D’après vous, quels sont les principaux leviers pour engager vos collaborateurs ? Vous songez en premier lieu à la rémunération ?
En réalité, le salaire n’est plus le premier levier de motivation de vos équipes ! En effet, selon une étude réalisée en 2022*, le sens donné à son travail et l’intérêt pour les missions apparaissent en tête de liste pour 97% des répondants .
De nouveaux critères sont apparus ces dernières années, tels que le sens du travail réalisé, la reconnaissance de ses paires ou encore les possibilités d’évolution.
Alors face à ces évolutions, comment développer la motivation de vos collaborateurs ?
* Baromètre RH par Kelio
CLÉ N°1 : Responsabilisez vos collaborateurs
Gmail, Google Map, Chrome, Google Talk, Adwords… le point commun de ces inventions Google ? Elles ont toutes été inventées à l’initiative propre des employés de l’entreprise !
En effet, Google applique depuis plusieurs années la « règle des 20% » : chaque salarié peut consacrer un jour de sa semaine de travail (soit 20% de son temps) au développement d’un projet lui tenant à cœur, en totale autonomie. De quoi se réveiller avec le sourire !
Mais pour pouvoir responsabiliser vos collaborateurs, ceux-ci doivent avoir accès à des méthodes et ressources leur permettant de monter en compétences !
Si la formationreprésente un levier non négligeable de développement des acquis, d’autres solutions existent, tels que le « blended learning » ou la mise à disposition en libre accès des outils et ressources, permettant de répondre à des besoins précis en temps réel !
Via l’application Kestio, vous pouvez notamment accéder à plus de 800 contenus vidéos, outils, templates, canevas… à exploiter dans votre quotidien.
À la clé : une responsabilisation de vos équipes grâce à une montée en compétences adaptée à leurs enjeux !
En tant que manager, avez-vous déjà prononcé ces paroles ? Adaptez-vous vos méthodes de management au profil de votre interlocuteur ?
Ce n’est plus à prouver, pour avoir une équipe efficace pleine de motivation au travail, il faut savoir communiquer avec elle ! Chaque personne est différente, il faut donc adapter la communication selon le profil de la personne, cela sert également à comprendre le client, son mode de pensée, de ressenti et de fonctionnement !
Les styles de personnalité selon le Modèle DISC
L’analyse comportementale Puzzle DISC est fondée sur les théories de William M. Marston. Cette méthode mesure 4 émotions basiques qui ont une importance dans notre vie et notre survie :
D – Dominance : personne dirigée vers l’action, proactive, tout en étant factuelle et rapide.
I – Influence : personne influente orientée vers l’action, dynamique et qui sait communiquer.
S – Stabilité : personne dirigée vers les autres, qui s’adapte à son environnement, pense à son équipe et cherche à ce que tout le monde soit d’accord.
C – Conformité: personne orientée vers les faits, la logique, sait prendre du recul et analysée une situation donnée.
Représentée par un puzzle car chaque individu a une composante de chacune de ces 4 couleurs, en quantité plus ou moins importante.
Pourquoi demander à votre
équipe d’établir leur profil DISC ?
And you, are you "addicted" to your best sales people?
What are we talking about when we talk about the threat of "over-reliance on our best salespeople"?
We are not talking here about addiction (despite this rather provocative paragraph title!) but about the notion of dependence in the primary sense, defined as "a relationship of close connection between something and that which conditions it".
In other words:
You can (and should!) consider yourself dependent on your best sales people if a small number of your sales team members alone account for a vital part of your turnover.
The question to ask yourself is: are there any of my sales people whose departure or disability would directly and dangerously affect the profitability of my business?
In practice, it is common to observe differences in results between members of a sales team.
When evaluating the performance of salespeople (solely) on the basis of turnover generated, the most common breakdown is as follows:
5-10% of "over-performing" salespeople, whose results are well above the team average
80-90% of sales staff are "average" in terms of expected results and those achieved by their colleagues
5-10% of sales staff "underperform" compared to others (at a given moment or more permanently)
It starts to look worrying when the 'over-performers' category alone accounts for 30-40% of your turnover.
You are now entering a risk zone:
Economic risk, first of all: in the event of their failure, the survival of your company may be dangerously jeopardised.
Secondly, there is theHR risk: the fear of losing one of these precious "pillars", the difficulty of finding someone "as good" if he or she leaves, and the feeling of inequality (competition, jealousy, etc.) within the team.
So how can you avoid getting into this type of situation, or get out of it if you are currently in it?
Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss
all topics related to business performance with our experts:
You think that not all your sales people can be performers, and you have resigned yourself to this idea?
And what if it is ultimately just a question of perspective?
It's true that not all your sales people perform all the time, in all areas and in all contexts, but in reality they are ALL potential performers: in certain areas and under certain conditions... which must be discovered in order to allow their strengths to be expressed and developed.
Define a well-segmented sales process that does not rely on a few particularly talented individuals to master all the steps.
Instead, focus on mastering one or two well-defined steps for each of them.
You can then assign them as a priority - or even exclusively - to the phases of your sales process on which they excel: feeding the prospect file, generating leads, qualifying opportunities, building sales proposals, etc.
In short, and to use a football metaphor: to make the team win, it is better to distinguish the defenders from the strikers, and to avoid confining your centre-forward to the goalby asking him to stop the opposing goals (he may suffer from it... and the result of the match may be affected)!
2. PLAY TOGETHER
This clear and precise division of individual roles ultimately allows the greatest possible collective efficiency to be aimed at.
The division of tasks and the assignment of roles according to talents and affinities ensure a high level of efficiency at each stageand the best overall result at the end, where previously each salesperson had to master the entire chain and was heavily penalised by the stages in which he or she was less comfortable.
For this strategy to be successful, however, the whole thing must work smoothly and coherently, which means working on team spirit!
Disseminate a culture of collective success by promoting trust, sharing of good practices, mentoring between employees, solidarity in action, and internal communication.
