Graham Yemm: The Sales Book

Without the money coming in, the future will be very limited. There is no single sales model which fits everyone.

Type of selling:

B2B: selling to other businesses – FMCG, pharmaceuticals, industrial or commercial products and services
B2C: the consumer or end customer is purchasing the product or service – financial services, home improvements, utilities and telecoms.

Amongst most critical requirements for sales role are determination, resilience and motivation. Skills can be learned. It is the personal qualities which can make the difference.

The most fundamental requirement of a sales manager is to be able to manage and lead the sales function effectively so that is delivers the sales target. Some of the tasks/capacities are:

Strategic thinking and planning
Sales targeting and forecasting
Resource planning and organization
Sales direction and control
Sales team leadership
Interactions with other departments
Personal organization
Communication
Commercial management
General management skills

Fundamentals for selling

What is selling

To sell is to exchange products or services for money or kind. To convince of value.

Salesmanship is to present products or wares in an attractive light. To persuade or influence purchaser to buy.

The market influences the most effective choice of sales strategy and sales approach. There are four types of sales approach:

Transactional selling: the one-off sale. The focus is on winning the order. If selling in this area you need to be able to take the constant change of contacts and transitory relationships, because as you close each order you have to move on to finding the next one.

Relationship selling: the ongoing sale with repeat business. The focus is on the relationship. There will probably be a longer sales cycle and managing the sales people and overall operation requires a more flexible monitoring system.

Consultative selling: getting even close to the customer to understand them and their issues. The focus is on solutions and not products. In some respects, consultative selling can be used in a number of relationships selling areas as well as were dealing with higher value contract or complex sales solutions.

Partnership selling: combines the principles of consultative selling with account management. This does require a broader skill set to use it well and an awareness of how to balance your priorities.

Good selling is about helping people to buy.

Knowledge, skills and attitudes

Knowledge can be acquired over time and found from a range of sources. You should take responsibility for developing your knowledge in each area and keeping it up to date. Skills are developed through training, coaching and practice. The attitudes come from within.

Conscious Competence Learning Model is often attributed to Noel Burch when he was at Gordon Training International. It is a circle that goes from one phase to another and then around again. Phases are:

Conscious incompetent
Conscious competent
Unconscious competent
Unconscious incompetent

Unconscious incompetent phase has two levels. The first is before you undertake something where you do not know what you do not know. The second, and more worrying, is the stage that happens after you are »unconscious competent«. This occurs because you stop thinking about what you are doing and, if you are not careful, bad habits creep in.

To be real professional, make sure you check where you are in the cycle, both as a whole and for specific elements of your job.

When thinking about the items ask yourself how well you could describe each to someone else?

Your attitudes will underpin how well you use the skills you are developing and how you apply the knowledge you have.

Managing time effectively

You will have around 200-220 selling days available each year. Many people involved with selling are too reactive and think that being busy is more important rather than whether they are effective.

A sales person’s time could be split into three areas:

Planning time: This can range from looking at your overall target market, through territory management and journey planning to preparation for specific calls.
Practical time: The practicalities of doing the job fall into this heading. These included travelling, waiting for appointments, writing proposals and dealing with your general administration.
Productive time: The critical part of time use, where you are in contact with a decision maker or someone within the Decision-Making Unit (DMU).

The simple equation is to invest more time in planning in order to reduce practical time and increase productive time.

Finding potential customers

Many sales people have an expectation that their company should provide a constant supply of suspects.

The investment in the potential target customer base can help the sales people to be more effective in their activities if it is accurate. The essential step is to check whether the suspect is a prospect, or has the potential to become one.

The good measure of your development, and effectiveness, is to assess the ration between the number of suspects contacted and the number of qualified prospects you can identify.

There is some evidence that too many sales people give up too early in their efforts to get to meet suspects. Those who persist for five attempts or more have a better chance of success.

Identifying prospects is vital and it needs to be done effectively. Do not guess or hope! Develop your own list of qualification criteria and questions. Work out the ratios from suspect to prospect to customer.

Why people buy

Sell to customers in a way they want to buy.

They will have a combination of logical and emotional criteria which have to be met, usually referred to as needs and wants.

Emotional need has many levels. The general split is whether someone is buying to avoid pain or for gain or pleasure. Many buying decisions are made to avoid pain.

