Sales Super Stars – Got any?

by Tim Connor, CSP

Creating a team of super-stars is manufactured housing – business to business or business to consumers – is not as difficult as many managers or trainers would have us believe. The reason - everyone wants to be successful and create a lifestyle of affluence, freedom and control over their destiny. So if your staff in general is not producing consistent stellar results, do you know why?

Most organizations have a real super star, someone who consistently leads everyone else in results and performance and they often seem to do this effortlessly. Do not be deceived. There is no such thing as the Natural Born Sales Super Star. Those who believe that are still living in the dark ages.

Every organization also tends to have reasonably successful employees – routine producers - as well as a few marginal folks - or what I call falling stars.

Here’s the secret to your success as a manager - Help the super stars continue to improve and grow and get the rest of your team to have the same focus, dedication, attitudes, passion, belief and work ethic. When you accomplish this you will have the ability to spend a lot more time on the golf course without guilt, fear or regrets.

So how do you accomplish this, creating a team of sales super stars? Here are five basic steps;

1. Hire right.

2. Train consistently

3. Coach positively

4. Inspect routinely.

5. Lead and manage effectively

I have read most of the relevant books that focus on these topics and I must admit that although many of them are good and a few worthy of my praise most of them fail to address the critical issues and challenges facing managers today. Which is that the simple fact that most managers routinely face small or insignificant routine challenges that are costing their organizations; market share, customer loyalty, employee performance and profits.

There may be some personal pain connected with your identification of some of the challenges you face and the techniques and attitudes you need to develop in order to create consistent positive results. And I will guarantee that there will be some changes you need to make in your management style if you are to achieve this outcome.

If you are not willing or ready to look in the mirror for the causes of many of your department’s performance issues, problems, challenges or failures then I would suggest you are living in denial.

There is a single premise you need to consider, embrace and believe and acknowledge if you want a team of super stars - if you have a problem, challenge, issue or any negative situation in your business, department, division or group, look up the ladder for the cause and down the ladder for the solution.

If you are a manger who reverses this process, you have a great deal to learn. Yes, there are many other approaches and tactics, but I believe the following need to be the foundation for any of the others you implement, experiment with or consider.

Hire right.

When you hire under pressure you will tend to make a hiring mistake.

When you hire skills rather than attitudes you will make a hiring mistake.

When you fail to effectively indoctrinate a new employee into your organization and its culture you will make a hiring mistake.

I could go on, but the essence here is some candidates will have the potential to become super stars while others from the git-go will never make it past mediocrity. If you want sales super stars – hire super stars.

It is all but impossible to turn an average employee into a great employee. Yes, it’s possible, but at what cost in terms of time, resources and effort. If you don’t have any super stars on your team I would ask you – did you hire an average producer hoping to convert them to a super star or that they would miraculously become one before your eyes?

Train consistently

Training is not putting people in a room for two days, throwing a boatload of information at them and then cutting them loose hoping they will use it all or even any of it. Without follow-up, inspection, integration tactics, repetition and consistency you are wasting your time and money.

Sound strange coming from a career sales and management trainer? Well, after some 35 years teaching people to sell more and manage better, I can tell you most organizations waste in excess of 70-80% of their training resources and investment because they fail to develop and implement a follow-up strategy and implementation process.

Coach positively

Training is teaching people what to do, when to do it, how to do it and why.

Coaching is catching people doing it right and recognizing and reinforcing it and catching people doing it wrong and correcting or modifying behavior. Fail to coach consistently and positively and you just wasted some degree of your training investment.

Inspect routinely.

If it isn’t expected it isn’t happening. Peter Drucker said it best “you have to inspect what you expect.” My addition is, “If you don’t inspect it you don’t have the right to expect it.”

Inspection isn’t micro-management, nit-picking or over shadowing people but creating guidelines, benchmarks, routines, processes, parameters or boundaries, communicating them clearly and then having an accountable and consistent procedure for following up to ensure compliance.

Lead and manage effectively

Leadership is about leading and management is about managing. Complicated?

The job of a manager is to lead people and manage things not the reverse.

There are over 400 definitions of leadership. Let me give you one in terms of people - are your people following you with passion, integrity and effectiveness or do you have to have policies, rules, evaluations, etc. in place to ensure compliance?

Management is simply getting stuff done in a way that contributes to a successful, profitable and effective organization, department, branch etc.

Yes, there are hundreds of books on the market today in the area of management and leadership. So, I ask you why do we still have organizations that struggle, fail or just hang on from year to year. It’s simple – there are three reasons why organizations fail – ignorance, arrogance or a combination of these two! # #

(Editor's Note: Tim coordinates http://mhspeakertrainer.org/)

(Editor's Note: Tim Connor is a member of MHSpeakerTrainer.org)

Tim Connor, CSP is an internationally-renowned sales, management and leadership speaker, trainer and bestselling author. Since 1981, he has given over 4000 presentations in 21 countries on a variety of sales, management, leadership and personal and business relationship topics. Tim has been a member of the National Speakers Assn for over 30 years. He is the bestselling author of over 75 books including the international best sellers Soft Sell, Corporate Disconnect, 81 Challenges Managers Face, Your First Year in Sales and Life Is Short. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 704-895-1230 or visit his websites at www.timconnor.com and www.CorporateDisconnect.com. Connect with Tim on FaceBook, LinkedIin and Twitter.