Who wants to work with accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people? Of course we all want these types of sales people in every sales team. Yet, most businesses do not support this by setting up their sales team to clearly measure and manage their sales performance.
Sales performance management begins with accurate role descriptions and perception, data collection, and measurement in line with set goals and strategy, however many organisations measure only one variable, sale results (outputs measures).
This type of approach leaves businesses and sales teams in the dark about how they arrived at their sales results making it hard to replicate good results and eliminate poor results.
What is needed in sales teams are clearer measures of what constitutes good sales performance and we need to be able to measure and manage the right things.
So, what is performance and why measure it?
Performance can be equated to behaviour, as it involves what people actually do. It is observable, measurable, and can be changed through the learning and application of new behaviours. It is, however, important to select the right measure in a performance management system as performance measures can influence behaviours and attitudes within the organisation. A good performance measure will reinforce desired behaviours, while a poorly selected or incorrect measure can encourage behaviour that is unproductive and inappropriate.
An effective Sales Performance Management System measures sales results (output measures) and two additional critical variables, input and behavioural measures. The framework means this is done in a consistent and structured way. The following diagram illustates examples of Input, Behavioural and Output measures for sales people.
By giving sales people access to explicit performance information about how they need to do their job they can begin to align themselves to organisational expectations. With adequate training and coaching to support them we will now have sales people working consciously in their roles and on themselves to achieve greater, more competent performance.
Take this opportunity to check if, or how well, your sales people know their performance measures and are they on the path to being accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT
Now I’m no guru but I don’t understand why “the customer” has not been mentioned except at the end where 2 outcomes are we need to keep ’em and they shouldn’t whine too much.
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.
Hello Mark
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
Sue,
I agree with what you’re saying here but feel you may have overlooked an important 4th dimension.
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.