How to Manage the Seven Most Difficult (but Promising) Sales Personalities

When you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each member of your sales team – and you know how to enhance the strengths and diminish the weaknesses – you’ll be well on your way to a record sales year. The following article gives you a hands-on, how-to manual for molding the minds and behavior of your most difficult salespeople.

The characteristics of the salespeople that follow are those of real salespeople we’ve studied and managed. It is likely that people on your team possess similar characteristics; however, no one individual will have all the characteristics of any one personality type. By increasing your understanding of the psychological forces at work, you will find it easier to create a winning team, stimulate individual growth and help your company reach higher levels of sales success.

Grandstand George

Positively sales superstar material, George or Georgette wants to run the show, but doesn’t want to take the responsibility of being the sales manager. George is a backseat driver. His favorite statement is, “You need me more than I need you!”

Behavioral giveaways: Grandstand George is assertive to the point of being aggressive, self-assured, arrogant, action-driven, forceful and expressive. George has the tendency to be disrespectful of authority figures and often challenges your authority as a manager. Yet he has the amazing ability to be highly diplomatic. Grandstand George is a master at building trust and rapport with customers.

Nonverbal signals: Grandstand George loves to display visible signs of success. His gestures are expressive and signal power. Watch for nonverbal clues: pointing into your face, invading your personal space, bonecrushing handshakes (men), tendency to lean toward you, direct and unwavering eye contact, very engaging smiles, dressed for success, expensive accessories, monogrammed shirts, personalized license plates, high-status cars.

What motivates Grandstand George: To make the biggest sale, to win the biggest award, to achieve the highest sales volume, to become a member of the President’s Club, to buy a faster car, to get the best car telephone, anything else that can satisfy George’s appetite for grandiosity.

Greatest strengths: Grandstand Georges are not afraid of cold calling, are great closers and do whatever it takes to make the extra sale that will push you over the top. They don’t need your input, you don’t have to help them sell, they can do it all themselves.

Greatest source of problems: When people like George become dissatisfied, you the manager will be blamed. They can hold you hostage and may threaten to take other salespeople along with them when they leave or join your competition. Grandstand George may demand extra compensation, first-class air travel, or an almost unlimited expense account.

how to manage Grandstand George: Grandstand George respects power and strength. To maintain your authority, your assertiveness needs to match or exceed George’s. If you feel threatened by this type of salesperson, don’t hesitate to call in expert help – lawyer, accountant, personnel manager or industrial psychologist. George respects people who call his bluff. He expects you to set fair limits and enforce those limits. He responds well to managers who don’t overreact to his power games.

Fearful Fred

Fearful Freds (or Francines) have not yet grown into the professional salesperson role. They show cold-call reluctance, are weak in handling objections and are afraid to close the sale. Fearful Freds think they need to give extra discounts or special concessions to get the sale. Their favorite phrase is, “I’ve got a lousy territory!”

Behavioral giveaways: Fearful Freds have difficulty with displaying enthusiasm. Their low assertiveness makes them retreat very quickly from any serious challenge. They avoid asking tough business questions because they are afraid of not having the right answers. In sales meetings, Fearful Freds are quiet and passive.

Nonverbal signals: Their speaking style is characterized by a soft tone of voice. They wear clothes that don’t attract attention, often appear ill at ease with the world and hate it when people make comments about their appearance. Fearful Freds appear meek with slumped shoulders, weak handshakes and averted eyes.

What motivates Fearful Fred: Salespeople like Fearful Fred respond well to things that make their jobs easier. They love sales support programs, and sales assistance like telemarketers who schedule appointments for them. They love writing long proposals and sales letters. Their tendency to procrastinate often causes them to lose sales.

Greatest strengths: Fearful Freds are eager to complete their paperwork and are steady workers. They never offend a customer. When they do make a sale, their customers tend to he loyal.

Greatest source of problems: Fearful Freds can easily lose half of their sales opportunities to a more assertive competitor. Their lack of enthusiasm can often be demotivating to other salespeople in your company.

how to manage Fearful Fred: Provide Fearful Freds with a series of small success experiences. Fearful Freds need a safety net. They need to learn how to crawl before they can begin to walk. Sales managers begin with teaching Fearful Freds how to master the basics. Begin by setting and rewarding activity goals (like completing 20 cold calls per week).

With the help of structured activity goals, Fearful Fred can learn each step of the sale with a larger sense of security and greater feeling of competence. It is important to teach Fearful Fred the techniques of self-assertiveness.

Slumped Sally

Salespeople like Slumped Sally (or Sam) have lost their former glory. They may be going through a period of extreme stress. Your job is to determine if this is a temporary or permanent condition and decide if it is worth your efforts to help them recapture their greatness.

