Selling Capability-Revealed!

In my post dated 07/03/09 I offered you advice on how to write a standard and selected 'commitment' from the range of 29 SPI's. I really hope you are making serious progress in completing your standards index or at least you are at a stage where you can envisage the completed work. As a manager you will now have in place (and your successors forever more) a complete standards index customised to your sales departments requirements and distributed to each member of your team. Wow! Congratulations, you are now a member of an exclusive group of professional sales mangers. Trust me, unfortunately I'm not being glib here, you are a rarity and you have now in place one of the most effective performance measuring tools that will enable you and your team bring sales performance to a new high.

The example standard 'commitment' had 6 components each referenced cmt 1-cmt 6 so when measuring your representative's performance under this criterion, you find that he/she is partially complying with the standard (Level 2) and identify, cmt1, cmt3 and cmt5 as aspects of the standard that need to be addressed by the representative. Furthermore you document the action the representative will take to help them improve in the areas identified and set a date for the next review. This information is recorded on the RATE ME form, which is in duplicate- one copy given to the representative and one retained by you, their manager.

Remember this is not an appraisal system we will leave that to HR, this is a homemade sales performance measurement system that incorporates near real time visible insights into the state of your selling capability. In summary then you have:

(a) A complete standards index (29 SPI's described and referenced)
(b) An evaluation form 'RATE ME' used in collaboration with each representative

I suggest you get together with your representatives on an individual basis every three weeks for performance evaluation. You should be prepared to put by a minimum of one day per rep and do not use the occasion to criticise but rather an opportunity to encourage and provide guidance/advise. Provide armour of this nature to an incompetent sales manager and watch all hell break loose. There can be untold damage done to careers and lives destroyed. This brings me to another topic in relation to sales performance improvement i.e. LEADERSHIP which I will cover in my next post.

If you have any comment/question at all on what has been discussed so far please let me know I'd love to hear from you.
Back again soon
Dave: http://www.davidquinnandassociates.ie