Levels of need:

Latent – these are hidden.
Implied – the prospect has a sense that something could change or improve, but is unclear about how to bring it about.
Explicit – when the prospect is clear about the gap between their current and desired situation.

Establish your prospect’s shopping list. What is important to them, what are buying criteria, what do they look for at suppliers.

Starting the sale

Pre-call preparation

Preparation is the key to making successful sales calls. There are five distinct areas to consider in your preparation:

The prospect you are going to call or visit
The purpose of the call
Their objectives
The support material you need
Yourself

When starting work on your pre-call preparation, the first step is to assess: “Where are we now?” When you are comfortable with your answers to these questions think about what you need to have at hand to help you in the call. The third phase is to look at yourself. The final step takes place just before the call. Take a few minutes to look back over what you have covered, double-check your information and your initial plan and organize yourself.

Who to talk to

Buying decision are rarely, if ever, made by one individual without any influence from others, even for people who are buying something personally.

Many sales people are aware of the principle of building a relationship with the decision maker. However, actually identifying who this is and how to get to talk or meet with them is not always easy.

The typical roles people might have in the overall buying process:

Initiators: they trigger the need or want.
Influencers: they have either a direct or indirect influence on the final decision.
Decision maker: makes a decision.
Buyer: this may be rolled into the decision maker role, or is someone with a clear purchasing role who takes the requirements and aims to get the best deal.
End users: who actually uses the product.

You need to know the organization, and relationships, of those involved in the DMU (decision making unit). Gaps are ok if you recognize them. Good question when researching this with a customer is always: “Is there anybody else that needs to be involved?”

First impression

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

There are three elements of first assessment and initial impression:

You
Your professionalism
Your organization

Some research suggest that initial impressions are formed in the first 7-30 seconds.

Three key things to consider when forming our first impression:

Eye contact
Facial expression, especially a smile
Handshake

A key to creating a good first impression is confidence.

Establishing the relationship

The goal is to establish a rapport. We naturally have rapport with people we like. But rapport is not necessarily about liking or being comfortable. Developing your rapport building skills is fundamental for your sales success. What is important is creating effective communication and this is where rapport skills are invaluable.

Recognize the difference between those who want to get down to business quickly and others who prefer to chat more generally first. Adapt your approach to suit them.

Openness and flexibility are strength, not rigidity.

The speed of speech is one of the key steps towards rapport building. A useful skill for any seller is to be able to identify appropriate ice breakers.

Listening

One of the biggest mistakes made about professional sales people is the assumption that they are extroverts who talk a lot. Talk too much and you will limit your possibilities for winning business. Listening is very simple, yet hard to do well.

First you need to recognize that there is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is one of the five senses and is a physiological function recognizing sounds. Listening is a mental and emotional activity which involves processing verbal and non-verbal messages.

There are three key elements to active listening:

Comprehending
Retaining
Responding

The type of response you make indicates the degree of active listening:

Repeating – using the person’s own words back to them exactly as stated.
Paraphrasing – using similar words and phrases to show you are thinking about and interpreting their message.
Reflecting – using your own words to check understanding and to illustrate how closely you were listening.

Making the sale

Questions are your friend

Many inexperienced, or under-confident, sales people make the mistake of thinking that by talking they are in control of the conversation.

Questions will help you to develop trust and build rapport by taking an interest in the other person. As they relax and feel more trusting they will be more willing to share information with you.

When you ask questions, it is also important how you ask them. Only 7 % of your message in F2F communication is delivered through the words. The remainder is made up from the non-verbal mix of voice and body language.

Examples of open questions could include:

Tell me…
How do you find…
When you choose…., what is important to you?
Where are your…
Who do you….
Why do you…

Instead of stopping after the first answer, use what the prospect has told you and ask a supplementary question to expand and probe deeper. There are various models for structuring your questions:

P – ask about what is happening at Present
I – what Issues are they facing?
C – what are the Consequences of these issues?
K – check the Knowledge and understanding of these.
S – begin to identify your Solution in concept and discuss with the prospect.

Not what it is but what it does

Think about what are benefits?

The first item under the knowledge required was “product – application”. Prospects are not interested in what your product or service is. They want to know what it does, or can do, for them.

Features: these are facts about your organization, products or services. They are not opinions or beliefs.
Advantages: these are derived from the feature and are available to the market as a whole.
Benefits: advantages which match an expressed or explicit need.

When learning your features, it is also useful it you can identify any USPs (Unique Selling Points) you may have.

