Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it.

Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it. Let\'s take the idea of funnels and forecasts, for instance. Funnels and forecasts are important aspects of running any sales operation. Both salespeople and managers need to know where they stand in terms of potential opportunities, and funnels serve to track those opportunities. No successful business can operate and properly plan for the future without accurate forecasting. In theory, these are absolutely essential to the success of any operation.

In reality, however, few words strike terror in the hearts of salespeople like \"funnel\" and \"forecast.\" For most salespeople, the term \"funnel review\" equates to micromanagement, probation and performance improvement plans. Just hearing the term is enough to shift a sales rep\'s frame of mind from positive to negative. He or she suddenly loses enthusiasm and doesn\'t know why. Many managers increase funnel reviews as performance slips, which causes performance to slip further, and in the end nobody wins. Endless funnel reviews, especially if they\'re not positive, only serve to reinforce salespeople\'s self-doubts and limiting beliefs.

Forecasts are a similar problem, but in different ways. Few salespeople forecast accurately. Nobody wants to fall short on their forecast, so they embellish, exaggerate and make sure the numbers add up to where they should be rather than where they really are. This results in managers who expect those numbers, and salespeople who dodge managers because they know they aren\'t going to perform as forecasted. Then there are salespeople like myself who do the exact opposite - since I hated nothing more than having a manager constantly ask me, \"When is this one going to close? When is that one going to close?,\" I intentionally left good deals off my forecast. While it eliminated the problem of constantly being asked when all those deals would sign, it created another form of stress in having to deal with the consequences of a funnel that fell short of expectations. Another word that instantly de-motivates salespeople is \"activity.\"

Unfortunately, in the absence of any other viable advice, most managers simply blurt out, \"You need to increase your activity\" to anyone who isn\'t at quota. This accomplishes nothing other than setting up the rep to believe that a series of funnel reviews and performance improvement plans are soon to follow.

Finally, I see entirely too many managers pushing too hard to spend extra time with salespeople who are falling short. While it\'s necessary to spend time with these people, it\'s not a good idea to keep asking them what they need help with and to insist on riding along with them. This only turns up the heat another notch on an already stressed-out rep. Nobody who is having trouble likes to be singled out, especially when the extra attention easily can be mistaken for micromanagement.

To keep a struggling salesperson motivated:

1. Keep the talk of funnels, forecasts and activity to a minimum.

2. Offer help without being overbearing.

3. Put your trust and confidence in that salesperson.

Stick with these guidelines and you\'ll not only do a better job of helping those who are having difficulties, but you\'ll see an overall increase in your sales team\'s motivation and enthusiasm.

Our world of selling is closed off from other areas of business that continue to adopt and embrace new, efficient ideas. I was reminded of this recently while re- reading Seth Godin\'s \"Permission Marketing.\" Here\'s a book that was intended for business owners and marketing executives, yet it provides a much-needed dose of common sense that would be of great benefit to sales organizations, especially sales managers, who continue to cling to very old, and, in their minds, very right, ideas.

Unfortunately, our brave new world has made these old ideas very wrong. Seth Godin talks about Interruption Marketing versus Permission Marketing.

Interruption Marketing is traditional advertising that interrupts your day in an attempt to get your attention and sell you something. In other words, it is the marketing equivalent of Cold Calling.

Permission Marketing is systematically getting prospects to give you permission to present to them. In other words, it is marketing\'s equivalent of what I teach salespeople to do.

In the book, Seth uses the metaphor of someone trying to get married to describe the flaw in Interruption Marketing, or Cold Calling. The bachelor goes into a singles bar and asks every woman in the place to marry him. When they all say no, he blames his clothes, buys a new suit, and tries again at another bar, only to fail again and again, just like a cold caller.

Are you getting the point he tries to make in that story? Think about it. A salesperson spends weeks cold calling with dismal results. The salesperson goes to the sales manager for advice on what to do differently to start getting results. A conversation ensues about what the salesperson is doing. A lot of old ideas begin to surface. Ideas such as \"Initial Benefit Statement,\" \"Elevator Speech,\" and other concepts that once upon a time were the right answers, but have since become very wrong answers. Working on these things is the equivalent of the man in the story blaming his failure on the suit, changing into a new suit, then going to a different singles bar to do it all over again.

With the business world in its present state, I really don\'t see how salespeople can afford to keep fooling away their time on old ideas that were once right but are now fatally wrong. It is this very feature of capitalism that is causing salespeople, managers and organizations to fail in record numbers.

Capitalism is essentially \"creative destruction.\" In other words, capitalism is a perpetual cycle of destroying old, less-efficient businesses and ideas and replacing them with new, more efficient ones. People and companies are clinging to old, obsolete ideas and are being dragged down to failure by them. Yet they still won\'t let go.

I think the reason they can\'t let go is simply because it wasn\'t all that long ago that they really did have the right answers. It reminds me of a story I once heard about Albert Einstein when he was a professor. One of his student assistants who was preparing for an incoming class said, \"Professor Einstein, what test are we giving them?\" To which Einstein replied, \"The same test we gave them last week.\" Bewildered, the student assistant replied, \"But Professor Einstein, we already gave that test.\" Einstein simply said, \"Yes, but the answers are different this week.\" The bottom line is that the answers are different. The rules have changed.

Time is running out for those who do not adapt to the new rules. As Napoleon Hill put it so well, \"Whenever a nation, a business institution, or an individual ceases to change and settles into a rut of routine habits, some mysterious power enters and smashes the setup, breaks up the old habits, and lays the foundation for new and better habits.\" If you\'re not achieving the sales success you desire, perhaps it is time for you to lay the foundation for new and better habits.

Frank Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time: Sales Success In The Information Age. He is the founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, which publishes training materials that educate salespeople on how to generate business without cold calling. For more information, please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com