Avoid over-valuing a team member for his or her individual results while forgetting about the others: not only could this harm the overall balance of the team (by fostering jealousies and tensions), but it could also generate other perverse effects, such as causing him or her to refocus on his or her individual interest, or making him or her more "vulnerable" to future difficulties.
The best of one day is not necessarily the best of the next, andit is better to value successes, positive initiatives and efforts (individual and collective) than people.
3. MAKE EVERYONE FEEL LIKE A CHAMPION
The value of such an organisation with clear individual roles within an effective collective game tactic, when it is 'working to the full', is that it allows everyone to feel like a champion.
This implies adopting a new point of view on the very notion of "performance" and changing the perspective on what it covers: if we consider that the turnover directly generated is not the only way of creating value for the company (feeding a file of qualified prospects is essential to the success of the following stages of the sales process, and this file as such represents a real capital for the company, for example), then the sales figure is no longer the only axis of performance to be evaluated. And those who produce other forms of value can also take their place on the "honour roll"!
This ultimately leads sales managers to replace the over-valuing of individual "Performers" with the search for so-called "A Players".
The latter are characterised by their ability to :
Seeing opportunities and seizing them
Accepting to question oneself
Be humble and aware of the ephemeral nature of success
Find their own resources and self-motivation
Passing on to others, sharing and "playing together
In short, where you used to focus on the numbers your salespeople achieved, now pay a lot of attention to their mindset.
Thus, the overall load will be more evenly distributed among all crew members, and the ship will be much less subject to individual hazards!
To find out more about the use of specialised and appropriate tools to adopt, discover this webinar on optimising the return on your commercial assets:
The impact of management on the efficiency of teams has been the subject of much research. This research has confirmed the important role of leadership in achieving results, and its direct influence on the level of employee commitment.1
From then on, the different "management styles" and their effects on the life of the teams were the object of particular attention. This has led to the formalisation of several typologies of managerial attitudes (we will come back to this a little later).
How can you translate this knowledge into concrete applications in the field, in order to adopt the most favourable managerial attitudes for the success of your team in the commercial field?
The impact of management on business performance
1. Define a framework to ensure the conditions for performance
Operationally, the sales manager or director intervenes in many elements that have a direct impact on results:
Definition of operational objectives: What turnover? On which offers? To which targets? And so on...
Building the sales organisation model: What are the stages of the sales cycle? What is the distribution of roles between the different team members? Etc...
Its implementation in individual action plans: What type of actions should be taken? On which accounts? Etc...
Allocation of efforts and resources: What time, skills, human resources, financial or logistical means... should be allocated to each action or objective? Etc.
Facilitating collaboration between team members: What are the "rituals" that allow collective exchanges? What is the rhythm? How and by whom are they facilitated? And so on.
And finally, the management and monitoring of commercial actions: What performance measurement indicators (quantitative and qualitative) should be adopted? How to monitor and steer them (evaluation method, frequency and monitoring methods, etc.).
It thus creates a framework for action that conditions the achievement of results.
Beyond this framework, which is essential, the manager is also responsible for creating the right conditions for the development of his or her team's performance, by acting on its two main components: skills and motivation.
2. Managing the "performance equation
Competence and motivation determine both the performance and the degree of autonomy of team members.
In the field of marketing and sales effectiveness, managing a team is above all about steering what is known as the "Performance Equation", which can be formulated as follows:
PERFORMANCE = Skills x Motivation (individual and collective)
From this point of view, the role of the manager is to :
Ensuring that each employee has or is able to acquire all the skills needed to succeed in their role
Regularly assess the individual and collective motivation of the team members and its development
Tocreate the conditions for the sustainable development of skills and motivation, both individually and collectively
Attention to both levels (individual and collective) is an essential part of the equation, as team members act in synergy, and overall effectiveness is more than the sum of individual effectiveness (in a well-functioning team), just as(a contrario), a dysfunctional team can annihilate the efforts of the most effective and motivated individuals...
How to develop a management style that promotes performance?
1. know thyself
Knowing the different typologies of managerial attitudes allows the manager to situate himself personally in relation to them, i.e:
Identify his or her natural "dominant style", in other words the type of management that best suits his or her personality and towards which he or she tends to lean
To become aware of other possible approaches in order to give oneself room for choice, to broaden the range of tools and to develop this style, either on a long-term basis or on an ad hoc basis, in response to specific contexts, situations or staff profiles.
The best known typology is that of the 4 management styles (directive, persuasive, participative and delegative), on which the literature abounds. We can also mention the 4 types of leadership proposed in the EDHEC Business School study entitled " The Leadership Revolution ", whose approach is complementary.
It is therefore useful for the manager to be familiar with these typologies and to have questioned his or her practice in the light of this analysis grid.
Beyond these basic references, several tools can help in this perspective: the 4Colors profile (or DISC method), 360° feedback, coaching, co-development groups between peers, etc.
In particular, it should ask itself these 5 key questions:
Which style do I use most? (most often, most naturally)
Is it appropriate for my team? To the current context of my company?
What results does it produce?
At what level does it allow me to promote the best performance of the different profiles present in my team?
What would I like to improve?
There is no management style that is better than others or more favourable to performance a priori and in all contexts!
The essential thing for the manager is therefore to identify the components of his or her management style and to constantly evaluate them, in a given situation and with regard to the context (objectives, company culture, situations encountered, variety of employee profiles, etc.), in order to act consciously with the aim of improving the team's performance.
2. Deploying the right management style in the 8 managerial tasks
When the manager has achieved a better understanding of himself, he is able to adapt his managerial style to the situation, to his interlocutors and to the evolution of their relationshipover time.
For example, he or she may adopt a directive style when dealing with an employee with a low level of skills in order to obtain results more quickly, and change his or her attitude to a more persuasive or even participative style as the employee becomes more independent over time.
Or develop a participative or even delegative management style for the most part with regard to his or her team, but temporarily adopt a directive style in times of crisis requiring rapid decision-making and immediate action.
