Meeting a sales manager for the first time, I always like to learn about their background. It is always good to figure out how they got to where they are. Generally, it tells you about the type of manager they are with their staff.
In one case, Mary had run a daycare center and somehow ended up leading an advertising sales department. Many times as managers we joke about needing to be babysitters as a part of our required background for job success, but in this case it really was.
Every sales department is different, but generally speaking the high performing departments have high energy and a buzz in them. In Mary's case, it was a quiet department. I asked her why it was so quiet. With a dower look on her face, she told me this was the expectation. I asked her what she did the motivate her team and to make sales fun. Her response was "This isn't suppose to be fun. This is work."
A sales department should not be a circus, but keeping a sales force motivated and productive requires creating a productive and fun environment. This means making some noise.
I was reminded of all this after reading a blog post by Shawn Karol Sandy titled "Silence is deadly: 3 reasons why your sales floor is too quiet." She's given this issue an official diagnosis: "Quiet Selling Syndrome."
Your sales force is likely spending way too much time on nonproductive endeavors. The typical salesperson is engaged with customers and building relationships 15% of the time according to the article. Their day is filled with meetings, reports, email, social media, operational issues and hiding behind a computer instead of calling on customers.
Take a walk through your sales department any day at 10:30 am. Unfortunately, you're likely find many of your team in the office on their computer. Maybe they're being productive, but likely they are doing this because they are just filling up time doing other things rather than the most important part of their job; calling on customers and asking for sales. Sandy writes, "They're not getting face to face with prospective new customers, because they're not picking up the phone - which is where you make meetings happen."
So far, I've spent a lot of time about what the salesperson isn't doing. But a lot of the blame really falls on what the sales manager is not doing. The three symptoms of "Quiet Selling Syndrome" are issues with the sales process, a lack of leadership and the wrong players on the sales team.
It is easy to blame sales reps for not getting on the phone or in front of prospects. But I believe people want to be led, and often you will find that they are not being told what needs to get done. Sales managers need to provide specific goals and expectations, and then hold them accountable to achieving those standards.
Managers have plenty on their plate. As we've all reduced down organizations to run leaner, managers find themselves with more balls to juggle day in, day out. If you make a priority of having a focused and productive sales team, then juggling some of those other balls might be a little easier. Managers have to get out of their offices and on to the sales floor to provide strong leadership.
Once you've established expectations and have provided the leadership to make it happen, you might discover you don't have the right team. The old phrase, "Change the people or change the people" still rings true today. Establish training to teach your team what you expect. You'll quickly discover who wants to be better, and which ones that can be better vs. the ones that are not a part of your long range plans. Reluctance to get on the phone or in front of a customer cannot be tolerated going forward.
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