Salespeople want to do well. Granted, many will not do the actions needed in order to do well, but they all want to do well anyway.

As surprised as you may be, poor performing salespeople KNOW they are poor performers. They do not need us telling them that their results are low. As a leader, you should tell them something they don’t know – how to improve their results - that is if you want to help them.

And there is no need to shout.

Very rarely should a leader resort to shouts and threats. “You’ve got until the end of the month Sunshine – perform or you’re out!” is not leadership, it’s bullying.

I know many leaders whose entire repertoire of leadership tools is threats and shouting. These often have small teams, a high staff turnover, and are the first to state, “You can’t find good people!”

If you want to find good people, first you need to be a good leader. This means needing more leadership tools than just threats and shouting and, almost as bad, being overly soft and allowing people to get away with mediocrity.

These three ‘tools’ pretty well sum up the leadership styles of too many leaders to count. It does not have to be this way.

During The Smartre Management Seminar, we counsel leaders to spend time with their team members one-on-one. This time can be used to constructively workshop with the salesperson areas where his or her activity is deficient, with a clear discussion of ways to improve.

Please notice that we discuss areas where the salesperson’s activity is deficient and not his or her results? As mentioned earlier, salespeople know when their results are poor. Discussing their activity and ways to improve that activity is what the salesperson needs to hear. This is the discussion of a solution, not the accentuating of the problem that everybody already knows about.

This one-on-one time is how you win loyalty. When you have the loyalty of your team, you will seldom need to shout at them. Instead of fearing your wrath, your team will fear letting down someone they admire and respect, someone who has spent hours with them, doing his or her best to turn them into champions. Fear of letting you down is a far stronger motivator of the right team members, but you have to earn the respect and admiration first.

You earn this by having one-on-one time with every team member. The Smartre Management System suggests a minimum amount of one-on-one time a leader should spend with each salesperson.

When the salesperson has just started:

• Twice a day for the first twenty-one days.

• Once a day for the next twenty-one days.

Thereafter:

• Once a week forever.

Some leaders prefer to do this in their offices in a semi-formal way and is recommend during the early stages at least. Other leaders prefer to take their salesperson out for a cup of coffee. This is also acceptable. The point is, it doesn’t matter where you spend time with your team members as long as it’s quality time and it’s regular.

Earn loyalty and respect in this way and you will seldom ever have to shout. As for the final problem with many leaders – being too soft – all that can be said about this is to toughen up – expect the best from your people, and help them to be the best. This is the opposite to what those leaders are doing now – expecting mediocrity and allowing it.

No-one respects wimps, and no-one respects bullies. You are better than that.