Take your salespeople from the minors to the majors

Steps for developing future stars.

by Bill Blades

Most 40 to 50-year-old salespeople think and act the same way they did at age 25 to 30. Depressing news? It shouldn’t be. For employers, it means you have a wonderful opportunity to more effectively recruit, select, train and motivate younger salespeople for success. Even better, you do not have to coach these new recruits through unlearning undesirable skills and habits.

Major league baseball teams take advantage of this fact of human nature every year. They send their rookies to instruction leagues so the newcomers can get the fundamentals in place. Can you imagine a team that just finished the season playing .500 ball and then announcing, “We have decided to cut back on our coaching staff, reduce practice, reduce recruiting efforts and eliminate incentives. We hope these moves will strengthen us.” It wouldn’t make sense for them and it doesn’t make sense for you or your company.

Whether you have one rookie on board or an entire new team, you need to quickly develop them to perform at their peak. The following guidelines will help you devise a winning training and development outline that produces results.

Lead by example
Leadership is the key, and a great sales manager builds a great team. If your sales managers are not “10s,” get them a topnotch coach so they are equipped to develop more tens. Having tens at the top results in tens at the bottom. It’s a simple equation, but most companies have more fives than tens at the top. The less money you spend designing your company’s future, the fewer profits you’ll bring in.

Mentor your rookies
Mentoring is a more targeted approach than classroom training. Effective one-on-one coaching enables you to invest necessary time and effort to help each individual rookie. This is important, because each person’s wants and needs are different from the rest of the team. Yes, it takes time, but the rewards are great. Focus on individuals weekly.

Provide incentives
Incentives work extremely well for almost everyone. If some of your players don’t get excited about incentives, move them to another department. Money is a yardstick for salespeople, and most rookies need it for their first new house or first new car. Older folks like making more money, too, because it helps them sustain the lifestyle they want to enjoy. Whether it’s commissions, bonuses, trips to the Caribbean, an extra week of vacation or stereos, find out what pulls the younger reps’ trigger. Then, help them achieve it so they get their first taste of recognition.

Offer employee development opportunities
In addition to money, employee development programs enable you to recruit and retain great players. For example, the SITE Foundation conducted a survey last year and found that almost three quarters of the respondents stated that “professional growth and development” motivated them. Additionally, Jill Harrington, a performance improvement consultant, wrote in Incentive magazine (July 2003) of a study where “participants indicated that 0 percent of managers actually provided coaching and encouragement.” (That’s 0, as in zero.)  While the results are alarming, they are also great news for you. Since your competitors are not fully developing people, when you decide to be great at coaching, you will dominate the marketplace.

Sending your rookies away for an internship is a great way to quickly broaden their perspectives. For example, one distribution company owner sent his newest recruit (his son) to work elsewhere as an intern for one year. He arrived at his intern position as a spoiled brat and departed as a mature self-starter. He very quickly rose through the sales ranks in his early 20s. Now in his late 20s, he serves as a regional sales manager and excels at getting modest performers to all-time highs. Without the internship, he would still be a mediocre salesperson. An internship with a “skills-building” company enables rookies to earn the privilege of joining you and ensures that they will be equipped to hit the streets quickly.  

If you are not able to send your rookies away for an internship, invest in an in-house program. Arrange for an outside resource to assist with field training and one-on-one coaching. Choose the resource carefully. A poor choice will cost you money. A great choice will result in thousands (or millions) in new revenues. The other choice is to do nothing and have a bunch of rookies forever.

Provide field training
You can’t expect your rookies to conduct good sales visits when they don’t know how. New people will not know the products well enough for a period of time and need training from a more experienced salesperson. That’s where field training with a sales manager or a top producer comes into play.

If your rookies are as green as toads, plan four consecutive weeks of field training before you let them run loose. Then, leave them alone for two weeks, but monitor their efforts/results in person or by telephone daily. Next, get back out there with them for two to three days and then vacate the premises for another two weeks. Any sales manager who will not follow this regimen needs to re-evaluate whether he or she should really be managing, because developing rookies into star performers requires time, guidance and some TLC (tender loving care).

Help them plan and manage their time
The average salesperson loses 3 1/2 hours daily. That translates to more than 20 days of lost time annually. The prime cause for lost productivity is investing too much time with smaller clients.

Teach your rookies to invest major time with major clients and minor time with minor clients. Then, they need to learn to never make an unplanned call. Help them plan the purpose of the sales visit, including what to ask, what to say and what support materials to bring with them.

Also, review their weekly itinerary. Catch them before the week starts and ask questions such as, “Why are you going there?” and “What do you plan to accomplish?” Give your advice on what to add to the client agenda, such as, “Be sure to ask . . .” and “Share this . . .” Doing so teaches them to think and plan for success.

Encourage self-education
As the leader, you must demand that your rookies engage in self-education. Make sure they subscribe to the daily newspaper(s), as most young salespeople don’t read enough. Get them a subscription to every trade magazine (including this one). Buy them a few well-chosen books on sales, and get feedback on what they learned. They need to read about the industry and their profession to become experts in their trade. Also, provide them with audiocassettes about the sales profession. This enables them to turn their car into a university on wheels. The majority of clients want a savvy representative calling on them. Younger reps will not be very savvy unless they become serious students. Serious students get serious results.

Enhance your sales team
Your future depends heavily on your rookies, and they depend on you for the nurturing they need. Rather than squirm at the thought of training and development, look at it as a responsibility that can be very fulfilling.

After all the training, if your rookies don’t drink the water you led them to, remove or reassign them. Some youngsters are trying the sales profession for the first time and find it harder and less glamorous than they imagined.

Bill Veeck, a great baseball man and former owner of the Chicago White Sox, traded 24 mediocre players one off season. A reporter said, “Mr. Veeck, that’s just about the whole team.” Veeck replied, “Yep. I figured the more of these players I got on other teams, the better chance we would have.”

Develop the dedicated rookies and bench the others. Stay with the game plan and you will have your superstars ready to play ball at the first pitch.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2003 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2003.