This self-knowledge gives the manager the ability to consciously choose and "dose" the skills to be activated, in all aspects of his or her function.
At KESTIO, we call them the "8 missions of the manager":
Anticipate
Decide
Organise
Animate
Communicate
Solve
Pilot
Performer
For example, on the "deciding" axis, the "enlightened" manager will define the decision-making method not only in terms of his or her personality, but also in terms of the effects on the team: if he or she observes that a personal tendency to want to control everything has the effect of demobilising his or her team, which suffers from not being able to take any initiative, he or she will adapt his or her operation in the interests of the team's performance.
Or on the "communication" axis, he will develop more or less listening and collecting opinions from his team or collective meetings, depending on the management style he has decided to opt for and which seems to him to be the most likely to ensure the conditions of effectiveness.
Taking a step back from oneself and developing one's relational intelligence are therefore keys that enable the manager to make the right decisions in each situation and to implement at any time the most favourable measures for the individual and collective success of his team.
How can you redirect the efforts of your sales staff in the current context? Discover in this webinar the keys to managing your team's performance.
1: For an overview of the various reference studies on the subject, see for example
The expert thesis "The performance of work teams: what role for the HR function? "Paris Dauphine University, October 2016
Today, this lever is no longer sufficient to motivate salespeople: recruitment difficulties, high turnover... from now on, you need other arguments to ensure that your sales teams give their best and invest in the long term! The meaning given to their work, the possibility of taking initiatives and the opportunity to participate in a collective adventure are now part of the elements that count in the eyes of salespeople.
Motivation is not activated by pressing a button!
The question of salespeople's commitment calls for a humbling precondition:
"You can't motivate someone: you can just create the right conditions for a person to activate his or her own engines.
This may seem obvious, but it puts a damper on some of the prevailing rhetoric offering 'turnkey' solutions for generating engagement within sales teams (from mobile apps to team building activities to incentives of all kinds).
Let's be clear, while these solutions can have a real ripple effect and stimulate the involvement of a sales team in the short term, the notion of engagement appeals to the deeper drivers of individuals, and these drivers have evolved in recent years.
Meaning' and values increasingly important, especially among 'young people
Overall, there has been a shift in employees' priorities, including in the commercial sector: less focused on money as an end in itself or on attributes of power, employees are now placing more and more importance on the meaning of their workand the values conveyed by the company they work for, or plan to join.
This is particularly true of the younger generation entering the labour market today, as highlighted by the latest Universum study1 , which shows a growing attachment of students to CSR, ethics and equality criteria in their career choices:
"1 in 3 students think that ethics is an important issue (especially on the business side), and 26% of them attach importance to the ethical principles of companies. »
The success of the Student Manifesto for an Ecological Awakening, launched by students from leading business schools, including HEC, in which they say they are ready to boycott companies that do not commit to ecology, even if it means earning less, is also proof of this.
Money no longer makes you happy... or at least not committed!
Although this prevalence of values and ethics in career choices must be qualified (this same study shows that beyond the rhetoric, business school students still choose companies that offer high income prospects and constitute a good reference for their CVs), it is important to bear in mind that the financial criterion is no longer the only one that counts, and that the drivers of salespeople have become multiple.
Beyond ethics, several criteria have become essential in the career choices of salespeople, including: having an immediate impact in the company, experiencing collective "professional challenges", or being autonomous in their work.
So how do you integrate this change in sales aspirations into your management style?
The new levers of engagement for salespeople
Here are several areas you can work on to encourage the commitment of your sales teams and develop the attractiveness of your company:
Work on the values of the company and its raison d'être: The feeling of being useful is a determining factor in the notion of commitment! And to contribute to this, there is nothing like defining your company's mission, giving meaning to its actions and showing its positive impact on society. This is what Simon Sinek calls the "Golden Circle", which corresponds to the "WHY?" in his clear diagram describing what makes one company much more attractive and commercially successful than another.
Encourage autonomy and initiative: Encouraging initiative means allowing your salespeople to participate in decisions that concern them and to be involved in the organisation of their daily work (for example, by asking them to define the means to be used to achieve their objectives). This also means letting them experiment (a new pitch, a new e-mail sequence, the operation of a new CRM tool, etc.) within a defined framework (objectives, time, etc.) by trusting them and giving them the right to make mistakes.
Develop "Co-operation" and the sharing of good practices: In a constantly evolving environment, the playing field is constantly changing, and the best of one moment is not necessarily the best of the next! Therefore, encouraging the sharing of good practices internally is a good way to value the best performers while ensuring that not everything rests on their shoulders. To do this, you can encourage the setting up of times during which a member of the sales team will train his colleagues on a tool, a technique or an approach that he applies with better results than the others. In this way, the team will benefit from both emulation and collaboration, and everyone will have the opportunity to develop their strengths.
A change of posture for managers
If these levers are based on values and give pride of place to collaborative logics, their activation is not necessarily idealistic and is not "free" for companies: not only is it a factor of commitment and stability for teams, but the implementation of these levers is favourable to agility and innovation, and therefore ultimately to the sustainability and performance of your company.
However, it implies a real change of attitude, which may be counter-intuitive for many managers: the management methods "inherited" from the last few decades were largely based on a "command and control" logic.
Today, it is a question of placing more value on "doing better" than on "doing good", even if this sometimes takes longer at the start.
By shifting the role of employees from the execution of upstream and often top-down systems to reflection and initiative-taking, the role of managers is changing significantly. Their task is now to build a secure and stimulating framework, to create trust and to foster competence development.
Much more in a "coach" position and in a support logic, they question and listen to their teams without necessarily wanting to know everything, in order to help them find the best solutions by themselves.
From now on, the competence of sales managers is no longer measured by the quality of their answers, but by the quality of their questions!
This approach is less obvious to activate than the financial lever alone, but it also gives meaning and value to the mission of the sales managers themselves!
