In a moment, I’m going to share a conversation that happened between a sales manager (my client) and a salesperson he manages. Our players are “Joe,” the manager, and “Tom,” one of his team. (All names have been changed.)

This is one of a dozen such conversations Joe was having with his team members, during part of a two-day sales strategy session in early December. Joe had indicated the purpose of these meetings to be “to discuss your sales funnel and create a strategy for closing more of the opportunities in your pipeline.”

In preparation for these meetings, all salespeople were asked to create lists of their current sales opportunities. For each opportunity, this included:

• The identity of the prospect (company name/prospect name)
• The date of the first sales appointment with the prospect
• The date of the next sales appointment with the prospect
• The products/services being sold (if known)
• The estimated dollar value of the sale (if known)
• The probability that the engagement would close (using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “very unlikely” and 5 being “I think this one is a lock”)
• A yes/no answer to the question “Has a contract been delivered?”

Real-World Example

As you read the conversation below, pay particular attention to three things:

• The subjective words Tom uses to describe the opportunities in his pipeline.
• The way Tom makes assumptions of intent based on his prospects’ actions.
• The projections Tom makes when discussing the likelihood that an opportunity will close.

Conversation: Part One

During the next 45 minutes, Joe and Tom went over Tom’s list of prospects and discussed each one. In every case, the conversations were similar in nature to the first conversation. In the end, Joe learned that most of Tom’s 28 prospects were either “really serious,” “definitely shopping” or “about to close this month or early next month,” and the remaining were some form of “in the early stages, but excited to hear about our program.”

Before we pick up the conversation where we left it, I have to ask: Does this conversation sound familiar? Do your salespeople use subjective terms (like “seemed to understand the value”) when describing their sales opportunities and prospects? Do they examine their prospects’ behavior, guess about the intent behind that behavior and then base their decisions on that guesswork? And do they inflate and brag about their ability to do this guesswork accurately?

And worse yet, do you base your sales forecasts on their subjective guesswork?

Smashing The Glasses For Good

In my 27 years in sales, I’ve managed and coached salespeople, and have coached sales managers who coach others.

I’ve managed and coached service professionals who must find and close business to “make partner.”

I’ve coached entrepreneurs who manage themselves, and I’ve coached business owners who manage themselves, manage managers and manage salespeople.

I’ve coached individual salespeople who paid for their own coaching, because their bosses refused to foot the bill.

I’ve even been a salesperson who reported to a sales manager, and have been a salesperson who “reported” to myself.

I can tell you from experience that salespeople put on their rose-colored glasses when describing their sales opportunities whenever they believe doing so will provide a personal benefit.

That’s the most important thing you must realize if you intend to permanently rid your salespeople of their rose-colored glasses, so it’s worth stating another way: Salespeople wear their rose-colored glasses only and always when they believe doing so will provide a personal benefit.

And I can prove it by picking up the conversation where we left off.

After going over every one of Tom’s prospects, Joe totaled the estimated sales for the prospects that Tom had rated a 5 for close probability, and added to that half the estimated sales Tom had rated a 4. The result was that, according to Tom, who had closed only $210,000 in business in the past 11 months, he was “about to close” $350,000 in new business during the next 25 days, and earn more in commissions than he had made so far that year.

Conversation: Part Two

By the end of December, Tom had closed none, nada, zero of the “locks” he had promised. By the middle of January, Tom had left the company and had become some other sales manager’s problem.

What? You thought compensation alone was enough to actually motivate a problem salesperson to perform? Wouldn’t life be grand if it were that easy?

No, the moral of this story isn’t that compensation fixes bad behavior, it’s that the first step toward eliminating the damage done by rose-colored glasses is to eliminate the motivation for wearing them in the first place. (You’ll need to stay tuned for next month’s article to hear my thoughts on how Joe might have helped Tom succeed once his eyes were unobstructed.)

In the meantime, your challenge is to figure out why your salespeople wear their rose-colored glasses at all. What’s their true motivation, and what can you do to change that motivation?

Only by first answering these questions will you be able to successfully apply the concepts I’ll share next month.

Exercise

Because Joe’s efforts to motivate Tom to close more business failed, one can surmise that mistakes were made in this interaction. Whether you’re a business owner, a sales manager or a salesperson, you probably formed a half-dozen opinions about what they should have said or done differently. Now is your chance to share those opinions and possibly learn from the experience.

Exercise: Answer the questions below honestly. I want your visceral opinion of what occurred, not a sugar-coated version of what you think I might want to hear. When I receive your answers I’ll reply by telling you where I agree or disagree. Anywhere I disagree, I’ll tell you why.

Because none of us know everything, all who participate in this exercise should learn something new.