One of the most important things a sales manager can do is attempt to improve the attitude of the sales team, because salespeople with positive attitudes sell more and customers tend to buy more from positive salespeople. This conclusion is not a guess but rather a fact based on many surveys and polls of sales managers who continually respond that performance problems among sales teams are overwhelmingly a result of poor attitude rather than lack of skill.
That said, I’ll offer a few suggestions to help improve the attitude of sales team members in order to regain and maintain high sales productivity:
1. Dare sales team members to develop and abound.
As you work alongside your sales folks, put additional emphasis on helping them see and react to chances and choices that are new, and help them break the code to get into unfamiliar market segments, opening up new accounts and additional revenue sources. Continually ask thought provoking questions and challenge them to see things in a different light by using novel perspectives. “How can you not only win the account but work on a strategy to become a trusted advisor to the customer,” is an example of a good question to pose to your rep. Get them to think bigger and deeper.
Just like spending time with your kids’ shows your love for them, time spent with your sales team members proves you really do care for them and want them to become winners on the sales field. Think maybe these types of actions will help attitudes improve?
2. Deepen their confidence.
Sales managers are familiar with the old “skill or will” dilemma. Salespeople who are performing poorly in certain areas, such as self-generating leads, sometimes get accused of having a bad attitude toward this function, when it may very well be that they just don’t know how to do it.
Don’t make that mistake and automatically bring attitude into the situation. Determine first if it’s a confidence issue because possibly the rep doesn’t 
possess the skills. If that’s the case, show them a picture of what it should look like; that’s what leaders do. Afterward, conduct some test driving with the rep and chances are their confidence will quickly increase, unless it doesn’t. If it doesn’t move following that, then look into the attitude side of the issue.
3. Dedicate time for coaching.
You must be the advocate and instigator for sales coaching. Don’t wait for your reps to beg for training because they might not ever do it since most salespeople have a disease called “the all-seeing, all- knowing syndrome.” This simply means they think they know enough stuff and will rarely cry uncle for more sales training.
Whether they request help or not, be proactive in observing weaknesses and providing training fixes for them. When you do this, both skill and will head north.
4. Discuss dilemmas with your “Difficult Dynamos.”
Some managers have an ongoing wrestling match with salespeople who produce well, but always get a “D” in “works well with others” on their report card. Your problem with reps like this is that others in the sales room look to this guy or gal as their hero, and want to grow up to be like them because they sell a lot.
When this occurs don’t wait for it to clean itself up, but rather cut this rep out of the herd and have a personal meeting with the Grinch. During this meeting don’t go in with guns blazing, but rather “lead the witness” with a few open questions to try to get them to see for themselves the havoc they are wreaking among their peers. More than likely it won’t take long for it to dawn on the rep that the negativity is coming from them, and they will probably fall on their sword and change their behavior.
In conclusion, aside from the suggestions above, you may need to look in the mirror and consider a check-up from the neck up in management style. A little 360⁰ feedback may give you some ideas that may help you keep everyone on the “happy place,” bus, where turnover is not a major problem.
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