Are you facing a crisis situation? Have you considered repositioning your sales action? To find out how, watch this webinar:
It also has an impact on employee commitment. In a context of generational renewal of sales teams and managerial evolution, how can you ensure that you set objectives that are both ambitious and realistic, and that motivate your sales force in the long term?
Setting salespeople's objectives: a strategic issue
Let us first clear up a common misunderstanding.
No, setting individual sales targets is not just about setting the turnover that each sales person must achieve in order to be eligible for commission!
On theone hand, the criteria taken into account to evaluate their effective contribution to the company's objectives can be multiple: margin generated, percentage of sales achieved on a particular offer or target, number of new customers signed up, etc.
On theother hand, their level of commitment can also be measured by the means used to achieve it: number of new prospects identified, number of telephone or physical meetings held, number of sales proposals sent, conversion rate, etc.
Finally, the objectives can include a collective component and encourage cooperation, in addition to individual performance: conditioning of variable remuneration on the prior achievement of a collective turnover threshold, taking into account the time spent on internal projects, etc.
It is therefore a real strategic issue involving choices whose impact is not only financial, but also managerial : the commitment of employees and the way in which teams operate depend partly on it.
5 good practices for defining business objectives
1. Involve the sales team in the reflection
The pitfall that is most often observed on this subject consists of repeating the previous year's model and applying it identically, without questioning its effectiveness. It is useful to plan a consultation phase with the sales staff on the subject: take their opinion, their feedback from the system already in place and any suggestions for improvement. Present them with your own ideas for change before implementing them, in order to test their reaction to the options under consideration.
Taking this feedback into account will ensure that your sales staff will adhere more closely to the objectives you present to them later on.
Consulting them does not mean involving them in the final decision, but it is useful to know their perception and to integrate it into your thinking, among other criteria that come under a more global vision of the company.
2. Define operative variable elements
As mentioned above, there are potentially many criteria that can be taken into account in setting salespeople's objectives.
Don't forget that each of these criteria will then have to be regularly monitored and will come into play in the calculation of the variable part of the sales representatives' remuneration. You will therefore have to make choices, otherwise you will be setting up a real gas factory!
Select your criteria (preferably at least 2, and no more than 4) and define their weighting according to the importance you attach to them.
The profit-sharing system you propose must guarantee the motivation and commitmentof your sales staff over the long term. For example, you can combine a result objective (achieving €500,000 in sales over the year) with a means objective (making 8 prospect appointments per week, etc.).
3. Carry out a preliminary simulation of the proposed system
The best way to ensure that the selected criteria work and to check the overall coherence of the proposed system is to test it. Finding out during the year that the system is not working satisfactorily could have serious consequences for the company.
Using the figures available for year N, carry out simulations to check that :
the data needed to establish the variables are available (already tracked in your current monitoring system, or if not, easily/quickly accessible)
the multi-criteria and weightedcalculationis simple to carry out (not a gas factory)
the results obtained are coherent (not too great a difference with the current system)
Also check that these results are stimulating for your salespeople! Set a target of 70% to 80% of the team (at least) meeting their sales targets, and receiving satisfactory bonuses.
Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss
all topics related to business performance with our experts:
In order for the objectives to be perceived as "fair" and to generate lasting support, it is desirable that they be defined according to criteria that are directly dependent on the actions of the sales staff : number of appointments made, number of deals won, etc.
Exclude external factors or third party interventionsas much as possible: in the context of new business models, in particular, Marketing can intervene in all or part of the sales cycle; it should therefore be distinguished from actions directly attributable to salespeople.
Also, as far as possible, adopt a qualitative approach: sending as many commercial proposals as possible, for example, should not necessarily become an end in itself; combining it with a notion of transformation rate allows you to measure the quality of the work carried out in more detail.
Depending on the case, it may also be important to take into account certain disparities (between junior and senior sales staff, geographical territories covered, account development and pure conquest, etc.) in order to reward not only the results obtained but also the efforts made.
5. Communicate in two stages
Once your system has been established in a coherent, efficient and "fair" way, don't neglect the (crucial) step of presenting it to the members of the sales team!
Plan a two-step communication:
A collective presentation to the team, which should make it possible to explain how it works, to inform the team of the criteria taken into consideration, and to highlight the overall coherence of the system with regard to the company's objectives (financial, strategic, etc.) and the reality on the ground.
An individual discussion with each member of the sales team, to specify each one's individual objectives in detail, and to answer any questions raised.
Salespeople need to have a clear idea of the level of variable remuneration to which they are entitled, and to translate the objectives thus set into action priorities and concrete organisational elements.
Also consider how key data will be monitored (weekly reporting, CRM monitoring, etc.) and how often the results will be evaluated.
If the defined system meets this set of best practices and is regularly monitored and effectively managed once implemented, you have every chance of getting your sales people actively engaged in achieving their objectives and results!
To go further, discover in our webinar, 4 keys to regain control in a difficult situation:
So how do you put an end to meetings that no one wants to attend anymore?
Here are 6 "worst case scenarios" to avoid, and our advice on how to replace them with useful, effective and motivating meetings.
1. The mountain that gave birth to a mouse
The meeting was convened to deal with a generic theme: for example, the new European regulations affecting our sector.
There is a lot of talk and a lot of time, everyone gives their more or less informed opinion, but no decision is taken, no action is taken. The key information could have been passed on before the meeting and this would have been more effective. After a while, many people wonder why they are there. Moreover, no one really knows what the expected result was. That's the problem.
Our advice:
Always set one or more concrete and precise objectives for your meeting, for example: to prepare or validate a decision, to define an action plan, to take stock of a project, to inform the group of a decision, or to share good practices internally... The meeting will be a success if you and the participants have made tangible progress on your subject when it ends.
2. The general brawl ("Settlement of accounts at the OK Corral")
Sometimes a subject discussed during a meeting can give rise to contradictory reactions. While the expression of different points of view is generally desirable, and often even allows the best solutions to emerge, it can become downright burdensome whenit turns into a heated debate, or even head-on opposition. If the debate is not properly facilitated and framed, it can drag on or become confrontational, with the risk that everyone will stick to their positions and the tension will crystallize, making the meeting completely sterile...
