Mr. Sales Manager, when you've decided to terminate a salesperson, go ahead and do it. Be decisive. And please do it professionally. Make it easy on everybody involved. Don't argue, don't discuss it, don't hash over stuff that no longer matters. Get the deed over with and move on.
But the termination meeting is not the time to tell a loyal seven-year sales employee that they "can't sell and shouldn't be in sales." The time to address that issue would have been six or seven years ago in a sales coaching session or a private weekly meeting, or during an annual review. Then, you would have had an opportunity to devise a strategy to improve any deficient sales performance issues and skills of your salesperson so your organization could benefit.
If you didn't get around to talking to your sales employee about her lack of sales ability six or seven years ago, maybe you should have had that discussion five years ago, or maybe four or three or two years ago, or one year ago; or six months ago or last month or last week. The first step in improving an employee's performance is to put applicable issues on the table so these issues can be examined and discussed and analyzed and, ultimately, understood by all involved. The second step in improving employee performance is to create a strategy to improve the situation (Sales coaching? Intense sales coaching? Sales Training? Mentoring? Move into another position within the company that better fits the strengths of the employee? Partner the employee with another employee so each can use their strengths? Clarify expectations? Be clear? Help remove obstacles to success?).
What? You don't do sales coaching? You don't have weekly individual meetings with each of your sales staff to discuss performance and to help your staff improve and achieve? You don't give annual reviews? You don't talk about job performance other than in generalities in sales department meetings? You don't act as a mentor to your salespeople? You don't observe your salespeople in action and then meet afterward to discuss what they did well and what could be improved upon? You don't roll up your sleeves and dig in to the day-to-day activities of your staff?
Do you have a personal development plan for each of your salespeople? (top performers as well as others)? Have you defined what acceptable and not-acceptable performance is before there are performance issues so the entire team knows where they stand? No, you don't?
You don't strategize with each of your salespeople about how to break into that desired new account? How to make an effective cold call? How to network or leverage contacts to achieve sales success? You don't help create action items for each employee to maximize each selling opportunity or develop new business? Do you check in about the progress on those action items later in the week or in the next month or ever?
What, then, do you think the job duties of a sales manager are? To sit in your office staring at your computer all day? Talking on your phone with your friends and industry contacts? Playing golf? Reading business magazines and newspapers? Hanging out with the business owner? Selling your own accounts?
None of that is management, Mr. Sales Manager.
When you did your MBA coursework, did they teach you about managing other human beings? For instance, how people need to know where they stand so they can achieve their maximum performance? Did they tell you about the importance of job descriptions? About how to bring out the best in each employee? About how to modify behavior, or coach and train your individual team members to better performance or about identifying and recognizing the strengths of each team member and finding a way to use those strengths to achieve your organization's goals? Did they teach you how important the relationships are in your workplace and how they can make or break you?
They didn't teach you how to engage each individual employee and about how important that is in creating a high-performing team? They didn't teach you how to bring about change within an organization? About delegating? They didn't teach you that you should walk your talk, achieve clarity of understanding with all in the organization, and how to be a leader by getting all members of your team pointed in the same (correct) direction? They didn't teach you to "manage by walking around" or "catch employees doing things right?"
No? They just taught you to tell an employee after seven years in her sales role (and zero formal performance reviews, zero job performance warnings, zero performance improvement plans) that they are fired and can't sell and shouldn't be in the selling profession? I hope you can get your money back from that expensive private university where you got your MBA, Mr. Sales Manager.
Mr. Sales Manager, let me be clear:
You can't manage and you shouldn't be in management.
- - - - - - - - - -
"The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work."
"The leader follows in front"
"A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him."
"Management must manage!"
"Most people do not receive nearly enough appreciation. How can this be when appreciation is free, easy, and readily available? All you have to do is speak. Go give some away now."
"There is an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job."
"I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles."
"A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong - that's healthy."
"Before I go fire an employee, I go look at myself in the mirror and say to myself you've failed as a manager."
"The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon."
"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
"I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people."
"Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people."
"Our mission statement about treating people with respect and dignity is not just words but a creed we live by every day. You can't expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don't exceed the employees' expectations of management."
"I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism."
"Practice golden rule one of management in everything you do. Manage others the way you would like to be managed."
"My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment..."
"The way you see them is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is the way they often become."
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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training,
a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip
is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more.
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