If you’re one of my blog readers whose been around for a while, you know I cannot tolerate laziness from staff or leaders. Nope, nah, nada! Well recently I was told that low sales performance (LAZINESS!) on the job is ok for new team members. Huh? Let me just start off this blog by saying being new is not an excuse for lazy sales performance! Let’s unpack why newness should never ever be tied to low your ability to make sales. Grab your coffee mug, I promise, my case story is a whopper!
The event that led to the excuse for lazy sales performance
Once upon a time- in a recent sales session, I was coaching a sales leader who oversees multiple managers and their employees. I mean, this was pretty much as high you could get aside from being the CEO. Clearly, he’s a smart, hardworking guy who’s invested years in his sales industry. So, imagine my surprise, when during a discussion on his sales managers operations, he said he understood when new sales representatives were not making any prospecting calls. Huh? In his own words he said,
“They are new and have only been here for three months. That is why they have not been making their prospecting calls”. **
**Not a Nathan Jamail Quote
*Screech* WHAT? I couldn’t make it make sense.
Being new is the antithesis for lazy sales performance
“Great sales professionals hit the ground running.“
After blinking a few times, I got to work so I could IMMEDIATELY clear up this gross miscalculation. I explained, if I am a new sales employee with little to no clients, then I have more time than ever to prospect call and network. In fact, it’s really the only thing I can do to actually, well, sell. In my book, The Sales Leaders Playbook, I make this clear when I say,
“There should never be a bad performing employee…every employee should understand the company needs everyone’s contribution…. and if that doesn’t work, these employees should know there are thousands of motivated people looking for the right opportunity.”
Now, let’s be crystal clear, of course the new employee needs to be trained on the product and services they are selling. It takes time to learn and master the ropes especially if they are new to the industry. However, they should hopefully be getting the training they need within one to three months of starting the gig. Coaching should start on day one, be it a ride-along with a more experienced colleague or frequent one-on-one sessions with their manager. And while all of this is happening, they should still be making the effort to prospect; practice is how you master a skill.
Who’s enabling this poor performance? Well, there are a lot of horses in this race (or ermm…trot?). The sales representative comes in with a lazy mindset, their leader in the middle (LIM) accepts their poor (lazy) performance and the leader of leader tolerates these two tiers of bad salesmanship. Yikes! Even if they have not trained or coached the new employee on how to effectively prospect from the onset, a plan needs to be in place to get it down. The sooner the better.
In these situations, my goal here is not to find blame though, rather it is to correct the issue and coach for improvement. Let’s take a closer look at the issue, shall we?
The issues that caused this team’s poor performance
First things first, being new is not an excuse for lack of prospecting. It is understandable that while establishing yourself it will be harder to have effective sales calls or closed deals. It may be hard, not impossible, so it’s necessary to try, fail and keep on pushing until you score a win.
Furthermore, if after the first week on the job the sales representative doesn’t start hitting the ground, then it becomes their leaders’ fault. Why? They’re not doing their job either. They’re not teaching, coaching, or holding their employee accountable for their job requirements. This applies to LIMS and leaders of leaders.
Leaders should never demand results without investing in the training required (not that it doesn’t happen sometimes though..I also want to share that some of the BEST performers are brand new performers who haven’t yet learned the ‘can not do’ mentality the rest of a team may have developed). They should also never tolerate the excuse of newness for lazy efforts. We must teach, coach and practice with our sales team so we can hold them accountable to the work.
The Leader’s Poor Performance
In circumstances like this, their failure is your failure, too. If we as leaders want our employees to be committed to us and the team, then we must commit to the new employee. We do this by investing the time to get newbies on boarded correctly, giving them particular focus and attention. Thus, setting them up to win. This may even mean teaching them how to make a cold call and fostering the understanding of the processes and value of our product or services.
The New Salesperson’s Poor Performance
I’m sure when you interviewed for the job, you promised to work hard and commit to the company. Honor yourself and deliver on these promises. If you realize your training is lacking, you must take it on yourselves to reach out for the help you’ll need to succeed (and hit that bonus!).
It’s on you to overcome your fears and obstacles and make your success possible.
There is a reason salespeople are among the highest paid in most organizations. It’s because the job is hard and requires passion, conviction, and fearless effort. We cannot give excuses because we do not get paid to accept excuses. Ultimately our success is our responsibility!
My final thoughts
The excuse of being new should never be justification for non-performance. If the newbie doesn’t know how to prospect, coaching and training should be provided. In fact, it should be built into the onboarding process. If they’re just looking to coast and don’t care about investing their own time to succeed, then you know my stance, hire fast, fire faster. Great coaches don’t give excuses for their team’s bad performance; they work with them and help develop the skills they need to be great sales professionals.
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