It’s expensive to keep a salesforce!

If we take the view that personal selling is an element of the integrated marketing communications mix, then firms must give special attention to their sales force and the value that they really create. Are they motivated and creating real value on their own account by the way that they sell? Or are they merely drawing from the equity that already resides in their brands?

Come to think of it, salespeople really are a special breed. Have you ever managed a sales team? More than one team? Did you find that their differences were greater than their similarities?

Whatever your experience may have been, one undeniable fact is that at the heart of a successful sales team is motivation. Agreed. So what really works when it comes to motivating salespeople?

A POWERFUL EARLY INFLUENCE

One of the early influences on my journey in the study of sales management was Charles M Futrell of Texas A & M University. His

Fundamentals of Selling, 1998, was, for me, a classic. In it he defines motivation as, “The arousal, intensity, direction, and persistence of effort directed toward tasks over a period.” He then speaks of the motivational mix which consists of five factors as follows:

• The basic compensation plan

• Special financial incentives

• Non-financial rewards

• Leadership techniques

• Management control procedures.

A DECADE LATER

A decade later Jobber and Lancaster, writing on the subject of sales force motivation, said, “In a sense, sales managers do not motivate salespeople. What they do is provide the circumstances that will encourage salespeople to motivate themselves.”

They then quickly mention Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s dual factor theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, Adams’ inequity theory and finally Likert’s sales management theory.

LIKERT’S SALES MANAGEMENT THEORY

Likert based his sales management theory on research that looked specifically at the motivation of salespeople. Summarised, Likert suggests that to produce a highly motivated salesforce, the sales manager should have high performance goals and should encourage analysis and discussion of salespeople’s performance and problems through the group method of conducting sales meetings.

Intuitive, you say? Maybe. But we also need the benefit of academic research.

THE CHURCHILL, FORD AND WALKER MODEL OF SALESFORCE MOTIVATION

Churchill et al claim that sales managers should:

• Convince salespeople that they will sell more by working harder or by being trained to work smarter (eg more efficient call planning, developing skills).

• Convince salespeople that the rewards for better performance are worth the extra effort.

Ok. So we all know that. But they also found that older salespeople who had large families preferred financial rewards, while younger, better educated salespeople who had no family or a small family tended to prefer higher-order rewards (recognition, liking and respect, sense of accomplishment).

MOTIVATION IN PRACTICE

So on to motivation in practice.

One Jamaican small business owner/manager whom I know quite well does not hesitate. If within two weeks of employment a sales rep is not doing well, “You’re fired!” But he is in good company, because Jack Welsh of GE fame – and surely by some measures one of the most successful CEOs of all time – was known for firing the bottom performing 20 per cent of his team every year. (Or was it more frequently?) And boy, did they hustle to meet their numbers!

But wait! There’s more! There’s Donald Trump. He used the term so often that he even wanted to copyright “You’re fired!”

So what really works in motivating salespeople? Having laid the foundation, let’s pick up the discussion on Wednesday of next week.

Herman D Alvaranga is president of the Caribbean School of Sales Management. He may be contacted by e-mail at hdalvaranga@cssm.edu.jm