Anger vs. Apathy

I opened a fortune cookie last night that read, “Discontent is the first step towards greatness”. Please note it also gave me seven lucky numbers that to my surprise were not winners. But it made me think. At what point does my discontent actually produce positive results?It depends on how you view discontent. If making one sale per day doesn’t quench my thirst for the close, then yes, discontent absolutely produces results. Assuming I increase my sales.

What about anger?

Show me an irate running back, and I will show you a potential 100 yard rusher. Anger is an emotion that if managed correctly can be channeled into drive, motivation or better yet…desire. Give me a furious sales rep, and I will in turn give you an award winner.

When you are angry about something, that lets you know one thing for sure: You care. When you care about something, you have that internal yearning to make it better. That’s AWESOME. Give me a room full of angry sales reps, and let’s go take on the world.

Apathy on the other hand…well…that’s not so good. Look at a room full of apathetic sales reps and you will probably find a ton of very detailed MySpace pages, complete Facebook accounts and maybe a very insightful blog or two…

Apathy is death to any organization, but none quite as much as a sales force. When a sales rep no longer cares about the product he or she is selling its time for that person to go.In some cases that’s a good thing. God knows there are sales reps out there that need to ‘move it on down the road’. One bad apple can spoil a bunch… one salty sales rep can spoil a floor just as easily. The term misery loves company actually has some truth to it.

What about good sales reps that become apathetic? What about great sales reps? I know for sure that it’s easier to prevent apathy than then to reverse it. Obviously that’s easier said than done.

I cannot buy into the sales coaches, motivational speakers and managers who try to pump you up all the time with catchy phrases and clichés. It’s sort of like a bad motivational poster. Nothing screams ‘leader’ like walking into a manager’s office and seeing a poster of a majestic Bald Eagle with the word Ambition typed in bold below it. You might as well have Stewart Smalley standing in the corner holding up a mirror for you.

A manager doesn’t have to be so far up a salesperson’s back side that he knows what they had for dinner last night, but he does have to care. You have to care about the people you manage. You have to care about the product they sale. You have to care about the success of your people. YOU HAVE TO CARE!

Is it so surprising that the companies who treat their employees well get great results? Look at Apple, Microsoft or Google. What do these companies have in common? Aside from being in the tech sector, they all treat their employees very well. In return, their employees will run through walls for them.

To whom much is given, much is expected. To whom little is given much is expected. To whom you beat down with your pompous cane until they are nothing more than a bloody pulp and starting to smell…I wouldn’t expect too much.

In closing, this one is for all the sales managers out there. Try this: Engage your reps today. Talk to them. Find out what they’re having problems with. Find out what they are having great success with. Help them build on the current success and push through the problems. We all know it rolls down hill. But if apathy prevents you from deflecting a little bit of ‘it’ from hitting your sales people, it’s eventually going to pile up and you will find yourself swimming in ‘it’ – with an apathetic sales staff.