Once you have learned your feature library you need to know how to use the features to sell the benefits. FAB formula (Feature-Advantage-Benefit).

Select feature – which means that… – advantage statement – which gives you… or that means you get… – benefit statement – tag question.

Tag question is meant to be closed one. Examples like – is that the sort of thing you are looking for or does that give you the… you want.

The aim is to convince of value. Once you know the prospect’s shopping list, choose the right features and turn them into the benefits which deliver the needs and wants on the list. This shows how you can deliver value according to their criteria.

Present your sales case

These are three key questions to ask about presenting you sales case. When to do it? What to include? How to do it?

Resist the temptation to deliver your sales presentation too early. There is a difference between giving a succinct overview of what you do and a focused sales presentation.

One way to structuring your presentation is to follow the DIPADA model.

D – Define: the situation
I – Identify: the solution in concept
P – Prove: the solution
A – Acceptance: gain agreement with each point of proof
D – Desire: hopefully, this is being built up as the points of proof are being accepted
A – Action: ask for commitment

As you cover the proof statements, be confident and capable when talking about money side. Make sure you sales case is tailored to suit the prospect and not a standard organizational pitch.

When using DIPADA model, put the headings onto paper to use as a prompt.

Handling barrier to the sale

It is unlikely that you will reach the end of a sales meeting without the prospect or customer raising some barriers, or objections.

When you hear the prospect raise a barrier it is important to avoid becoming defensive.

Golden rule 1 – never contradict the prospect directly.

Golden rule 2 – there is no perfect approach for responding to objections and handling them.

The first thing to do to prevent objections taking you by surprise is to think about what potential objections might crop up as part of your pre-call preparation. Benefit of thinking about possible objections before the call is that you can actually pre-empt them by raising them yourself.

Handling objections can be done by following a simple process such as ACER

A – acknowledge
C – clarify
E – explore
R – respond

The question: “Can you do anything about your price?”, is just that – a question. A key point to understand is that there is a difference between price and cost. The price of a product or service is what the buyer pays. The cost is total expense of using that product over a given period. So be prepared to do a cost/benefit analysis.

If it is a genuine price objection, which is usually based on a comparison with an alternative, you can use a four-step method of price justification.

Establish the difference. Ask what you price is being compared with and calculate the exact difference. You need to justify the difference not your actual price.
Express the difference in smaller units. Cost per use or user, cost per day, week, month or occasions when the product will be used or the number of people it benefits.
Restate the benefits. Emphasize any benefits that can be expressed in terms of cost savings.
Show the benefits outweigh the difference.

Getting commitment

Pick up the buying signals.

Verbal:

Interest questions
Some objections – raising barriers to going ahead.
Intonation – more positive.
Assumed ownership – when, rather than if

Non-verbal:

Moving forward
Putting glasses on – or removing them
Head movement, like nodding
Reaching for something you have shown

If you don’t pick them up, buyer can move out of buy zone. This usually happens if you talk too much.

When you spot a buying signal, or think you have, make sure to check it with a trial close.

Some ways of asking for commitment:

Direct – are you interested in going ahead; when would you like to start; are you happy, we have covered everything?

Alternative – giving a choice, would you prefer to have the order sent to one central point or for us to deliver to each plant?

Assumptive – a question or statement which assumes that they have agreed and refers to a detail which must be cleared up. When we are delivering, will you store be open all day?

Summary – as the name implies, you summarize all that you have covered and then finish with a direct statement or question.

Setting the sales strategy

The fit between the business strategy, marketing and sales

Too many times businesses set sales plans (mainly revenue targets) without looking at the bigger picture.

In the figures given by the sales people do not equate to the desired target for the organization they are overlooked and the internal numbers are imposed.

An error too many organizations make is not investing enough time in the overall planning process and especially not at the “Where are we now? Step. They are too quick to jump to the “Where do we want to be?” step without really knowing whether they are in a good position to move towards it.

First principle – invest time in the initial stage, situation analysis.

Where are you as an organization?
Who are your main customers?
What is happening in your market?

Where does the sales strategy come from? The plan should be a series of natural steps which provide the overall direction and strategy, the specific objectives and the actions required to deliver the results.

Setting the strategic direction

A clear sense of direction will give you a better probability of success with your sales operation. The sales strategy should influence the direction you set. There are a number of labels which are often heard in this area. When you have an idea of your sales strategy and direction you can decide how to share this with others in the organization to make sure they know where they can support the process and possibly contribute positively.

