Sales Soundbite: 3 Possible Reasons Business is Off

Welcome to the fourth quarter – historically the biggest for the staffing industry!  Game on, right?

But maybe you’re not feeling like a winner right now.   Maybe you missed your Q3 forecast and your team’s morale is down, not to mention yours.  You need traction and you need it fast.

It’s easy to point the finger and blame your team. The sales reps aren’t setting enough meetings.  The recruiters aren’t screening and submitting fast enough.  This may be true but even if it is, look in the mirror and analyze how you might be inadvertently enabling mediocrity.

Here are three questions to ask yourself to determine if your leadership approach could be improved:

1. Are you always working to replace the bottom 20% of performers?

Just as we’re always prospecting for new business, so should we be prospecting for strong adds to our team.  High-performance staffing firms follow the best practices of top sports coaches and build their bench before a player is needed.  Internal recruiting is a continuous process, not an event. So set a goal to interview a certain number of candidates each month even if you don’t have a position available. That way, when you’re ready to release an underperformer you’re not held hostage to having to recruit a replacement first.  Better yet, create a seat as you find promising talent.

2. Are you leading with your emotional intelligence?

A key emotional intelligence skill in leading and influencing is empathy. Empathy is the ability to read people and understand what your direct report is thinking or feeling, and it’s a critical skill for leadership effectiveness.  Leaders with high EQ are always dialed in with their people and they are quick to note a change in tone, body language, or energy.

But cultivating empathy requires being present and paying attention. And in today’s hyper-connected world that’s tough.  It’s too easy to get distracted, and I see staffing leaders are spending less and less quality time with their teams.  Here’s a common scenario:  A well-intentioned leader schedules routine one-on-ones. The problem is during the meeting he is there physically but not mentally. He can’t resist glancing at email or texts.  The salesperson or recruiter feels dismissed and realizes he is losing the attention of his manager to technology. So the message he gets is that he’s unimportant, and he stops asking for help.   His skills – and his results – remain below average.  And the manager, who is going through the motions of sales management but not engaging his EQ, blames average performance on his team.

Want to improve results? Get present and get focused. Silence your phone, shut down email and chat, and enable yourself to be present.

3. Are you shying away from confrontation?

“I’ll just give him one more month…he has a lot in his pipeline.”  Sound familiar?  Then one month turns in to three, then four, and so on.  The number one regret sales leaders tell me they have is not letting someone go soon enough.  Confronting someone with bad news can be uncomfortable, but it’s essential to get out in front of a negative trend early.  Let’s say you catch one of your recruiter reporting more calls than he actually made. Call the behavior what it is: he isn’t fudging his numbers—he’s lying.  Confront him to understand why, and say it can’t happen again.  One of two things will happen:  your producer will course-correct or he’ll quit.

The leader sets the pace for the pack. The best in the staffing industry are always top grading their talent, leading with their emotional intelligence, and confronting with unvarnished honesty.  If business is off, look at your own behavior and make sure you are doing everything within your control to produce the desired results through your team.

Explore posts in the same categories: Business Development, Executive, Leadership, Recruiting & Staffing, sales management

Tags: business development, coaching, leadership, recruiters, staffing, staffing industry, temporary help

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