Our advice:
Take note of the objections without necessarily dealing with them all immediately or reacting to them. If a point of agreement cannot be reached quickly, do not allow the debate between the opposing positions to fester and continue with the agenda. Simply define when and in what framework the issue will be decided.
3. The one-man show
Do you recognise it? It is the meeting in which participants are treated as mere spectators. It is conducted in a "top-down" mode in front of passive, not to say captive, listeners.
While the facilitator is certainly happy to have an audience to admire his or her talents or applaud his or her ideas, he or she is depriving himself or herself of the richness of the team's contributions on his or her topic, or of the relevance of the feedback on the project he or she is presenting... And that is rarely a good idea!
Our advice:
A meeting is neither a lecture nor a presentation! It is a time for collective work to which all participants have been invited to be active contributors. Invite all concerned and/or competent people, and encourage active and balanced participation by everyone in a goal that is known and understood by all. Even when it is a "presentation", plan interactions with your audience to encourage participants to project themselves into action and implement the elements shared.
4. The endless ("One day without end")
It is the (too) routine meeting. It always takes place at the same frequency (every month, every week, etc.), at the same time, with the same people, and its procedure is unchanging. A typical example: first the figures for the month are presented, then the objectives for the next month, and finally, a round table discussion on the "assessment of current actions". The risk with this type of meeting is that after a while you don't really know what it's for, and above all, you get bored to death! As a result, it's up to the participants to find the best excuse to get out of it, and for those who stay, it's a chore...
Our advice:
It is sometimes useful to plan "regular" meetings, such as a weekly review. In this case, favour a short format with dynamic and highly interactivecontent.
For all other cases, systematically ask yourself what format and mode of facilitation will be the most effective in order for the meeting to produce what you expect, and "vary the pleasures" (metaplanning workshop, brainstorming, world café...)!
5. The parenthesis that goes on forever
Sometimes, during a meeting, one of the participants questions the group about a situation that is specific to him or her, or the facilitator focuses on a point that concerns a minority of them. If the parenthesis drags on, this can have several negative effects: either the other participants intervene without being invited to do so, thus acting as "judges" or "referees" for their colleagues on a subject that is not their responsibility; or, not being concerned, they relax their attention for a long time, and good luck getting them back on board for the rest of the agenda! Not only is the particular case not dealt with properly, but it is a real waste of time for the whole group.
Our advice:
In a meeting, if there are multiple topics to be discussed, adopt the following benchmark: "to be invited, each participant must be interested in at least 70% of the topics discussed during the meeting, and to be put on the agenda, each topic to be discussed must concern at least 70% of the participants invited". Special cases and sub-topics raised during the meeting should be noted to be dealt with later, in an appropriate setting.
6. Absent is always wrong
We are dealing with a subject that concerns several departments with a direct impact on the activity of each one. However, not everyone was invited to the meeting, or the meeting was held despite the fact that some of the invitees could not be present on that date. As a result, no decisions can be firmly validated, or the decisions will go against the wishes of the absentees, and/or more time will have to be spent reporting back to the absentees after the meeting, in compensation. This is a double penalty for everyone!
Our advice:
Only hold a meeting if it is useful and necessary, and when it is, make sure it is effective: choose the right format, the right timing, and make sure that everyone whose input is needed is present. Where it is difficult to bring them together, use document sharing and online collaborative solutions to move issues forward, rather than multiple meetings and email exchanges in small groups.
By avoiding these 6 most frequent "disaster scenarios" (we could still add others, such as "The underground", which is improvised by three people on a corner of the desk and disturbs all the members of the open space in the process! 😉 ), you will restore your meetings to their true vocation: to be a space for sharing ideas and a time for effective and useful collaborative work, in which "the productivity of the whole is more than that of the sum of the parts". And your employees will once again enjoy participating in them!
Did you know that 95% of your success is linked to your state of mind? To learn how to manage your emotional charge more effectively, discover the Triad method in this webinar:
To prevent your salespeople from interpreting it in their own way, moving away from it gradually, or even ignoring it altogether, it is necessary to translate this sales strategy into operational guidelines and to monitor its implementation effectively.
To achieve this, pay attention to these 4 key points.
Build an individual sales action plan with each sales person
Defining a clearsales strategy and presenting it to your team is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure its effective implementation during the year. This is the purpose of sales action plans defined at the individual level.
They are generally co-constructed by the salesperson and his/her manager, and re-evaluated or updated at regular intervals: annually, half-yearly, quarterly or monthly (this is known as a MAP, for monthly action plan).
This co-construction is the key to the commitment of each salesperson. The choice of periodicity can be made according to the sales cycle of your products and services, or according to the management method adopted.
Some companies, for example, define annual action plans and then weight the objectives monthly or quarterly according to the seasonality of their activity .
For example, a digital services company may achieve 50% of its annual turnover in a single quarter, during which the majority of its subscriptions are renewed.
Each salesperson must have an operational action plan with the key data necessary for his or her daily activity, on points such as: targeting, intensity and nature ofsales actions, in order to have the means to achieve thedefined objectives.
Make sure that this individual action plan reflects the business strategy
This commercial action plan is the operational implementation of the commercial strategy defined beforehand. It must therefore reflect it and transcribe it on an individual scale, taking into account theallocation of commercial efforts to your targets, whether in terms of coverage or commercial pressure, and thecommercial organisation you have opted for.
If the sales strategy determines, for example, that 35% of the total turnover should be achieved in segment A of the customer base and 25% in segment B, two different translations are possible in the individual action plan of one of the sales staff:
or he will himself have to generate 35% of his turnover from segment A and 25% from segment B (in the context of an organisation with a distribution of the client portfolio by geographical area, for example);
or he will have to achieve 100% of his turnover on segment A, with other sales representatives in charge of segment B (in the case of an organisation with sales representatives specialised by customer segment).
