Your sales team is a fragile Master Mind and can switch from a positive to a negative force with ease. Vigilance is necessary to ensure stability and strength in your organization.
I had put together a team of people that were self-taught hardworking individuals who believed in themselves and used each other for strength. They could be motivated to do incredible feats.
Whenever there was negativity among them, I would quickly work to remove the problem.
I had an unfortunate event happen one day, when my best salesperson on the floor decided he didn't need to work as hard as the others. In fact, he decided he was going to screw off for the day. He was in the midst of a record day due to residual business, which caused the rest of the floor to be discouraged as they were all working extremely hard.
Perfecting the mastermind – remove the virusI knew his gloating was having a major impact on our results so I told my VP to go out and send him home. He was to let him know he could come back when he felt like putting in a serious effort.
I watched as my VP went out and told him that he was to leave and come back when he decided that he wanted to put the same effort in that everybody else was. The look on his face was of shock that I would actually send him home!
More importantly, the look on the face of the other salespeople was even more shocking, and almost one of relief. They had just witnessed the top salesperson getting sent home because he didn't take his job seriously.
What happened was incredible, when the rest of the floor immediately changed their attitude and they started selling. They had just got the boost they needed, and the top guy had got the kick in the ass he needed.
He came back the next day, and had a totally different attitude. His sales improved and even though he didn't like getting sent home, he appreciated it later. He was a better salesperson because of this.
The lesson is clear; you can't have a Master Mind with even one person working against the rest of the group no matter how good they are. You have to remove the problem and that's what I did.
Many people would be afraid of doing such a thing, but I had no choice! I had to get my people working as a unit and it paid off.
Think about this, if you have a team, you have to have them working in harmony and it they aren't get rid of the virus. If you're the virus, look out, you might just get removed and be stunned yourself.