Does it work? Absolutely! And the best part is that you can use the same dollar every day. What’s more, the dollar isn’t even for your sales staff. It’s for you! Here’s how it works:

When a carpenter reinforces a table, it becomes stronger. The same thing happens with behavior. If you reinforce it, it grows stronger.

Simple enough? We’re all at least familiar with the concept: Reinforce behavior, and that behavior occurs more frequently. So by reinforcing things like your sales staff’s actions of targeting high-potential accounts, identifying current accounts with more business potential, and creating call plans for these accounts, the occurrence of these actions increases. Unfortunately, those positive behaviors are not usually reinforced — at least not as frequently nor as fully as they should be.

“Well,” you might say, “I certainly don’t punish my sales staff for productivity!”

No, probably not. But there’s another type of feedback even more punishing than punishment. Consider these three types of feedback:

Positive feedback energizes! It validates a person’s efforts by making them feel they’ve accomplished something. Everyone’s experienced this and knows it works. That’s why leading sales managers hand it out often.

Negative Feedback also energizes, but in a different manner. When telling someone in a negative manner that he’s fallen short of what’s expected, you’re punishing him. Frequently, he’s been trying, but just hasn’t improved as much as you wanted. To him, this feels like he’s being punished for trying. And people consistently punished for trying will eventually stop trying.

No feedback is called extinction. Even more punishing than negative feedback, extinction motivates less than any other response. And yet, it’s the most common response to achievement — particularly to achieving improvement.

Think of it this way: If you tell a joke, and everyone laughs, that’s positive feedback. If you tell a joke, and everyone groans, that’s negative feedback. If you tell a joke, and there is nothing — no laughter, no groans, no change in facial expression — that’s no feedback. That’s extinction. Which is worse? For most of us, no feedback — absolute silence — is devastating.

The odds are pretty good that — without realizing it — you’re extinguishing efforts your sales reps make to improve their productivity. If you’re like most sales managers, you’re probably pretty good at reinforcing excellence, but not so good at reinforcing improvement. What can you do to change this?

That’s where the dollar comes in. Put ten dimes in a pocket the first thing each day. Every time you reinforce one of your sales reps for their effort, move one dime to another pocket. Make sure that at least five of those dimes get moved because of something you said to one of your reps. Also make sure that at least three of those five dimes get moved specifically because you reinforced an improvement in their efforts. Your goal? Get the ten dimes moved by the day’s end. Do that and you’ll notice opportunities to acknowledge their efforts you’ve been previously missing.

Do this for thirty days. By then, you’ve formed a habit you’ll do naturally.

Oh, by the way. Here’s a bonus question: How are you doing on feedback with others? You know — your children, neighbors, relatives? Are you letting them know how much you appreciate their efforts? Are you acknowledging their efforts? No? Well, put those ten dimes in a pocket and get to work!

© 2005 Thomas K. Connellan

About the Author

Tom Connellan is an motivational keynote speaker regularly used by leading firms such as GE, Neiman Marcus, Dell, FedEx and Marriott to strengthen customer loyalty and leadership practices. When looking for a keynote speaker, Tom probably belongs on your short list of possibilities.