Sales Management (The Brian Tracy Success Library)

SEVENTEEN

Let Your Poor Performers Go

Describing one of the seven keys to building a great company, Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, said: “Get the right people on the bus. Get the wrong people off the bus. And then get the right people into the right seats on the bus.”

The most stressful part of a sales manager’s life is letting people go and firing poor performers. The second most stressful part of a manager’s life is being fired yourself.

We say, “If you don’t get some experience with the first, you are going to get some experience with the second.” If you cannot let go of poor performers, you will eventually be replaced by someone who can. Peter Drucker wrote, “A manager who keeps an incompetent person in place is himself incompetent ...