Your strategy and direction are interconnected.

Some sales strategies:

Volume – if your strategy is about achieving volume of sales, your sales activity to generate opportunities, you need to have enough people and some flexibility in your pricing.
Niche – if your strategy is about niche, you can usually identify your target customer easily, if your product or service is relevant you can differentiate your offer.
Penetration – you ended to have the right sales people, pricing and sales structure.
Profit – the sales case needs to be compelling and the skills to deliver it strong.
Growth – it requires good planning to identify or create the opportunities.
Key accounts – this represent a number of challenges from identifying the target accounts, setting up the right sales operation and making sure the internal functions are aware of the accounts.
Vertical – this can be a large version of niche. You can usually identify prospective customers and communicate with them more easily than in broad segments.
Retention – a valid sales strategy, which is often overlooked. More attention is on customer service and support.
Market share – asses how much revenue will a target market share bring you and work out potential costs and margins. Focus on which competitors you need to take on and how to sell against them.
Margin – a margin strategy encourages the sales people to think about what they are selling and at what price.

Identifying your sales structure

Many organizations create a sales operation and structure and then stick with it for years without really questioning whether it is the most effective approach for what is currently happening with their market and customers.

When you are setting up face-to-face sales organization you need to think about responsibilities split: are they based on geography, verticals, product sector – this will depend on complexity of selling and technical knowledge needed. Generally, the geographical split is the easier part.

A sales director or senior manager will have two to eight direct reports and they may have several people under them in turn.

The set-up of a tele sales operation presents its own challenges. If tele sales and field sales are being used in tandem, be clear about specific responsibilities and communication lines between the two.

Another option is to use other organization to sell for you. This could be through specialist distributors, wholesalers or resellers.

When you are deciding about sales structure, asses first external factors like: customers, competitors and environment; then move to internal factors like: company strategy and sales and marketing strategy; and then set up sales structure: create sales force that will provide needed results and define structure, roles and responsibilities, activities and targets.

You need to know where your product is in the stages of the product life cycle (introduction – growth – maturity – decline). At each stage the role of the seller changes to fit with the type of customer

	Introduction	Growth	Maturity	Decline
Type of purchaser	Early adopters	Early majority	Followers	Traditionalist
Sales approach	Educate	Inform	Compete	Remind
Strategy	Penetrate	Market development	Product development	Maintain
Specialization	Low-medium	High	Medium	Medium-low

The cost effectiveness of your sales function

Have you any idea of the cost of each sales visit or sales contact made for your organization? Various pieces of research indicate that a face-to-face meeting is likely to be somewhere between 250 and 400 pounds. At the same time, the costs of an inside call are between 25 and 75 pounds.

We are probably down to something between 180 and 200 days for selling and it could be a lot less. CSO insight survey found that sales people were spending 37 % of their time on selling activity with actual customer contact.

Do not tolerate underperformers for too long.

Understanding the cost effectiveness of your sales function starts with knowing the overall cost of recruiting a new seller.

If you are in a market which has products or services with any complexity, make sure your sales people are properly prepared for meetings.

Interactions with other functions

Sales is a challenging enough role without having to keep struggling with your own internal functions to have their support.

In general, a “How can we…” approach is better than any implication of blame.

A method which some organizations use to improve their internal interactions is to create Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between each function.

A good SLA is written both ways so that each side has to take ownership for their inputs to the other and for the outputs they deliver.

Managing the sales operation

Setting goals for your sales people

Most of us like our bosses to provide us with a clear sense of direction so that we know where we are going and preferably why.

Rather than thinking of your target as the objective, consider it to be the outcome of achieving your objectives.

We can expand SMART goals into SMARTER:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Relevant
T – Time bound
E – Evaluate
R – Review

Although you are responsible for identifying the area for the objective, it is going to be more valuable to have each sales person write out their own objective and their action plan.

Identifying the right sales process

Joseph Juran suggested in an interview in 1997, that there should be no reason our familiar principles of quality and process engineering would not work in the sales process.

What is a process? In principle, you will have inputs coming int, then various activities are carried out, which in turn produce outputs.

CSO insights – they talk about four levels of sales process:

Level 1 – they refer to as a random process.
Level 2 – might have an informal process.
Level 3 – organizations have a formal process.
Level 4 – companies use a dynamic process.