Hence the importance of defining the action plan at the individual level, to ensure that the concrete application of the business strategy will not give rise to multiple or even divergent interpretations!
Define precisely the activities to be carried out with your sales staff
To avoid any haphazard improvisation on the part of your sales representatives, define precisely with them and for each one :
the targets the type of accounts on which they will work (type of accounts, meeting precise targeting criteria, or even a list of named accounts, and types of interlocutors targeted within the accounts)
the type of sales actions to be carried out at each stage of the sales process (leads to be processed, calls, physical meetings, quotations or sales proposals, reminders, etc.), in the front or back office
the frequency and intensity of these actions, by customer segment (e.g. 8 calls and 3 appointments per year on prospects attached to customer segment A)
From a more qualitative point of view, also specify the sales methods In a more qualitative sense, specify the methods to be used at each stage of the sales process (e.g. company pitch, type of questions to be asked during a discovery meeting) and the expected results for each of them (data to be collected during a discovery meeting, elements to be validated to qualify an opportunity during a sales meeting, etc.).
Regular meetings between the salespeople and their managers are essential to transmit these guidelines and monitor their implementation. These meetings are particularly useful foridentifying deviations from expectations, dealing with difficulties encountered in the field and refining the sales tools used (call script, interview guide, standard report to be recorded in the CRM, etc.).
The frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.) and the degree of "formality" of these follow-up meetings should be defined according to the level of support you consider necessary; this may vary according to the company's managerial culture and the level of seniority of the sales staff, in particular.
Regularly analyse the indicators and adjust the system if necessary
As a manager, you are responsible for ensuring that the commercial strategy is respected and thatthe objectives are achieved. To do this, it is important that you have an overall view of your company's commercial situation in real time in order to steer actions without waiting to know the final result of the financial year.
Equip yourself with the appropriate management tools, particularly dashboards, so that you can analyse the KPIs (key performance indicators) and monitor the actions taken by your sales staff. This will enable you to detect any necessary adjustments and to implement them, if necessary.
In particular, monitoring your team's sales pipeline is a key element in ensuring the reliability of future revenues. The number, value and quality of identified opportunities, their creation date and their level of progress in the sales process are all parameters to be analysed.
Similarly, if your salespeople's conversion rates show significant differences on the same product range, this should alert you to the cause.
Finally, sales and turnover (in volume, in value, by type of product/service, by customer target, etc.) are of course essential indicators of results to be measured.
Your sales strategy indicates how you want to structure your development. The analysis of the steering indicators allows you to validate its deployment and to adjust the operational action plans, without waiting to know the result in terms of orders taken or customer invoicing!
Respecting these 4 points of vigilance will enable you to effectively manage the deployment of your commercial strategy at the operational level and thus optimise your chances of achieving the objectives you have set yourself.
To stay competitive and maximise your chances of converting leads into future customers, it is important to optimise the return on your sales assets. Find out how by watching this webinar:
We are convinced that he has mastered not one, not two, but (almost) all the tricks of the trade and that, with his leather tanned by years of meetings and negotiations of all kinds, he carries a guarantee of success and commercial performancea passport to exceeding objectives!
But what if things are not so simple? Is the senior salesperson still really successful? What are his weaknesses? What kind of power relationship does he/she bring? In short... how do you manage a senior salesperson?
Not necessarily competent, sometimes exhausted, often more reluctant to change, the senior salesperson is above all a specific profile that should be to approach them carefully to make them a real asset.
A senior citizen does not necessarily perform well!
In sport, just because you have 10 years of experience doesn't make you a Zidane or a Michael Jordan. On the other hand, you can be young and very successful. It is exactly the same in the commercial professions: "senior" does not necessarily rhyme with "competence" and "autonomy".
A sales manager recently shared an anecdote about a 45-year-old salesman with 20 years of experience who was quite successful. The salesman was transferred, at his request, to another region and there, disaster struck: he was no longer successful. No more prospects, no more appointments, no more sales. Despite his knowledge and experience, the person is in dry dock!
The mistake is to believe that a senior citizen knows how to do everything and to hide behind this certainty ("beware of belief beds") without seeing the reality of the situation. It is necessary to take the time to evaluate their skills, to identify what is missing, to see how the person works. They do not necessarily know how to organise themselves, find their prospects, manage their time, or appropriate new tools. A senior employee always has areas that can be improved, but perhaps sometimes less appetite to fill them, perhaps less motivation, which should push the manager even more to be attentive.
Worse, a senior salesperson will often find it difficult to share his or her difficulties. Where a junior is in the learning phase and shows an appetite, the senior will quickly feel illegitimate, questioned, and his self-esteem will be weakened. In the case of our transferred sales representative, for more than 6 months he took refuge behind a reassuring speech, using the pretext of discovering a new market. But that was not the problem...
Pure management
With a senior, we often find ourselves in a situation of pure management. To take the story of our transferred salesperson, after a period of careful observation and the results remaining poor, the manager applies himself to finding the solution. He analyses factual elements, remains assertive, treats the sales person as an equal and proposes a mirror effect. And after a period of exchange, he understands: it turns out that the methods in the new region are different. The senior member of staff was used to having appointments made for him, whereas in his new position he has to make them himself. He has to hunt, but doesn't know how! And the conscious and unconscious brakes linked to his senior position prevent him from expressing his difficulties. He thought he did not deserve his salary, had the impression that he was disappointing, did not dare to ask for help. Negative spiral.
In this example, the manager was able to reach out to his sales person with goodwill. Once the diagnosis had been made and the motivation validated, all that remained was to propose a corrective plan, put things into perspective and support !
Motivation is a particularly important point in the management of the senior salesperson. Sales remains one of the most difficult jobs. Motivation is attacked daily by rejections, and each prospect has to start from scratch, without any certainty. A senior salesperson, with his or her years of experience, can end up being demotivated. The manager must therefore know how to identify the problems of his salesperson and, more than with another, pay attention and know how he operates. He must determine what people are working towards: remuneration, recognition, challenge, etc.
