Last week, I discussed ways to find potential superstars among your sales laggards.
Today, I’ll share four other key strategies to building strong, high performing sales teams.
- Live by the 20-60-20 rule. Almost any sales team can be broken into performance segments. I recommend grouping your bottom, middle, top performers with the 20-60-20 rule. Then, focus your attention on the middle 60%. Research from Harvard shows your mid-range performers are your untapped sales performance gold mine.
- Pursue the right skillset and “will set.” Sales people need certain inherent skills to be successful. For example, they need to be competitive by nature. Other skills can be refined over time. As an example, you can improve their understanding of your market or coach them to execute more effectively. But beware of the sales reps who don’t have the will. You can’t teach will. Sales reps who don’t have the get up and go need to be in the “two strikes, you’re out” category.
- Don’t be afraid to fire and re-hire. Turnover is part of any healthy sales team. It’s acceptable to have a rate of turnover that’s below 20%. Anything below 15% is good. Check out these tips to improve sales performance based on Groupon’s recent decision to fire and re-hire the bottom 10% of their sales force.
- Match sales people with the right jobs + rewards. Different types of sales, different products or even the same product at a different point in the brand awareness cycle can require a different sales touch. Each component requires different skills and rewards. Do you know how to match your people with the right sales roles? Once you’ve done that, make sure you establish clear and measurable metrics. Motivate your team for success with compelling incentive compensation plans that rewards on those metrics.
For more, watch Xactly’s webinar with the Chally Group: Quick Tips to Get the Team You Need to Win. You can also read a recap of the webinar on our blog: Match your sales team, customers and rewards
Effective sales leaders use these four strategies to analyze their sales teams and improve sales performance. How’s your sales team performing?
You capture the essential component. Most managers will attest, working with the middle can be very rewarding, as long as the top 20 don’t expect your attention, and infect the culture when they are not the center of your universe!