How Well Do You Know Your Salespeople?

Given the state of the economy and market conditions presently I've no doubt many organisations and small business operators are reappraising and evaluating their strategies in an effort to safeguard and protect their business interests.

Cutting costs and/or improving performance are the order of the day and those in the front line of business acquisition are under particular scrutiny at this time. Sales targets and expectations are rarely adjusted downwards instead the focus is on how to achieve identified sales objectives, compete and survive in an increasingly volatile and competitive marketplace.

There are many sales and business development managers who are left to reflect on their own and their team's performance some accepting that their team is performing far below potential. At times like these it is easy to take comfort in the assumption that 'everybody else is in the same boat' and sure all we can do is keep our heads down and battle away. This thought process will result in inertia and usually the inevitable when downsizing becomes an imposed, if not, necessary option. Your desire to avoid this scenario at all costs is understandable, so what are you doing about it? An important aspect of sales management is periodical evaluation of performance and there is no better time than the present that is, RIGHT NOW!

The task of performance evaluation and improvement is not an easy one for the sales manager and before you stop reading this, believing the topic best left to your HR department, it most certainly is not. You may indeed claim that when it comes to performance evaluation the easiest and most accurate measure is to reflect on the results achieved by each individual member of your team. Statistics don't lie "a representative can either bring in the business or they can't and the ones that can't do not remain on my team". I would challenge this attitude as being flawed and dangerous and one that can create a lot of problems for salespeople.

I have witnessed many otherwise good potential salespeople end their selling careers not because they lacked the resources to perform but because of the manner in which they were managed or more accurately mismanaged. Many managers themselves lack the expertise required to nurture and develop selling capability and misguidedly do themselves a great disservice by loosing very talented people.
I accept the job of selling is not an exact science and appreciate this makes that task of setting benchmarks for the job very difficult but it does not make it impossible and I will illustrate this later, perhaps in my next blog. For the moment, lets take stock of who you might have among your team. I don't want to be disingenuous towards salespeople by labelling them but for descriptive purposes you might find it easier to recognise the following:

Top Dog:
Leader of the pack, big ego, knows it all, non-conformist, reluctant to change, operates in isolation, great networker, consistently overachieves.
Performance: High

Mr Congeniality:
Out to please everybody, affable/likeable, good sense of humour, looks the part, always wears a smile, excellent relationship builder, always comes in on target.
Performance: Very Good

Contrary Mary:
Nothing is ever right, always complaining, prices are too high, gets no cooperation from others, always solving problems (The wrong ones), liked by customers, up and down in achieving targets
Performance: Inconsistent

Mad Dog:
Not approachable but likeable, pushy, determined, seems mostly in a trance, highly active always on the go, nobody ever knows where to find them, usually struggles but somehow brings in the business.
Performance: Adequate

The Loafer:
Everywhere you go they're under your feet, ask them to do something-no problem but it never gets done, lazy, sloppy no order, still on the team but you don't know why?
Performance: Usually Poor

There are few sales managers who would claim having to manage a team of 'Top Dogs' and even if this is the case, having such a team creates a set of different performance issues, again, later. For the moment you have taken the first step in evaluating and raising performance, i.e. giving recognition to the fact that most teams constitute a variety of different personalities and capabilities. The question is, what happens next?

If you believe there is something in this for you, please let me know, this is my first post, back later.

Visit me on http://www.davidquinnandassociates.ie/

Dave