I’m going to start today’s post with a small piece about the two most popular pets for people worldwide – cats and dogs. People tend to classify themselves as either “cat people” or “dog people”, even if they don’t have either. I’m naturally a cat person, though we own a dog (our lovely ginger tabby “Phoebe” died in 2012 after 17 happy years). The reasons behind this are varied, but boil down to my own view on this as follows – Cats stay with their “owners” because they want to – they are self-sufficient and enjoy freedom, and can go whenever they see fit. Dogs stay with their owners because they are part of their pack, it’s where they belong and where their loyalties lie.
Starting off my career as an “on-the-road” salesperson, and being “field-based” since then, we’ve always had cats rather than dogs. A cat will greet you after a couple of days away with some meows about how the food timer is now empty and the litter tray needs cleaning, and you need to stroke them a bit so they can sleep. If you tried doing the same thing with a dog (and, of course, you certainly should NOT try it), you’d be mobbed the second you opened the door and would not be out of the dogs sight for the rest of the day, as the poor thing tried desperately to ensure that you weren’t angry with it (why else would you desert a loyal pack member for so long???). A dog needs the pack, has to know its place within it, the comfort of the others and the approval of the pack leader.
So what on earth am I going on about? Well, I think sales people are like cats – at least the great majority of successful sales people that I’ve encountered have been. They don’t need the pack, they take from their “leader” what they need and use it for their own devices. You can incentivise a cat, but try punishing them and they don’t respond too well – they lash back or run away. They tolerate other cats, and even like others, but they always have a watchful eye on them too – cat relationships are fickle.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a bash at sales-people - I class myself as a sales-oriented person, and I’ve been involved in sales for almost two decades. What I’m really trying to point out is that to get the best out of a cat you need to understand them – try dog-training on a cat and you’ll find that in almost no time you don’t have a pet anymore. If you understand what drives them, however, they can be one of the most rewarding pets on the planet. Not that I’m knocking dogs either, but I know that whatever I do my dog will love me – I could mistreat it badly and it still would (which is one of the greatest tragedies of abused dogs, just as an aside) – but you must earn the love of a cat.
In a similar way, sales people are often seen as flighty, untrustworthy, self-centred etc by many people within companies. There can be seen as glory-boys and hunters lacking in responsibility. Sales people are often very clever, have good “people-skills” and are good at communication. They can be difficult to manage and point out problems in other parts of the organisation (often as a reason for their own failure to achieve a particular objective, whether justified or not). They are often untrusting because of all of this and their own experiences in the field. To earn the respect of these people is not easy, and is more rewarding because of that.
Sales people need careful handling, and I’ve had the experience of both very good and extremely poor sales managers in the past. The best were excellent sales people in their own right, as well as having a less self-centred approach (sales is generally a selfishly centred occupation by definition – hitting your own target is of primary importance) which brought the best out in their people, as well as coaching and developing. The worst were little more than bullies with no obvious talent – I even experienced one sales manager who produced a PDF document - sent by email with no other communication – telling people what their “minimum operating parameters” were. Things such as when to make their first appointment in the morning, the minimum number of appointments per day and the earliest the last appointment in the day should be. This would be crass even if sent to new starters, but this was after being in the role for over a year and with highly experienced and successful sales professionals. Funnily enough, within 12 months over 50% of that sales team had left the company, purely because of this monstrously incapable and appallingly bad manager.
Of course not all salespeople are good – some use their skills to take glory for orders they had little to do with, or cover up their lack of real results. A good manager can usually (hopefully!) tell the difference, and there are few things that provide more disincentive to a sales team than seeing a manager support and praise one of these individuals (who they’ve already spotted a long time ago). A manager who spots these people for what they are and deals with them, however, is usually held in a higher regard, as it gives them confidence that their real work will be noticed (and rewarded) and also the mental note that should they try to pull the wool over his eyes, they’ll be spotted!
So in my opinion, salespeople are like cats – they are the dynamo of any company, bringing in the revenue that makes the business work. When they don’t do so well, they need to be helped and encouraged to better things – shouting at them won’t get you anywhere other than the recruiting process. If you enjoy shouting at something that will love you anyway, buy a dog – or better still, don’t.
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