This week’s poll question is intended more for managers, but salespeople are welcome to weigh in, too:
How do you handle the “loose cannon” on your sales team, the rep whose billing is OK, but whose prickly attitude or lack of “team spirit” is a pain for the rest of the department?
She does whatever we ask???
Figure out what it is you want her to do in regards to the long conversations and client interruptions...
Then ask her...nicely.
No success with asking...put it in writing. Doesn't matter what age.
Spell check is a must...
The office is a "Safe - Zone" for all employees; especially members of the Sales Team. In order to weigh in on this question you'd [ each sales manger] would have to ask themself, "What type of Sales department have you allowed to grow," and what type of philisophy is the norm in so far as how a given manager handles his sales team. Every sales team [ department} has a culture; some managers shouldn't be managers because they lack the interpersonal skills to be effective. Those not so good mangers probably helped breed an adversarial environment that exacerbates any negative, Prickly , get your back up , watch your back , lack of team spirit environment and actually points to the condoning of inappropariate and simply wrong and unfair intercation with the prickly one and the sales team.
Singular sales achievments pale in comparison to the importance of the success of the Sales Team as a whole.A canerous or insidious attitude does apparent damage plus damage that may not be immediately apparent.
So, If the sales culture and corporate culture is a positive one; the problem is easily solved. Because the rep in question can be sat down and a truthful conversation can happen that directly addresses the disruptive nature of their attitude, disposition and its affect on the Comany; starting with the Sales Team. End of the day... you're either part of team or you're not.
However.. if mangement has been giving mixed messages either by example or mood of a manager on a given day..then it becomes the pot calling the kettle black.
So if you've earned the right as a manager to have the right type of conversation; you would warn them of how disruptive they are being; and at the same time, clearly define certain elements that are most aggregious to the Sales Team's harmony, philosphy and positive nature. I'm not a pot smoking hippie, where everybody needs group hug everyday...there is always a "Darker under-belly ,"to any sales room filled with competitive reps. But even in war; there is The Geneva convention on politically and humanitarian do's and don't's.... a sales team / room has the same demmands.
End of the day... what type of manager have you been? ... and how can you solve the problem being consistent with the way you run your department; but still keep your eye on the flow opf dough coming in..
First off good sales people are NOT pack animals. They are lone eagles. On my sales team I'd rather have a BUNCH of loose cannons. I don't want a warm and fuzzy feeling team who nurture each other. I want people who are all out there trying to make money and make as much as they can. This makes life harder on the sales managers, but that is what they are paid for... basically herding cats.
I make sure that sales people are focused on PERSONAL goals, and then facilitate their earning enough money to reach those goals. (I also provide sales managers with Black and White striped shirts and a whistle).
Hey Chris... I agree... that's the reality of a sales room.Making dough. I always use the anaolgy of it's easier to make a thoroughbred slow down than it is to make a nag run like a racehorse.But there are times when a negative element merely needs to be plucked from the fray... or sent off to feed someplace else.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the many of the few or the one.
kinda like the 3 F- Steps of separation between being a team player and finding oneself unemployed.
Feel... Fuzzy.....Fired.
Depends on how "Loose" they are. Radio sales is different than other sales positions in the fact that you have to have the ability to be left brain and right brain thinkers. You have to be analytical and somewhat of a bookkeeper but you also have to be creative in copy as well as promotional ideas. Therefore, you will always have a "Loose" cannon or two. There will be A players, B players and C players...as a manager you have to manage each one differently in order to have them rise to the occasion. What works for one does not work for all especially in this industry! If they are constantly an "EEE-ore" then you need to bring that to their attention and let them know that they will not be sucking the energy out of the building anymore. Happy Friday...how many sales people are in your office after 2pm on a Friday?
There are internal customers as well as external customers. Those that make life difficult for people they work with will lead to uneccessary turnover. I'd rather keep a great production director or traffic manager than a sales rep with OK billing.
@Chris Rolando -
While I agree that selling is an individual enterprise rather than a team sport*, I wouldn't go so far as to characterize the best salespeople as lone predators (the eagle being a bird of prey), watching out only for #1. I know far too many examples to the contrary.
Great salespeople are competitive. We all want to be top-biller. It's in our DNA. (For some strange reason, George C. Scott's famous portrayal of Patton's speech to his troops comes to mind.) But that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't go out of our way to treat our colleagues with courtesy, at least, if not graciousness.
There's nothing wrong with the old concept of esprit d'corps. Reading between the lines of both Jack and Joel's earlier comments, I would infer that their companies have it and that it goes a long way to preventing unnecessary turnover.
The sales manager has a tough job, being accountable to ownership and to his/her salespeople. Responsibility is a two-way street.
Yes, black-and-white shirts come with the position, but do you not also provide your sales managers with BMWs? :>)
*Although...back in Winona, MN the entire sales team, 11 of us, I think, once made a group pitch to the Downtown Business Association, well-planned and rehearsed prior to the meeting with the DBA. (The competing station, newspaper, and shopper all had a rep show up to make a pitch, but we were a tough act to follow.)