The last level companies will modify their process to meet changes in the market. If you use a sales process and treat it as Level 4, 20 % more sales people achieve their quota (72 % compared with 60 % in Level 1 organizations) and forecasting is about 33 % more accurate (58 % compared with 44 %).

The PROBE process was:

Prospecting customers
Relationship building
Opening-up opportunities
Building commitment
Expanding business

An effective process will match the prospect’s buying process and expectations.

Using the sales process to deliver results

To have a real Level 4 sales process requires genuine commitment from the organization and its management, not just the sales leaders.

To really get buy-in to it, make sure the sales people know why the process has been developed, and why they need to follow it.

A clear definition of the skills and behaviors helps to identify what needs to be covered in your sales training.

Once you have your sales process and it is being used with some consistency, you can think about how to use it to improve your forecasting.

Thinking back to the original Xerox sales process of SPANCO, they used this to monitor progress and to improve their forecasting.

S – suspect
P – prospect
A – analyze
N – negotiate
C – close
– order

They were able to put numbers to this process at each stage.

Establishing standards of performance

A challenge for any manager or leader is to ensure that they are treating everyone fairly and sales is no exception.

To improve the chances of treating people fairly, setting standards of performance or key performance indicators (SOPs or KPIs) can be very useful.

What are standards of performance? How do they differ from objectives or goals? My definition is, they are the various elements of behavior and different activities which underpin performance.

The standards need to relate to the key areas of the seller’s job to help them understand their relevance.

When setting standards, you can have two types: quantitative and qualitative.

Setting standards of performance, you need to identify the best, or most effective, areas in which to set them is the first hurdle. Having done this, establishing the right levels for them to provide a fair yet stretching baseline is essential.

Publish and share the standards with your sales people and the other departments in the organization.

When establishing your standards, they can be more powerful if they are:

Relevant
Clear
Fair
Adaptable
Respected

The monitoring and control system

Many people leading sales functions spend too much time focusing on the sales results. The issue is that they are dealing with symptom – not the cause.

A really effective monitoring and control system will be easy to complete for the sellers.

Completing the plans and reports is not a negotiable part of the job; everyone has to do them – properly.

The results are an outcome of the right level of activity being directed into the right potential contacts.

Aim for the three elements for your monitoring and control system – plans for before, reports after and customer records.

Managing sales people

Recruiting the right sales people

Finding and keeping good sales people is a challenge for most organizations.

Sales recruitement has additional presseures compared with other positions. The need to have someone covering the sales territory as soon as possible is an ever-present concern because of worries about losing business and customer relationships and trust.

Recruitement process as a series of steps:

Why has the vacancy occurred?
Do we need to replace the position exactly as it is?
Have we got a current job description and personal profile for the position?
Do we have anyone we can move into the position or do we know anyone?
How will we go about the recruiting process?
Who will write the advertisement or brief for recruiters? How will we handle the applications?
Who will interview the applicants?
What is your timescale and schedule for interviews?
Have we prepared how we will approach the interview?

Be really clear about the core responsibilities and the must have factors for the job so that you can use these when evaluating applications.

Remuneration and rewards

Deciding on the best way to pay your sales people is an on-going challenge for most organizations. There is no single best solution to this challenge.

There are many variables to consider when thinking about what remuneration package to offer your sales people. One thing is to think about what is provided in your market in overall terms.

Some options: salary only, salary plus bonuses, salary plus commission, commission only. The first two choices are sensible in sectors where you are using a key account or consultative sales approach. The most common is the salary + commission option. The commissions element poses its own questions.

Many sales operations like to offer incentives for specific activities or projects.

There are some other, more intangible options you can introduce. A simple one is using job titles to differentiate levels in the sales operations.

Establishing your expectations

Establishing expectations those for the individual; and those for the sales people as a group.

The first step towards making your expectations effective is to communicate them clearly.
The second step is to check that everyone understands what you want from them.
The third step is to tell the sellers how you will monitor all of those elements.
The fourth step is to do something with this monitoring and checking.

Onboarding

Many organizations do not appreciate the value of implementing an effective, structured induction program for new starters.

With sales people the induction has to cover a wide range, from organization knowledge, processes and structure, to market and customer awareness, plus the sales processes and administration.

Induction training processes and programs should include the following elements:

General topics
Mandatory training
Job specific training
Evaluation

The overall process can involve a variety of approaches: formal workshops or training sessions, shadowing colleagues, meetings, handling projects, working on their own, self-study or anything else which works.

