“In our company the sales guys have all the fun and make the big money,” someone said at a dealer onsite training event. After the training was over, I went in and asked the meaning of his comment and he said again, “They [the sales guys] have all the fun and make a lot of money and we, making way less, do all the work and drive the drudgery bus!” After hearing those comments, I clearly realized that there were two very important strategic issues requiring resolution. The first one circled around how Sr. Management in any company would have to manage morale and momentum in an environment where some employees DO make significantly more income than others. The second topic and one more interesting to me was, was there a connection between FUN and SUCCESS?
Does a fun sales environment ensure success? What defines fun in the sales department? I asked this question in a survey and one of the most popular answers included the phrase, “A place where happiness prevails.” Everyone can remember (hopefully) someone they’ve worked with who was always happy, no matter what the situation, they smiled through it all. Happiness is a personal choice; it’s birthed from inside the individual and has so many points of origin. Happiness can be a result of how someone was raised, their faith or simply their choice to view life in the most positive and cheerful way. It can be contagious, but it’s not an attribute you can force into others. Happy people are a pleasure to be around and often do extremely well regardless of where they work. But being happy is not really what we’re talking about. A fun environment might cause happiness to prevail, but an individual’s happiness, even in a leadership position, doesn’t guarantee a fun environment and a successful sales result. Don’t you wish everyone had a happiness meter on their forehead, what a great management tool that would be? But still, there’s the question; does fun drive success?
In order to get to the answer, you have to compare enough sales reps that ARE successful and working in a FUN environment with those who aren’t. Simple right? Not so fast! Even though many people who are not in sales assume the sales reps have all the fun and make the big bucks, you can find way more sales reps that haven’t made a dime and wouldn’t call their job fun at all. So is making lots of money what makes a job fun or is it that those who make a lot of money can afford to have fun? Does making money have anything to do with it at all?
What I am sure of is if a dealer has defined their business objectives, market strategy and go-to-market execution plans, they stand the best chance of launching a fun, successful environment. It’s mostly because they’ve thought through everything and because they have, it’s reasonable to believe they’ll win more business, lose less and drive a consistently successful result. But does winning more and all of that planning make it FUN?
I asked a group of dealers if creating a fun sales environment was one of their top priorities; each answered in their own way but if I were to combine and summarize their answers, this is what I heard: having a fun sales organization is certainly welcomed, but the dealer’s fun comes from consistent sales results and a growing company. Talk about compounding the issue. So, above we learned that just being happy can’t create or guarantee a fun sales environment, but also that a fun environment is completely different based on whom you ask. So my quest continued; do sales teams who have fun deliver better sales results?
Having worked with hundreds of dealers, I want to say upfront, it’s very rare to find consistent sales results anywhere, much less results from a team that delivers in a fun environment. But occasionally, you’ll find a dealer who has tapped into the secret recipe for generating not only excellent sales results but has created it in a fun work place. This combination seems to generate perpetual positive momentum. There seems to be a mutual respect between the dealer and their sales reps.
So how were these companies different? What I found wasn’t that amazing; however, the results were. Where most dealerships struggle with up and down sales results and the revolving door, these select few dealers’ secret recipe produced consistent and successful sales results while creating a fun and energetic sales team. The secret recipe was simple; every day the dealer would completely engage in the success of each sales team member. Although the dealer didn’t interfere with the Sales Manager’s role, they were available to empower and push every deal to a win. This drove such appreciation throughout the team that it nurtured a mutual respect and work ethic that few dealers encounter. Every dealer wants to win business, but these dealers took on a daily quest to make another win happen for their reps. Tell me that wouldn’t be FUN!
If I’ve heard this once, I’ve heard it a million times, “The sales reps know what they need to do, if they can’t get the results we need, we’ll just replace them and find someone who can!” The facts are, they don’t know what they need to do and without the proper leadership and training, chances are they’ll fail and you’ll have wasted thousands of payroll dollars for nothing.
I really see this top down pressure and distant management style as the problem. Larger dealerships and direct sales organizations justify their lack of engagement by claiming they simply don’t have the time and bandwidth to be that involved in the lower level’s day-to-day. My question is; what is their responsibility for leading their team? With a building filled with support personnel and reporting automation, what are they doing and how many meetings is enough? I receive emails continually from their sales reps voicing frustration about their disconnected management and the constant communication that each is “expendable.” Imagine the growth and success possibilities if these company leaders would personally commit to the success of each of their sales reps.
Truth be told, some dealers and management have reached a level of comfort and are no longer interested in getting in the game and off the bench. In some of my engagements the hardest thing I have to change is the dealer themselves and getting them to step back on the field. The few dealers I mentioned above that have mastered this success model, I believe, have properly identified their role and purpose for driving success and understand completely what success management is. I can’t think of anything that would have a greater impact on their company’s success. So put your helmet back on, huddle up and call the play and win! Your team will never forget it.
