Money Motivation

All sales managers try their best to give practical, actionable advice when coaching sales people. Often, we need to remind ourselves to be clearer and quantify the new behavior we’d like to see in money motivating terms for the salesperson. As an example, a manager says to a rep:

Making some minor changes to your presentation, like leaving more time for customer interaction, might increase the interest level and the number of prospects who go to the proposal stage:

A more effective statement:

I think you do a good job of making attendees feel comfortable about asking questions at any time during your presentation. Your product knowledge is solid. Once you start talking, though, you rarely pause and ask if anyone has any questions they’d like to ask. I’d like to see you make the presentation more interactive. You might say something like, “at this point I’ve covered features X and Y. Does anyone have questions about either feature before I move on?”

You’ve provided the rep with an unambiguous coaching tip. They can think this over and begin to work it into future presentations.

Don’t stop there though. Of course salespeople should strive to give interactive, compelling demos. Why? It increases the number of prospects interested in a follow-up meeting or proposal. Quantify what those additional meetings or proposals might mean to the rep:

With improved interaction between you and the prospect during the demo, I think you’d increase the number of proposals you send out from 6 to 9 per month. With your strong closing ratio, that could lead to 1 or 2 additional closed sales per month – representing $3000 additional commission per month or nearly $10,000 per quarter. Over a period of a year, that’s a $40,000 raise.

In this coaching session, you’ve enhanced the rep’s presentation skills and demonstrated the tangible benefit (increased earnings) they realize by capitalizing on the advice.