When thinking about the program, define:

Topic or item – identify the area to address
Methodology – how can we do this
Who needs to be involved
How long
Measure – how can we evaluate if the trainee is ready

There is no substitute for actually doing the job to find out what it really involves.

Communicating with your team

Sometimes we are more concerned with how quickly we can communicate with others rather than how effectively we do it.

Sales people can be a challenge to communicate with, especially if they are working in the field and rarely in the office.

All your sales people need to be kept informed about:

Your expectations of them
How they are performing
The overall sales progress
Things happening in the market
Company information and updates, people, performance and plans

Always aim to have people leaving the meeting feeling as though it was worth attending.

Managing and growing performance

The need for leadership

Management and leadership are not mutually exclusive. When looking at leadership, there are three levels: task, operational and strategic.

Some of the potential leadership qualities:

Integrity – open and truthful
Positive – a belief in what is possible
Determined – willing to persevere through challenges
Sincere
Sensitive – having an awareness of people
Toughness – setting and following through on high standards
Humility – open to learning
Warmth – interested in others
Communication
Developer – bringing out the best in others

Situational leadership it starts with a fundamental principle about the balance between the leader’s concern for results or achieving goals and their concerns for the people or relationship.

Where Situational leadership is different from most approaches to leadership is that it puts the focus onto the followers rather than the leader. The work regarding Situational leadership was originally done by Hersey and Blanchard when working in UCLA.

They talked about follower maturity level. This can be considered in two areas: their task maturity and their willingness maturity. The maturity levels were broken down into four groups:

M1 – people at this level lack the knowledge, skills or confidence to work on their own.
M2 – at this level, followers might be willing to work on the task, but they still don’t have the skills to do it successfully without some support or guidance.
M3 – here, followers are ready and willing to help with the task.
M4 – these followers are able to work on their own and have shown this and enjoy some degree of independence.

How do you adapt your style for different levels?

For someone at M1, use the S1 style – telling or directing.
Moving to M2, use S2 – selling and coaching.
M3 requires you to use S3 – participating and joining.
M4 goes to S4 – delegating.

Coaching to develop performance

Seeing yourself as a developer is a key element of your leadership role. When you want to grow performance and aim to develop your people, you need to assess how they are doing.

You should be aiming to plan to spend about a day a month with each sales person.

Coaching is not instructing or training another. Coaching is working with others to encourage them to grow and develop. There are many ideas and models about coaching. Working with sales people, the ROAR processs can be highly effective.

R – RIGHT NOW (What is happening? What did you observe?)

O – OPTIONS (What options or idea do you have for improving or correcting the situation?)

A – ACTION (Agreeing on the specific actions the individual will take – and creating an action plan)

R – REVIEW – at an agreed future date (considering how things went, what they achieved and learned and agreeing the next steps)

Motivating your team

There are many different types of people in sales and they have a wide range of motivational drivers apart from money.

Abraham Maslow is associated with the “needs” approach to motivation.

If the need is satisfied, it is not a significant driver.

There are other ideas put forward, such as Herzberg’s two-factor theory which lists elements providing long-term satisfaction and those which can be significant dissatisfiers.

Some od the typical areas providing demotivation, as identified by Herzberg, are:

Company policy
Supervision
Relationship with boss
Work condition
Salary
Relationship with peers
Security

When thinking about intrinsic motivation, Daniel Pink identified three elements:

Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

More power is produced when a person wants something they themselves have decided to go for. Motivation is not your responsibility, avoiding demotivation is.

Reviewing sales performance

A key element of an effective review, and your coaching interactions, is being able to give constructive feedback.

Feedback – is any communication, verbal or non-verbal, which offers a person some information about how their behaviour or actions affect others.

Don’t critise people for what they cannot help: talk about behavior, not personality.

Key points to remember:

Focus on what you see – not on what you believe.
Focus on behavior – not on personality.
It is not for their benefit – not for you to feel better.
Use it to inform – not to advise.
Make it supportive – rather than threating.
Keep it simple – don’t overdo it.

Dealing with underperformers

Managing people, in any function, who are doing a reasonable or even a good, job is relatively easy. The challenge for many managers is handling those who are underperforming.

Rather than wait for the actual sales results to be below target, step in earlier. Before deciding on how you will deal with any underperformers, you need to define, is underperforming due to because they can’t or they won’t do it?