Behavioral giveaways: They show up late and leave early, won’t complete paperwork and take long lunch breaks. They have low energy levels. In sales meetings they look as if they stayed up too late the previous night. They often talk about the good old days. With their customers they tend to skip steps. Rather than calling customers, they want the customers to call them. You will have customer complaints about Slumped Sally.

Nonverbal signals: They sigh a lot, slump, look depressed and their shoulders hang down. They have a sloppy appearance, their suits need to be pressed and their shoes need polishing. They have shallow breathing and flat emotions.

What motivates Sally: They are motivated to seek and rediscover old glory. They want to look good to their old friends and talk about the good old days. Slumped Sally wants to avoid fights and disagreements. She wants you to be a strong leader with meaningful answers and insights. Sally will respond well to coaching.

Greatest strengths: Slumped Sally’s experience and insight can become valuable assets to the company. If you can help Sally recapture her former glory, you will have a great sales producer on your hands. Slumped Sallys often make good sales trainers because of their many successful selling experiences.

Greatest source of problems: Slumped Sallys can easily infect others with their pessimistic attitudes. Other people may follow Sally’s example and may become sloppy with paperwork. Productivity may be threatened. Since Sally was once a top performer, her words have some credibility and therefore her criticisms can be very unsettling.

How to manage slumped Sally: Discuss her goals and plans with her. If Slumped Sally does not care about herself, get her to improve for the sake of her family or children. Reward her with vacations, even if they are only three-day weekends. Take unnecessary assignments off her plate. Reprioritize and teach her time and territory management. Some Slumped Sallys have no idea of how much time they waste on nonproductive jobs. They sometimes work long hours, but get very little accomplished. Don’t leave her alone. She needs to be involved in new, but limited, challenges. Don’t overburden her with high expectations.

Excited Eddie

Excited Eddie (or Edna) enjoys chasing nearly every new idea, dream or opportunity. He will start many projects, but fail to complete most of them. He has a tendency to flatter people and will glowingly praise your work as the sales manager.

Behavioral giveaways: Excited Eddies are highly enthusiastic, outgoing and expressive. They are the first ones to sell a newly introduced product or service. They are unafraid to talk to any prospect, no matter what the rank, status or geographic location. In their pursuit of exciting new opportunities they may cross into another salesperson’s territory. They are undeterred by reality and naive about how much effort is necessary to reach consistent levels of success. Excited Eddies are capable of reaching temporary peaks that often fizzle quickly. Opportunity addiction blurs their focus and dilutes their strengths.

Nonverbal signals: Excited Eddies are fast talkers who tend to lose their breath when speaking. Unable to slow down, they get excited to the point of speaking almost incoherently. When you don’t pay attention, they quickly raise their voices or wave their arms.

Their gestures are unrestrained, wide open and expressive. Their eyes are wide open, they flash big smiles and they’ll shake your hand for a long time as they talk to you. Excited Eddies slap you on the back.

What motivates Excited Eddie: Excited Eddies are motivated to be the first to sell a new product or service. They love to be pioneers and are hungry for new experiences. They love sales incentives and short-term sales contests. They love constant change, variety and new challenges.

Greatest strengths: Excited Eddies are your best people for introducing a new product. They are great at penetrating a new market and developing new leads at trade shows. They never procrastinate, and often work overtime or on weekends. They will call anyone on the phone to arrange a meeting where they can share their excitement.

Greatest source of problems: Salespeople like Excited Eddie are poor with follow-up tasks. They hate paperwork. They overpromise and are poor listeners. Because they see themselves as progressive individuals, they change jobs more often than other salespeople. Yet Excited Eddies often go nowhere fast. They may alienate prospects because they do not understand why other people are reluctant to change. They often overstate the capabilities of the product and tend to overpromise and underdeliver.

How to manage Excited Eddie: The best way to keep Eddie producing is to give him a healthy dose of new challenges. Be careful not to overload his capabilities and avoid letting him go in too many directions at once. Ensure that Eddie does not overstate the performance standards of your products (or services). Beware of Eddie’s inflated sales forecasts. He tends to neglect details and hates paperwork. Try to be patient with his frequent requests for the latest high-tech equipment and offer these tools as incentives for above-quota sales performance.

Disorganized Debbie

It is easy to identify salespeople like Disorganized Debbie (or Doug). They are unclear about who they are and where they are going. As a result, they are confused about their true values. Disorganized Debbies are floating through life. They often appear to be working like rocking horses, always in motion, but never advancing. When presented with too many choices Disorganized Debbies easily get confused. They often end up in sales because of their friendly and endearing natures and because they can’t clearly imagine that they could master the challenges involved in other careers.

Behavioral giveaways: Disorganized Debbie is scattered, her desk is disorganized and her reports are always late and frequently incomplete. She often loses things, forgets follow-up calls or lets her car run out of gas. During sales calls it is not uncommon for her to match the wrong benefit to a given sales feature. She seems incapable of setting goals and tries in vain to develop consistent working methods. She is easily influenced and her attention span is short. She is loyal, however, and given proper coaching and training, she has the potential to do well.

