Sales team results

Having spent many, many hours in Board and Exco. Meetings, and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), there is one slide that always gets a lot of attention. It’s the one that lists your sellers’ names on the y-axis and their percent to goal on the x-axis.

• Green for those at or above 100%
• Orange for those between 70% and 100%
• Red for those below 70% (or somewhere in that range).

This data is sliced and diced over a number of time periods; last quarter, the quarter before that, year to date, etc. When this is presented the reaction is predictable. Very quickly the conversation focuses on those in red. Why are they still here? Should they still be here? What are you going to do about it? At this point, the sales leader had better have a good story!

 

People are assets

Undoubtedly our biggest assets are our people. Attracting and retaining talent is critical. Hiring, onboarding, and ramping are expensive. For a seller to become ramped and productive, it usually takes longer than we expect. If you lose a fully ramped seller today, because of the time taken to find, replace, and ramp a new person, it is impossible to recover the lost quota coverage. To this end, our hiring plans should include a people churn rate. Planning for departures allows you to hire ahead of the need. In an idealistic world we would; hire right, onboard and enable fast, and retain forever.

 

Don’t judge a rep by their number

Rather than let someone go, it would be far better (if possible) to get them productive. It may be foolish to pass judgment on a single metric and a bit of subjective color. So, don’t be too quick to pull the trigger on those in the red zone! We need to have context as there are many contributing factors to the seller’s result. You should start by asking yourself, have WE set them up for success? I propose taking a Balanced Scorecard approach to measuring a seller’s efficacy.

 

Balanced scorecard

A Balanced Scorecard is a strategy performance management tool – a semi-standard structured report, used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by their staff and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.

The modern seller has a tough job. Buyers are so much more informed than they used to be. The days of the walking-catalog-seller are long gone. We now need to have a much broader knowledge and skill set. When developing your scorecard, there are three major categories to consider; Activities, Skills, and Attitude (ASA). Once you have accessed these areas, you can reconcile these scores with their metrics* to get a well-rounded view.

 

*Metrics

There are many metrics you can look at, but for the purposes of performance management, I’d suggest keeping it simple and measuring with consistency. It’s advisable to look at metrics by cohort (segment, vertical, tenure, etc.) so you have a benchmark. In other words, how is this seller doing versus people in a similar situation? If everyone is in the red zone, perhaps it’s you not them. A few simple metrics to consider include:

1. Number of opportunities created – entering the funnel
2. Conversion rates – through each stage
3. Sales cycle – time
4. ACV – average contract value
5. Average discount %
6. Forecasting accuracy – a good indicator of how in control of their business they are
7. Sales results (%) vs. goal – over multiple time periods to spot trends

 

ASA (Activities, Skills, and Attitude)

Activities

If I had a dollar for every time a sales leader said; I just don’t know if my sellers are working hard or not? Ultimately you need to know if they are turning up and doing the work. When it comes to activities, rather than having some arbitrary activity goal, align them to a well-informed plan that the seller builds and is based on the metrics above. The most important being, getting and managing their pipeline. The plan should be mutually agreed upon by you and them. But it must be THEIR plan, that THEY build based on the things THEY decide THEY need to do to get the results THEY need.

All too often we have our sellers build a territory or business plan, but we don’t hold them to account on the delivery thereof. It important that any plan has SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, with measurable being key to the Balanced Scorecard. Then on a weekly basis, simply ask one question; How’s it going? Not their general well-being, which is of course is important, but rather how are they doing against the plan. Plans should not be static and need to evolve based on the successes or learns, but it is important to use a plan as a reference point for conversations on activities. Create and keep score weekly on how they are doing. You could make it binary – either they did or did not do something, or have a scale. Either way, regular numerical inputs help keep track and take subjectivity out of the equation.

Tips to help inform a simple plan.

1. Start with the desired result
2. Figure out and list all the things you need to do to get the result you want
3. Build an action plan – the things you are committing to doing
4. Come up with a scoring mechanism so you can quantify and or rank the performance
5. Do the things you said you’d do
6. Regularly review the efficacy of the plan and make adjustments

 

Skills

Within the Skills category, there are many considerations. Two of the major areas to focus on include; Your business and the business of selling. 

Your business:

Remember buyers are now much more informed. If your sellers are to have any credibility, you’ll want them to be SMEs (subject matter experts). A great test for this is to ask your prospects after every meeting, had your seller not been trying to sell them something, would they have paid for the meeting? A lofty goal to be sure, but a good one all the same. To achieve this, you’ll want your sellers to;

• Be experts on your solution
• Be experts on the broader context in which your solution operates
• Have empathy for buyers and understand how your solution helps them and their organization
• Be experts on the competitive landscape and how you differ and are better
• Have multiple customer stories and proof points that are relevant to the buyer

The onus is on you to cover a minimum acceptable baseline in your training and enablement and then inspect and certify your sellers. Top sellers are curious and take it upon themselves to further their knowledge. Perhaps create a scoring system that goes beyond the baseline so those that go the extra mile are credited and it is reflected in their score. Your scoring could look like this; 1. Fundamentals, 2. Advanced, 3. Expert, 4. Master

The business of selling:

Looking at the above-listed metrics is a good leading indicator and helps identify areas of development in the business if selling. Conversion rates by stage in particular highlight where a seller needs help. You will no doubt have a methodology that your sellers need to be fluent in. This should manifest itself in your CRM, and regular inspection will inform both competencies as well as compliance. Again, create a scoring mechanism to help put a number on where they are in both their competencies and compliance.

 

Attitude:

Given the nature of the job, motivation is critical. Sales can be a real grind and people get tired. Ambitious sellers want to be successful and often seek upward mobility. If they can’t see a path they may become demotivated. When motivation wanes, you need to take action of some sort. Most sellers can convince you they are motivated and all in! However, actions speak louder than words. Observing their activities can be telling. High activities usually indicate highly engaged and motivated, and low activities usually indicate something is up!  Early detection and therefore intervention can avoid many tears. As they say, a stitch in time saves nine! One way to gather insights is to seek feedback from multiple people. Admittedly this is subjective but is still a useful data point as part of a Balanced Scorecard. Come up with a simple questionnaire that asks a colleague to score them on certain characteristics. Characteristics that could inform their attitude. A scale could be; 1. disengaged, 2. moderately engaged, 3, engaged, 4. very engaged.

 

Summary:

In the first paragraph, I said the sales leader better have a good story. The best story would be a Balanced Scorecard that provides good insights into sellers; Activities, Skills, and Attitudes which when reconciled against their metrics gives context and a complete picture. Using the Balanced Scorecard enables the sales leader to proactively make informed and defensible decisions. It becomes clear what changes need to be made and where the areas of development are. It helps remove emotion and gives clarity. So the next time ‘that slide’ is presented, the sales leaders can proactively talk to it.

 

After all … It’s easy if you know how!