Salesperson Review Time
To set the stage for the second half of the year, now is the perfect time to perform a formal salesperson review. We've found that in many organizations, other than measuring the percent age of quota attainment, salespeople aren't formally reviewed as many other employees might be. Once we institute our programs, long-term sales success and less sales turnover occurs.
Effective sales-force management requires creating an environment for individual recognition, development and planning. In our "Sales Management Tool Kit" -- a library of sales management Word/Excel documents -- we use a process and tool to ensure that individual attention is paid to each salesperson. We encourage our clients to meet with each salesperson twice each year and complete a formal document that clearly describes the sales manager's opinion of the individual's performance, including actual sales vs. quota, but also attitude, sales training, sales professionalism, CRM knowledge, areas of strength and weakness, etc.
The key to this meeting is to understand the salesperson's perspective and form a mutual agreement on the contents of the salesperson's development document. This process is designed to allow the sales manager and salesperson to openly build a relationship based on honest communication, which leads to the real benefit of this process.
The ultimate benefit or objective is to create a mutually agreed-upon plan on which both the salesperson and sales manager agree to work together for the next six months. This action plan would include sales training programs, personal and professional goals, as well as any personal commitments that the salesperson wishes to make.
If you want to order the entire "Sales Management Tool Kit," go to Acumenmanagement.com or e-mail me for the "Salesperson Development" document.
Meanwhile, are your sales contests working out? Are they creating fun, activity and sales? Let me know, and have a fun summer!
Ken Thoreson is managing director of the Acumen Management Group Ltd., a North American consulting organization focused on improving sales management functions within growing and transitional organizations internationally. Ken also motivates organizations with enlightening keynotes.
Posted by Ken Thoreson on July 06, 2009