But be careful, because one of the biases we often have when dealing with a senior citizen is to lose our objectivity, to let ourselves be impressed, to be afraid and ultimately to be unclear in the exchange. You end up communicating badly and causing a problem of commitment.
The senior salesperson, a champion of immobility?
The senior person, with his or her career behind him or her, is likely to be more reluctant to be challeng ed. They will tend to rely on certainties, on their habits, and will find it more difficult to make the effort to make up for their shortcomings (which they will find difficult to recognise). Over time, this can even become a kind of posture: "I've always done it this way, I'm too old to change! ».
A senior person will be able to compensate for a weakness more easily than a junior person by his or her strengths. These strengths are often real assets on which to capitalise, but they are rarely sufficient in the face of current developments in sales approaches. As for the points to be improved, the manager must work with the employee to bring them to the minimum required.
There will also be generational problems. Social selling, for example, can become a conflicting issue when a young person is comfortable with it and a senior person is lost.
Building on experience
Obviously, the manager must not neglect a successful senior salesperson. In this situation, the reflex is to stop following him, reassured by the figures, and therefore to invest time in juniors or salespeople who are having more difficulty: this is a mistake. In the long run, this can be experienced by the sales person as a lack of recognition, with a loss of motivation as a result. It is essential to remain attentive, precise, and to build on one's performance in order to spread it throughout the team.
In a sponsorship logic, we can rely on the seniors to accompany and reassure. Kestio I am currently working for a CEO who manages a team of 5 salespeople, one of whom makes 50% of the turnover. He wants to appoint him as a manager, which places an obligation on the salesperson to succeed, both in relation to others and to himself, but also for the CEO who would lose his best salesperson if he did not succeed in this development!
In this case, Kestio accompanies the sales person in order to develop his or her skills as a manager.
KestioWith its short and pragmatic mode of action, spread out over time, it facilitates this steering by small touches to maintain the right balance within the team between the generations. Kestio Kestio provides regular action in the right place.
The senior is also a bit of a memory. Their ability to provide anecdotes, stories, to create links and a common and shared knowledge will bind the team together. It is up to the manager to activate this dimension.
To stay competitive and maximise your chances of converting leads into future customers, it is important to optimise the return on your sales assets. Find out how by watching this webinar:
Ils sont nés dans un monde digital, réfléchissent différemment, sont naturellement connectés, mélangent les genres, peuvent finir tôt un jour et travailler tard un week end, … il y en a même qui bossent en tongues !
Cette génération, qui aura le pouvoir dans une quinzaine d’année et a fait son entrée dans les entreprises au milieu des années 2000, peut-elle être managée comme les précédentes ? Et sinon comment s’y prendre ? Comment l’entreprise peut-elle évoluer ? Y-a-t-il une opportunité à saisir ?
Les premiers nés dans un monde digital
Les Millénials constituent la première génération née dans le monde des nouvelles technologies, de la connaissance accessible et gratuite. Nés entre 1980 et 2000, ils ont une aisance intuitive de l’usage des outils dont ils n’ont même pas conscience tellement ils baignent dans leur environnement naturel. Manager les Millenials…est-ce si différent ? Quelles sont leurs attentes, leurs codes ?
Pour cette génération, le référentiel temps est l’instant. L’espace-temps est court, immédiat, et donc à l’opposé du temps du monde professionnel qui évolue dans un temps long et répétitif. Et c’est encore plus vrai pour les fonctions commerciales qui réclament souvent des tâches ingrates (installer une relation, construire un portefeuille, segmenter un marché…). Pour un Millénials, l’immédiateté est naturelle : « Je poste une photo, j’ai des likes trois heures plus tard »,« je rencontre des personnes lors d’une soirée, j’ai de nouveaux amis Facebook ou LinkedIn le lendemain ».
Dans ce contexte, faire entrer cette génération dans les codes de l’entreprises demande une attention particulière et les managers devront adapter leurs méthodes.
Comment manager les Millenials ?
Nous avons identifié quatre pistes pour faciliter l’épanouissement et la performance des Millénials dans les fonctions commerciales:
1 : donner du sens à leur travail.
Cette génération a besoin de sens. Il leur faut évoluer dans des entreprises dont ils comprennent le rôle et l’impact en tant qu’actrices et parties prenantes de l’écosystème citoyen. Contrairement aux générations précédentes, ils travaillent plus par désir que par nécessité, il faut donc expliciter les objectifs et les valeurs de l’entreprise pour les attirer et les retenir… Les managers doivent décrire la cathédrale construite tous ensemble plutôt que le mur confié à chacun.
2 : installer une situation ascendante d’apprentissage.
Les postures de « sachant », la vérité descendante, voilà de quoi créer des situations de blocage. Habitués à naviguer, ils savent apprendre seuls, aller chercher la connaissance. « Vous avez 4 heures pour apprendre tel sujet avec les moyens que vous voulez » sera plus efficace qu’une information descendante. Dans les modules de formation se développent d’ailleurs les apprentissages inversés : ils cherchent, puis on valide et on répond à leurs questions. Ils ont intégré que leur formation durerait toute leur vie. Cette génération va mettre fin à la séquence apprentissage/travail/loisir-retraite et va préférer faire tout en même temps dans un espace-temps perméable. Cette approche poussera les entreprises restées dans des logiques séquentielles à modifier leurs façons de faire. La formation par exemple gagnera à être diffusée en petites touches concrètes dans le temps plutôt qu’organisée autour de gros blocs rigides de plusieurs jours.
3 : les mettre dans leur zone de confort
La fonction commerciale comprend de nombreuses séquences de travail relativement ingrates comme par exemple la prospection téléphonique : ces passages obligés sont très compliqués pour eux. Une solution consiste à les maintenir dans une zone de confort : découper les tâches, associer une réflexion marketing, créer un enjeu collectif pour mobiliser leur énergie. L’idée consiste à diluer les parties pénibles dans un contexte plus gérable pour eux en valorisant le volet apprentissage et la dimension collective. Par exemple le volume d’appels sortants peut être partagé dans l’équipe et l’objectif devenir commun.
