I couldn’t agree more. Accurate role perception and clear role descriptions which support all levels of client engagement (internally and externally) are critical. If you read other posts I have written such as ‘Sales is a team effort’ or ‘Does everybody lives by selling something?’ you will find a) the client features front and centre and b) everybody’s roles should have sales and service competencies and clear duties around their responsibilities for the client and their role in sales and service.

Cheers Sue

Surely “Sales performance management begins with accurate role descriptions …” has the danger of creating something that lacks the context of understanding the customer and the market.

Performance management is a big picture first, then chunking down process. Not an HR exercise as described.

As I see it, Input Measures refer to Efficiency metrics (are we doing enough of the right things?); Behavioural Measures refer to Effectiveness metrics (are we doing the right things the right way?); while Output Measures refer to how we measure the former two Measures (are we measuring the right things?).

The 4th dimension I think you’ve missed is organisational alignment. By this I mean the other parts of the organisation (including the executive) understand these measures and provide support and input that reinforces the desired outcomes.

The reason I say this is I’ve seen many sales groups develop bunker mentality because the rest of the organisation hasn’t been educated on the groups approach, KPI’s, and environment and undertake behaviours that are detrimental to the sales group. Examples include:

The CFO being critical of missed forecasts and not looking into or understanding the underlying reasons

The Executive team demanding more activity (i.e. make more sales calls) and not understanding the potential negative impact on effectiveness

Marketing engaging in lead generation activities that either generate the wrong leads or leads that require out of scope qualification meaning they’re in the forecast prematurely.

As you so eloquently state Sue – we all live by selling something – so it’s the job of the CEO and the Sales Leader to ensure the organisation is aligned to the sales performance management system. When this dimension is in place the organisation is best placed to sustain high performance.