Nonverbal signals: Often you’ll see Disorganized Debbie walking briskly in one direction, then she’ll stop, shake her head, mutter something unintelligible and walk back slowly to where she came from.

She often shows signs of frustration with herself. She apologizes for her shortcomings in an endearing way. Her speech pattern is characterized by rambling sentences. She habitually dilutes the essence of her ideas and looks troubled when she can’t make her points clear to you.

What motivates Disorganized Debbie: Disorganized Debbie responds well to people who are disciplined and focused. She loves to work for managers who issue clear directives and help her set goals. You should divide her work into small, comprehensive steps and provide her with a series of structured success experiences. Disorganized Debbie is not motivated by money, but by meaning.

Debbie is most successful in companies that offer a strong training program and provide a clear, step-by-step selling process. It is important to realize that Debbie needs to rely on work systems that limit choices, reduce confusion and prioritize tasks.

Greatest strengths: Salespeople like Disorganized Debbie tend to be very likable, down-to-earth and agreeable. They are unselfish employees, make friends easily and never push customers too hard. They are good team players and very loyal to the company. Even if business is slow, they won’t complain and will cheerfully do their job. They have a high capacity to be enthusiastic. Her congenial nature makes Disorganized Debbie nonthreatening and easy to work with.

Greatest source of problems: Disorganized Debbie can create more unfinished business in one hour than another member of your staff would create in a day. Because she is unfocused and easily distracted, she tends to be weak in closing the sale. She is weak with follow-up work and she may lose some of the leads she has been given. Her poor sense of priorities can turn customers off. Too many loose ends in Debbie’s life tend to reduce her work efficiency.

How to manage Disorganized Debbie: Disorganized Debbie needs your personal attention. Begin by teaching her step-by-step how to prioritize her work and manage her time. Invest in a time management system and make sure she clearly understands how it works. Next, ask her each day to turn in a photocopy of her daily activity schedule and monitor her progress. If her time management system is incomplete, meet with her and have her complete the job.

For a period of four weeks set clear activity goals for each week (such as the number of leads to qualify, the number of prospects to call and the number of sales to close). Never tell her “Do the best you can do.” The more room you leave for uncertainty, the more confused she’ll get. Be very specific with Debbie and continually help her focus on the most important and most urgent tasks every single day. Reward Debbie for reaching her goals and for her increased personal efficiency.

Perfectionist Pete

Salespeople like Perfectionist Pete (or Paula) have unrealistically high standards that lead them to procrastinate on almost every project. When faced with uncertainty, they get anxious or panic. Perfectionists are always afraid of making mistakes and get easily angered when their work is criticized.

Behavioral giveaways: Perfectionists appear hesitant, deliberate and overcontrolled. They take little risk and double-check everything. Their capacity to express emotions is underdeveloped. They are afraid of change, critical of new ideas and lack flexibility. They love to sell your tried and proven product line but resist selling new or untested products. Perfectionist Petes keep close track of their time and always show up early for appointments.

Perfectionists are too hard on themselves and others. Since they tend to measure and weigh the statements of others carefully, they usually exceed other salespeople in the area of needs analysis. They are good long-term planners.

Nonverbal signals: Perfectionist Pete is a neat dresser, every hair in place, shoes spit-polished. His files are neatly organized and stacked, and each file has a typed label.

His speech patterns are very precise and he often corrects your grammar. He shows little emotion in his speech. Pete tends to use words like should and ought as in “You should have been more careful,” or “You ought to check their credit.”

What motivates Perfectionist Pete: He is motivated to control himself, his territory and his customers. He loves computer software and any tool that increases control and certainty. Perfectionist Pete enjoys planning. He completes all his assignments on time, and writes detailed reports. He loves awards, plaques and certificates. He likes to participate in a highly structured meeting with a typed agenda. After completing a course, he’ll he the first one to ask for a certificate of completion.

Greatest strengths: Salespeople like Perfectionist Pete tend to be very knowledgeable about their products and services. Their presentations are complete but often too detailed. Their proposals are sometimes too elaborate; they tend to produce fewer proposals than other salespeople and they will take much more time to develop them. Perfectionist Petes, however, will never overpromise or lie to a customer. They tend to plan their activities meticulously. Given the right kind of training, they can be very loyal and profitable salespeople.