4 : favoriser un environnement de travail collaboratif
Le métier de commercial est plutôt individualiste. Pour une génération qui pense communauté et agit en mode collectif, la dimension individuelle ne prend pas. Le manager doit donc s’appliquer à développer des logiques collaboratives, des objectifs communs, imaginer des équipes. Ceci implique de prévoir des actions qui se conduisent en groupe et des indicateurs qui privilégient l’effort collectif. La construction du portefeuille par exemple peut leur être confiée. Il l’accepteront plus facilement s’ils la co-construisent (« bottom up ») que si elle leur est imposée par la hiérarchie (« bottom down »). Les formations aujourd’hui des profils 25-35 ans sont en pédagogie inversée . On mesure l’implication améliorée des participants.
D’une manière générale il ne faut pas perdre de vue qu’il s’agit là d’une évolution du management, de même qu’on ne manageait pas de la même manière en 1950 et en 1990 ! La logique « top down », très verticale, n’est plus vraiment efficace et le sera de moins en moins. Si les rituels de management restent parce que l’activité doit être pilotée (entretiens, bilan, plans d’actions…), leur forme doit s’adapter et évoluer vers une posture et une démarche de coaching, plus horizontale. Le manager doit donc aussi être ouvert aux propositions. Les Millénials savent que leur monde change et qu’ils sont en perpétuel apprentissage : ils sont donc ouverts au dialogue et au partage de connaissances.
L’entreprise doit faire comme avec le reste de ses collaborateurs : les intégrer et les former, mais surtout les considérer pour leurs qualités et ce qu’ils peuvent apporter à l’entreprise. C’est une chance à saisir pour évoluer et devenir plus performant.
"Cela ne fait aucun sens d’embaucher des talents puis de leur dire ce qu’ils doivent faire. Nous enrôlons des gens intelligents afin qu’ils nous disent ce que nous devons faire"
Steve Jobs
Créateur de Apple
Alors les Millénials sont probablement une chance pour les entreprises qui sauront apprendre d’eux.
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Vous pouvez aussi consulter nos approches innovantes pour accompagner les dirigeants et managers dans ce changement :
Mais se concentrer uniquement sur les résultats est-il suffisant ? Comment sont-ils construits ? Qu’y a-t-il en amont des résultats ? Quels sont les moyens d’action ? Quels sont les moteurs qui construisent la performance ? Sur quoi agir ?
Un client se plaignait il y a peu du manque d’efficacité de ses commerciaux et pensait qu’il devait investir dans leur formation. Le problème est qu’il n’avait aucun moyen d’être sûr que c’était là le bon levier d’action ! Peut-être était-ce une question d’outils ? Ou de motivation ? Ou d’allocation de temps sur les bonnes cibles ?
Dans le management et le pilotage de l’activité commerciale, il est fondamental d’établir le bon diagnostic afin d’appliquer la bonne solution. C’est un peu comme pour une douleur au dos qui serait la conséquence d’une mauvaise posture : l’ostéopathe va manipuler la jambe car agir sur le dos n’aurait aucun effet bénéfique à long terme. C’est une vision systémique. Et cette vision systémique s’applique pleinement à la performance commerciale, laquelle doit être vue comme un ensemble dans le dispositif du management commerciale. Les composantes de l’efficacité commerciale sont nombreuses et une analyse globale est nécessaire pour s’assurer non seulement d’identifier les points de progrès, mais également de les traiter dans le bon ordre en fonction des enjeux et des impacts entre eux.
Par exemple affiner la stratégie commerciale impactera les plans d’action marketing et commercial, qui peuvent impacter la motivation, voire aussi le contenu des formations, l’organisation de l’administration des ventes, etc.
Mettre en place un outil CRM impactera le management de ventes, les règles de gestion commerciales, et soulèvera aussi des sujets de motivation et de formation.
Mes moteurs commerciaux sont-ils bien allumés ?
Face à des résultats décevants il ne faut pas non plus se cacher derrière des excuses exogènes sur lesquelles on ne peut pas agir et qui de toute manière ne sont que de « fausses barbes » : le marché est tendu, la concurrence a lancé une nouvelle offre, c’est la période des vacances etc.
En revanche, le manager dispose de sept leviers d’action, sept moteurs qui doivent bien fonctionner afin que la performance commerciale soit au rendez-vous :
Une stratégie commerciale claire et partagée avec les équipes,
Un plan marketing multicanal détaillé et au service de la stratégie,
Un plan d’action commercial qui traduit de manière détaillée la stratégie commerciale en activités quantifiées et ciblées,
Un pilotage des plan d’action commercial et des processus et méthodes clairement établies
Un programme de recrutement et de management des équipes qui intègre motivation et développement permanent des compétences,
Un système d’information structuré et performant (CRM),
Un support administratif et technique efficace.
Il y a là un ensemble complexe mais concret et opérationnel qui permet de passer d’une connaissance et d’un mode d’action intuitifs vers une démarche structurée et pragmatique. Faire la bonne analyse, vérifier l’état de chaque moteur, et savoir agir dans le bon ordre, avec le bon niveau de priorité et de la bonne manière. Si tous ces moteurs de l’efficacité commerciale sont bien allumés, les résultats suivront !
Et cela ne peut pas se faire ponctuellement, par à-coup, uniquement lors de séminaires commerciaux par exemple. C’est au contraire une action durable et régulière. Kestio répond précisément à ce besoin de pilotage continu, connecté au terrain et à la réalité du moment, appuyé sur la vision globale du système !
C’est parce que « la maison n’est jamais rangée de manière définitive » que le manager a besoin de vérifier si ses moteurs de l’efficacité commerciale tournent rond !
Repositioning your business can be vital in a difficult situation. Find out more about the different stages of this process in this webinar:
Découvrez nos approches innovantes pour accompagner les dirigeants et managers dans cette démarche d’efficacité commerciale :
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