Readers’ Response on How to Motivate High Potential Employees

First, let’s thank Eunice for sending in a very interesting scenario that has brought out some really terrific responses.  The thing that is the most amazing is the wide variety of the ways people would handle this situation.  It’s hard to say what’s right and what’s wrong although many people certainly have their opinions.

I think the main issue here is the separation between employer and friend.  Can an employer be a friend?  Some people say no, however, my personal opinion is yes, an employer can be a friend of an employee with one condition.  That condition is that the employee NEVER puts the employer in a compromising situation, the way Tracy put Eunice in.  It works the other way as well.  An employer should never put an employee in a compromising or embarrassing situation.  Basic management says you never reprimand an employee in public.  What is critically important to understand is that the health of the business comes first.  

By Tracy not coming in when she is expected, it hurts the business.  It is not healthy for the business.  The reason why is ownership cannot depend on her, and her co-workers can feel slighted because you have one employee who is on a pedestal and can do anything they want.  Can’t you hear it now ”that’s not fair” and it hurts the morale of the business.  The owner also loses credibility with the other employees because of poor management practices.  Lastly, the customers become the biggest losers because she is never there when they expect her.  

Having said all of that, I still personally would take the loss of such a talented employee as a personal defeat.  I would look at having to fire her as a sign that I did not manage the situation as best as I could.  The following are excerpts from the responses received from this article.  You can read the complete responses on my blog at ricksegel.com/blog. 

• Wow! That has DEPRESSION written all over it! Sounds to me like Tracy needs real help! It makes perfect sense considering all that has happened to her.  Still he fact that she's such a wonderful employee and quite capable day.  I don't think this is a discipline problem. She seriously needs mental help!” -Donna Erwin
• “You need to sit down with her and confront her.  She will probably  refuse at first, but it must be done.  She needs professional help.
  
  Plan on making arrangements to meet with her at least twice a week. You will need to make her feel grounded and loved again before she can move on with her life and enjoy working at your store.  
  
  It’s not usually the responsibility of an employer to make things right but this could be a worthwhile investment.” -Mehdi
• “Encourage Tracy to attend classes and you may even offer to pay something for them.  Working toward a degree will boost her morale.” -Melissa Bailey
• “Have her champion a cause through the store, one that might be close to her situation, such as a cause for single mothers.  Find a charity that is in alignment with her needs. This will give her more of a sense of purpose and may motivate her to have better attendance.” -Phil Wrzesinski  
• “You may not want to fire her, but allowing her to come as she pleases is only enabling Tracy to continue this behavior. You can't be both her friend and her employer, so you will have to choose which one you would rather be. If you choose to be her employer, than perhaps a 30 day review should be set up, with your expectations clearly stated - including letting her go if those expectations are not met. After 30 days you would need to decide - does she stay or does she go. Sounds like tough love, but Tracy is an adult. The choice is hers.” -K. Wooden
• “Regardless of the reasons, this behavior is not appropriate and establishing boundaries and limitations is up to the employer. This is true whether the employee is a top producer or not, and the employer must not use being a good producer as justification for not confronting the problems.  My recommendation is for the employer to work on her ability to be a more effective manager, specifically in understanding what the correct roles are between she and her employees.” -Philip M. Barcellona
• Yes, she may have lost you one $5,000 sale. But weigh it against the unbelievable sales numbers she garners you. If you didn't have her, how many sales would you lose?  
   
  Can you work around her limitations? For example, don't schedule her to open, only schedule appointments with her in the late afternoon, notify customers if she won't be in that day and reschedule them to another day or another salesperson (whatever works).   
   
  I've had my share of unreliable employees -- and fired them. However, in this situation, firing her may cost you more in the long run than working around her shortcomings.” -Karen
• “I have had employees like this in the past... one minute they are your biggest headache and the next they are blowing you away with brilliance! I have 2 suggestions that I have used in the past.
• Give her more responsibility. She understands that what she is doing affects the business and when shown the errors she makes them right; she genuinely feels bad for her actions. By forcing her to be more responsible she might rise to the challenge.  
• Take away all responsibility. If you don't need to rely on her for anything then you will rarely be disappointed.
  
  Separate your personal feeling for her from the needs of the business so you can make rational decisions.” -Jared Habre
• “Sounds like a drinking or drug problem to me.  I don't care how good of a sales person she is, she is being abusive to Eunice and the other employees.  Eunice needs to learn to sell more herself and learn from Tracy as do the other 14 employees.” -Sharla Bush

It was also suggested that Eunice pay for counseling and 30 days off with pay.  I personally think that may be going overboard because that is a sizable investment, but if it worked it would be worth it.  This was a wonderful thought provoking exercise that I would love to repeat.  So, send in your scenarios and let’s see how we can help you.  Eunice, thanks again, and I hope this helped.

Have a great week!

The Three Types of Sales Associates

Which One Do You Employ?

