hopkins” type of sales guy. At the end of the sale, he asks the alternate close questions, standardized close questions, awaits responses, before proceeding and pushing to the next step.. And he is extremely successful in doing so.

There are two examples. We have Joan and we have Tom. Two completely different type of sales people, but both very different but both very successful

Now would you look at both Joan and Tom and think to yourself, now if I could just get Joan to use more reference materials, and ask more hard closed questions then she’d even be better? Or maybe would you think of Tom like, “Tom is just too tough, I need him to soften up his approach and build some rapport and he needs to ask more questions before going for the hard close.”

In both cases, you’d be falling into the most common, yet well meaning, trap of typical sales managers. If your sales managers lead in this way, this is a very typical problem, because this is the path of most resistance, trying to change people into something that they are not. The path of least resistance is to draw more out of them, what is already there.

In both cases the sales managers would be trying to perfect them. I have news for you, this is very difficult to do. At Sales Management Mastery Academy we really advocate low maintenance, high performance sales people and we have talked about the lazy sales manager’s way to manage. This is the essence of the lazy sales manager, because if you are trying to go against the grain, and you are contantly trying to push water up hill, your not going to be successful at it and efforts are going to be futile. It’s going to be very difficult for you to motivate and lead your team to where you want them to be.

You could be the second coming of Winston Churchill, but I still don’t think that you could get Joan or Tom to change a whole lot. In fact, neither will really change a whole lot in their entire lives, their styles are so different, but they are both very effective so why try to change them? Most sales managers would. But what we are advocating here is to take the path of least resistance, and draw more out of them what they already do well out of them that they do well.

When it comes to this averages sales managers make the mistake of doing two things consistently. They focus on fixing the sales peoples weaknesses, and number two, trying a desperate and futile attempt to get their sales reps to be more like themselves or sell like themselves. These are two pitfalls that you need to watch out for.

I’ve got news for you here: you’ll never get Joan to sell more like Tom, and you’ll never get Tom to sell more like Joan, and further you’ll never get Joan or Tom to ever sell like you did.

What a top performing sales manager does is to push these sales reps to be even better at what they are good at, while minimizing the things that they are not good at.

In each case all of the character traits that we mentioned for Joan and Tom are really what we call “talents”. In the case of Joan, her rapport building, easy going manner of questioning, the self deprecating humor, those are all talents

And Tom’s serious, yet deteremined drive, his resiliencey, his closing ability,his timing those are all talents as well.

What the top performing sales managers do is look at them and use those talents to use them as a foundation to build and further augment each individual sales person’s performance.

The top sales managers would refer to these talents even when they are being reprimanded for something even unrelated.

This is not to say that we do not want to improve Joan and Tom at all. What I am saying is that it is far easier to draw out more of what they have rather than put in something that isn’t there in the first place.

So in the case of Joan, let’s say you are strategizing with her before a sales call. Maybe this is what you would say as far as your instruction goes. You are in a pre-call plan with her, maybe this is what you would say: “Since you build rapport so easily Joan, and ask such great non-threatening questions, you might want to approach the call this way….”

You are using what she is already good at in order to get across what you want her to do. You are coaching and motivating all at the same time.

In the case of Tom, let’s say you are on the phone with him regarding a call that he has just made, and you’d interject something like this: “Because you are so great at getting in to see decisions makers and because people have immediate respect for you because of your persistence, I might approach the call like this…what do you think?”

You are giving them something to go with on your coaching but you are also motivating acknowledging their talents.

People love to hear things that they are really good. Everyone really wants to be a specialist at one thing, if not many specific things.

You are making people feel good about what they are doing, motivating them, and also coaching them with your agenda at the same time.

In both cases, you are building them up. You are referring to their talents. And you are using that talent to launch into how you want to proceed with your agenda or whatever it is that you are discussing with them.

This could be just a passing conversation, or it could be in a formal strategy sessions.

Either way works.

You are drawing out their talents. As Marcus Buckingham says in “Break All Of The Rules”:

Motivating them by more of who they already are is a far easier way to motivate and draw out talents as opposed to trying to get them become someone that they are not.”

So let’s review:

1. Identify their talents
2. Inject those talents and make mention of them in your discussions and coaching sessions with your sales people. This motivates them to be more of who they are, you build rapport, trust, and respect with them in the process. But most importantly they feel like you are accepting them for who they are instead of trying to make them who they are not. And that is the real secret to motivating sales people.

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