Greatest source of problems: Failure is seen as a big blow to their personal identity. They often engage in fatalistic thinking, When they make a mistake, they “awfulize,” whine or see it as a catastrophe. They often suffer bouts of depression because nothing meets their standards. Since they become overly concerned with details, they are slow in completing proposals and often procrastinate. Their lack of enthusiasm and somber moods can make customers feel uncomfortable.

how to manage Perfectionist Pete: Perfectionist Pete responds well to a confident and reassuring manager. He needs to know that the world will not come to an end if he makes a small mistake. Encourage him to be more tolerant and more accepting of himself and others. Teach him to see the bigger picture and encourage him to take more risks. Reward Pete for getting things done on time, even if they are not perfect. Salespeople like Pete need to know that you are not as critical of them as they are of themselves.

Worried Walter

Salespeople like Worried Walter (or Wanda) worry about anything in their environment. They often see themselves as inadequate or incapable of handling everyday challenges. As a result, they have a tendency to pull back from life to protect themselves. They loathe taking risks and rarely buy stocks or speculative investments.

Worried Walters lack the ability to think positively about turning even minor problems into opportunities. Their favorite phrase is, “What if something goes wrong?”

Behavioral giveaways: Worried Walter does not want to reject any bad idea outright, nor does he have the courage to fully endorse a good idea. Walter can find something wrong with any project, any customer or any product. His worries warp his perception of reality.

Walter has difficulty in making a commitment to your company, your sales team and you as the sales manager. He sometimes worries how long you are going to last. He often worries about his own body and tends to be a hypochondriac.

Nonverbal signals: Worried Walter’s speech pattern is hesitant. He often clears his throat before speaking. He pauses frequently and uses a lot of “qualifying” words before making his point. He uses qualifying words like “I am just guessing,” “I am not sure,” “But,” “You may think differently” and “I can’t blame you.”

Worried Walter walks gingerly in small, hesitant steps. He moves cautiously and holds his arms rigidly to his side. His handshake is limp and often sweaty.

What motivates Worried Walter: Provide him with a safe, controlled and predictable environment. He is motivated to sell the tested and proven bread-and-butter product line. He is motivated by a good health plan, annual physical examinations, a life insurance policy and good retirement benefits. Since he is motivated by certainty, he loves effective sales training tools such as scripts, closing manuals and powerful customer testimonials.

Greatest strengths: Worried Walter can be a steady producer. He will often rehearse and practice his presentation until late at night. He always shows up early for appointments. Walter is a good source of information on how to improve your product, or how to improve customer service. He is tuned in to every minute customer complaint.

Walter is very familiar with the weaknesses of your competition. He knows well what can go wrong with their design and service. Walter tends to be a good listener and can be very understanding of people who are experiencing difficulties.

Greatest source of problems: Worried Walters often tend to start rumors. Unable to sort out the issues, Walter may procrastinate and delay taking action until the sales opportunity has been seized by the competition.

Worried Walters tend to infect other people with their worries. They are often jealous of other people’s success and sometimes even give negative advice on purpose to sabotage other people’s chances for success. They often fail to take action because they worry too much about being rejected or turned down.

How to manage Worried Walter: Worried Walter responds well to careful and patient coaching. Managing Walter requires a two-step approach: First, build awareness; second, build self-confidence.

To build his awareness, have him write down his worries. Ask him to rank his worries in the order of their importance. Let him focus on his most important worry for a day.

To build his self-confidence have him write down his success experiences. Ask him to write down his personal strengths next to each success experience. Ask him to write his personal strengths on a 3 x 5 card, which he can carry in his wallet or car or keep in his top desk drawer.

Next, provide Walter with safe success experiences, like calling on prequalified prospects. Ask him to predict the degree of difficulty with each customer on a scale from 1 to 10. (Ten is the greatest difficulty.) Then ask Walter to complete each of these calls. After each call ask Walter to rate the actual difficulty of the call from 1 to 10. This exercise will help Walter realize that his abilities in predicting future events need fine-tuning. He’ll learn to anticipate the future with less pessimism and with a greater sense of reality.

How To Manage Your Special Sales Team

Nonverbal How To Growth

Behavior Signals Motivated By Strengths Problems Manage Programs

Grandstand Aggressive Exuberant Big awards Great closer Overpowering Clip his wings Team building

George at times program

Fearful Fred Low enthusiasm Scared Support Honesty Low sales Set/support Dale Carnegie

volume activity goals course

Slumped Burned out Depressed Coaching Past success Pessimistic Focus on Positive

Sally experience attitude future goals attitude

programs

Excited High enthusiasm Wired Exotic Opening Poor follow-up Supply new Relaxation

Eddie incentives new territories challenges; training

monitor carefully

Disorganized Inconsistent Frustrated Meaning Good team Unfinished Prioritize; assign Time/territory

Debbie player business specific tasks, management

deadlines

Perfectionist Overcontrolled Rigid Control Detail-oriented Lack of Relax pressure; Stress

Pete flexibility reward growth management

Worried Low enthusiasm Hesitant Stability Amiable, Tendency to Build self- Self-esteem

Walter understanding start rumors confidence program