In this Ask Evan episode, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about reviving a struggling sales team. He outlines three core actions for sales managers: first, implement a solid training program that captures proven scripts, strategies, and partnership approaches, ensuring new reps are properly equipped before they start selling. Second, feed reps warm leads—such as website inquiries or distributor‑generated prospects—to build confidence and reduce reliance on cold calling, illustrated with his own experience supporting international distributors. Third, structure compensation to heavily favor commission while providing an initial draw during the ramp‑up period, so reps earn income while they learn. These steps aim to set reps up for success, boost morale, and prevent turnover during a sales turnaround. The video ends with a call for likes and comments.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, and welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's video, I'm going to answer a question from one of my readers, Fred, who asks, "I'm a sales manager for a fairly large company. The company I'm working with has taken a knock in sales due to mismanagement, and I'm the one who has to get the horse out of the swamp." I need materials on sales management and motivational material for my reps. Please could you assist? Thank you, Fred. So Fred, when you're dealing with the sales team, you want to make sure that you're setting them up for success. And right from the start, what I would encourage you to do is first start with a good training program. So you need to make sure you know personally what works in this business. So I'm not sure what you're selling, but talk to some of your best sales reps, or hopefully you've also gone through the process of selling this product or service before, and you need to know what works. So you got to know what script to use, you have to know if people should be going through connectors or forming partnerships, or if it's cold calling, or whatever the strategies are that works. You want to make sure you know that and you're effectively training that into your team. When you have new guys who are coming on and are nervous and they're not trained properly, it's a big train wreck. So you have to make sure you have the training in place to make them effective. The second thing I would try to encourage you to do is feed them leads. A lot of new salespeople, when coming into a position, are expected to just start producing sales leads. And that's really tough, especially if the salesperson hasn't had much experience in your industry. They may be great at sales, but it could take them time to get started, and you don't want to have them lose too much confidence. So as much as possible, try to feed them sales leads. If you're collecting leads from your website or from any advertising, try to pass those on to your salespeople so it's not all cold introductions, and they get their feet wet. There's a couple of warm leads for them to follow up on, and it gives them a little bit more confidence to continue. In my first software company, we hired a whole bunch of international distributors to work with, they were our partners, and to get them started, we always fed them the leads that we got from those different countries. So they were expected to go out and generate their own leads and close sales, but we also helped them whenever new leads came in because we wanted to see them achieve success, gain confidence, know that, hey, we can actually sell this, and want to continue promoting our product. So as much as possible, if you can, try to feed your salespeople some leads. The third thing I want to recommend is— I don't know what your compensation model looks like, but Obviously you want to have it heavily skewed towards making sales and earning a commission on it. There's a margin to motivate and there's an incentive to go out and want to sell, but at the beginning it can be really discouraging if they're not making any money. So if you think the salesperson, you know, has good potential, I would definitely encourage you to have some kind of draw at the beginning to make sure they're still making an income. It's not a super comfortable income, but they're making money, they're able to get by and support themselves while they're learning how to sell your product or service because usually people can't step in and right away away start selling. There is a ramp-up period, and if they're not making any money, then they're going to start looking for other opportunities if they don't start seeing immediate results. So I hope that helps, Fred. If you guys like the video, please give it a thumbs up. I'd also love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment below the video, and stay tuned for the next episode.
