Small, but Strategic Changes Produce Dramatic Improvements

Now that the final numbers for the first quarter are in, it's time to look toward the year’s end. Your analysis may show it's been a good start to the year or it's been a challenging start. Regardless of results, all Sales Managers and Dealer Principals want to improve. By making small, but very strategic changes to the sales team, dramatic improvement can result.

A typical sales team can be divided into three productivity groups.

Now Consider if….

2 bottom performers reach quota =    104% of plan

You replace 2 bottom performer with 2 top performer  =  12% incr

Middle Performers = another 5% increase

What many Sales Managers don't do is to focus on making improvements with the middle performers, which are half the team and represents tremendous potential. How you do this?

1.      One of the easiest ways is to get a crystal clear understanding of the attributes of the each salesperson compared to what's needed to be a top performer. If only one of the four middle performers become a top performer, it could add an additional $200,000 in revenue and raise team performance by another 5%. Imagine improving not one but two.

Just making a change with three or four of the eight people on the team is very possible and can produce an additional $1 million in revenue. That level of improvement is worth a little effort and change, but how do you do this?

1. First, you must clearly know the attributes required to be a top performer. Having a general idea of what's needed is not sufficient. This information is not only needed to make a good hiring decision, but also is needed afterwards in coaching and developing the new hire. Every person hired should have the ability to be the top salesperson. Do not compromise!

2. Now use the knowledge of the attributes of the person being hired to help the salesperson get off to a fast start. Reviewing his or her attributes compared to the attributes of the top performer group to get a clear understanding of his or her opportunities and challenges in the first few days. This not only helps the individual get off to fast start, it can actually eliminate early problems that cause turnover.

3. The next step is to address performance issues of the underperformers. If the underperformer does not have the attributes to be successful, don’t spend the time and effort training, coaching and managing

4. Now use information learned when assessing the sales team in a structured coaching process with everyone focusing on the middle performers. Examine each individual's attributes and compare them to those of top performers. Once a person understands the changes that are needed, help him or her develop a plan and hold them accountable to addressing the gaps or need to improve.

5. Don't neglect working with your top performers. Even they can improve if they have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. By raising the performance of the top performer and both middle performers, the middle will naturally move up.

Wholesale changes are not required to significantly improve your results. By first clearly defining the attributes of top performers and using it to coach salespeople for improvement or replace if needed, you can make dramatic changes in sales performance.

If you're wondering how small, but strategic changes can possibly affect the performance of your sales team organization, Outlaw Group will provide a complimentary sales team analysis to estimate the monetary and performance value generated by improvements.