Let's face some facts: Air people are "a dime a dozen." Sales people who actually produce are much more valuable. If the person in question demonstrably causes a decrease in billing among the other sales people, then he's outta there. That's tough to prove, though. There's a "problem child" in almost every company/office/setting, though.
I actually believe diversity in a team is healthy. I know from experience you do not want everybody doing as you want, there is a name for that and it starts with sick...
Studies have shown that differences are profitable, teams with wildly varied views generate three times as many marketable ideas than teams that all have the same views.
My view is confront it...
Sit the person down and ask them
1. Hey why are like you are? I notice you are a loner why is that? Sometimes you are unreasonable with others, why is that?
Then I would say "I'm happy to support you to get what you want, can you help me get what I want"
Just confronting the issue and find out what they perceive, what you perceive and if there is a mismatch
WHY
Hope it helps...
Mike
Mike, I'm sorry to hear that you're a believer in "diversity." Of course, if "diversity," in and of itself, were a formula for success, we all know what an NBA squad would look like...and it wouldn't look much like what it looks like now, would it? If diverse people in a group accomplish the group's goals, that's wonderful...but if a non-diverse group accomplishes its goals, that's great, too.
"Diversity" is neither good nor bad on its face. "Diversity for diversity's sake" is a VERY bad idea that accomplishes nothing. And keep in mind that the greatest governing document ever written, the US Constitution, was written by the most non-diverse bunch of people ever assembled: English-speaking, land-owning, educated white males over the age of 30 of northern European ancestry.
I'm just sayin'...
A really good salesperson is the best asset a station can have. If it were easy, we would all go hire the person working the drive through. After all, they are asking for the order.
But really good, local air talent is not a dime a dozen. They are the product we're selling. If your product is lousy no one is buying it or listening.
Fortunately, our air talent is very good and involved in the community. My job is a lot easier because of it.
Jack, above a certain threshold, you're right. My point is merely that for every on-air job that's advertised, there are many, many applicants. (I've been at stations where, literally, a thousand people applied for a single on-air job.) But for every sales job, there are often only a few or even none.
Good station performance, especially over time, is certain to be a help to the sales staff. And without talent, a station is nothing. But the ACTUAL product that the sales staff sells is the buying power and attention of the audience. Advertisers have a chance to access that by advertising on-air.
Fair comment...But having come from a diverse culture in New Zealand, where both European and Maori cultures combine, but have managed their diversity in a way that supports each other, I may be talking from experience.
At the end of the day, whatever we may think of a constitution be it the greatest, my ethnic culture made peace with the British, writing the Treaty of Waitangi. Its just the way you look at things...I do not agree with your point of view but you have the right to say it...
At the end of the day, if I am not challenged as a manager, owner husband or father, then I become a dictator do i not?
In my opinion leaders in a group decide the game, in the case of my rugby team the All Blacks...leadership groups are encouraged, and in fact were part of the success of winning the rugby world cup.
If you are running a sales team, there are always code of honor or rules of engagement, but with the freedom to express a point of view, that may in the end be my "Kiwi" definition of diversity.
Thanks for your contribution...
Good selling
Mike
I'm just sayin...why is "diversity" bad? This country was founded on diversity...and what's bad with (in your words) "English-speaking, land-owning, educated white males over the age of 30 of northern European ancestry". That was our country back then and we have evolved into a more diverse nation where you can be rich or poor, english-speaking or not, educated or not, etc. Should we be ashamed that we want to be successfull? Sometimes more successfull than our neighbors? I was on-air for many years and finally decided that I wanted to drive one of those nice cars that the sales people drive because being on-air you believe that "those sales people don't do anything"! We have welcomed many an on-air to sales and given them the tools and training that we do all of our new sales members we have had two success stories out of 12 (I'm on of the two). Radio sales is commision...the more you work the more you get paid. If you aren't diverse and go with the flow and embrace change you will not make it. And I'm not ashamed to be an English-speaking, land owning, educated white woman over 30 of northern European ancestry and neither were my relatives that spent months on Elis Island to be an American!
Just sayin'...
Diversity, as I said, is neither bad nor good in and of itself. This country was, in fact, most definitely not founded on "diversity," but on freedom and liberty. Now, that freedom is being taken away from us...slowly, for sure, but we no longer have a right to private association as witnessed at Agusta earlier today. Hard work is to be applauded...unless you think that government has a "right" to "equalize" all people, which it does not.
A truly diverse MLB team, of course, would include some women over the age of 60, some high-school kids who couldn't hit their own weight, some people who don't know how to play baseball, etc. There is nothing wrong with judging people and organizations strictly on the merits. A morning-man with strong numbers, a salesman with strong performance...they are usually retained. But a federal government coming into the picture and saying, "You HAVE TO HIRE this person because they are of a particular race and sex and age," is bad policy from the git-go.
Sorry...it hit a nerve! Have a wonderful day!