I am sure there are more than three types of sales associates, but for the sake of discussion I have always looked at three main categories - the Weak Sales Associate, the Average Sales Associate and the Superstar. Let’s first define each of these categories.

The Weak Sales Associate: This employee can have many different attributes from being not trained and not knowledgeable to having a destructive attitude. Either way you look at it, both of these qualities can kill your business. The interesting aspect of this is that it’s not always that employee’s fault, but rather fault of management.

The weak sales associate: This category of sales associates is one who is not trained and knowledgeable is the easiest to improve. Duh! They require training and knowledge. The question is how are you going to train and make them more knowledgeable. There are many stores that have long detailed training programs for new employees, some of them are as simple as a two to five day training session. The topics which should be covered would be the history of the business, the philosophy of the business, a discussion of the mission or vision statement a business might have and all of this would come under a category that might be referred to as a new employee’s indoctrination. What you are attempting to do here is to start to have the employee understand why you do what you do.

The other two areas that you want to cover in the initial training would be product knowledge and why you buy what you buy and sell what you sell. The last section of any training program should be what the employee is expected to do and how to do it. In other words, we are going to teach them about our products, tell them what your expectations are and how to sell them.

The danger that many of us have in training employees is that we will assign an employee to follow another employee. That’s a great way of doing it, however, don’t just have the new employee follow just one person, rotate them. You don’t want an employee to pick up all of the bad habits from one. One last word on training, it is a constant and ongoing commitment. Understand that the new employee with a wonderful attitude who doesn’t understand the business, the products or how to perform is just as bad as the employee with the destructive behavior. Let’s talk about the employee with the destructive behavior. Generally speaking when we talk about bad behavior, it always comes down to they have a BAD ATTITUDE.

Attitude is comprised of three elements:

1. Facial expressions -- looks
2. Body language
3. Tone of their voice

All of these elements are easy to recognize and we seem to get a quick image when we mention any one of these factors with a bad attitude. Can’t you just picture the person who rolls their eyes or looks disgusted and you just know what their body language is going to be like. And don’t we all know the tone of their voice? One of the exercises that I will do in a live seminar is to ask people to say the phrase “good morning” but say it as if they are disgusted, aggravated, annoyed and then have them contrast it to happy, excited and positive. The facial expressions and the body language go with it naturally.

The bottom line, make your employees aware of what a bad attitude is, ways to improve it and if they do not, they must be terminated. It just flat hurts you and your business.

The Average Sales Associate: This is a category where the majority of our employees fall. What they do is whatever is asked of them, they generally have good attitudes, they are pleasant with customers and they will make a sale when the customer wants to buy. In short, the average salesperson rarely hears the expression “I had no intentions of buying, I just stopped in to say hello”.

The average sales associate are many times referred to as just an order taker. They rarely suggest multiple items and their Units Per Transaction will always be close to 1; as opposed to the superstar who will have Units Per Transaction of 3, 4, 5 or more. This average employee will have some customers request them, but not often. This associate can feel secure about their job, but should always worry about being compared to stronger employees. This is the employee who we should work with to improve their skills and encourage multiple sale transactions.

The Superstar: I believe there are two parts to the superstar. First, they are engaging with the customer, they have a belief that they are there to service the customer and help them to buy what they want and need. They don’t necessarily look at themselves as salespeople. Many times people get confused and think that the strongest salespeople are the most outgoing with a bubbly personality. That’s just not so. Many of these superstars do have outgoing personalities, but the one thing they all have in common is that they ask the customer questions and listen to their answers.

That is the reason why customers relate so well to them because the superstar is focused on that customer. I recently had a friend who went to Chico’s and raved about her experience because the salesperson befriended her by listening to her needs and wants and made suggestions that fulfilled those needs and wants and made maintained the attitude that “this is what we should do” as if to say “I am on your team”. That is why my friend bought more than she expected, spent more than she planned, left happy but realized when she got home she didn’t need a couple of the minor accessory pieces. Then felt so bad about returning it and didn’t want to return it when her superstar was there because she didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

BINGO! Guilt is a wonderful thing. Logically, she does not need those accessory pieces. Emotionally, she will probably keep them. The best part is she will go back to the store and ask for this superstar by name and even call in advance to make sure she is there.

Now the bad or dark side of the superstar -- many times they know it. The true superstar is NOT a prima Donna. They are team players, they help out weaker sales associates and they don’t ask for special favors. You can be as friendly to this employee as possible, but never at the risk or health of the business. True superstars don’t put management in comprising positions. They don’t ask for special favors and their focus is always in the best interest of the store first. Sales ability is great but sales ability with a strong team attitude makes the true superstars. That’s why every NBA team wants LeBron James because not only can he perform, he is a consummate team player and natural leader. Let’s learn something from basketball, when you find people like that go after them, recruit them and watch your business grow.