
photo credit: Adam Tinworth
Are you like many small business owners who are frustrated because your sales people just aren’t increasing sales like you think they should be? Before you jump to any conclusions perhaps there would be value in exploring what might be causing the poor results you’re getting.
Statistically 20% of your sales people will be your top producers. 20% of your sales people will essentially be non-producers. Leaving 80% of your sales force in what I call the squishy middle. These statistics hold true even when you only have a few sales people. Where do you think you should make your greatest investment to produce greater results?
The top 20%, of course. You’ll get a far greater return from your efforts when you focus on investing in the top 20%. Beyond that there are some basic reasons that even your top producers could be increasing your sales more than they are now. There is potential to increase sales by:
- improving attitudes and behaviors
- increasing their understanding of the problems or challenges their best prospects will have, and how your service produces the outcomes those prospects want
- establishing mutually agreed upon performance standards and the measurements that indicate performance
- refinement of the sales process
- increasing the number of highly qualified prospects they have an opportunity to hold appointments with
If you want to get what you want you have to work with them helping them get what they want. They want to sell more too because more sales mean more commissions. I’ve found many small business owners who were sorely disappointed in sales performance and placed blame on the sales force when the real issue was no one in the company knew how to effectively market your business.
It’s pretty easy to see if your sales people can’t secure appointments they can’t sell. So if that’s the biggest challenge, you don’t have a sales issue you have a marketing issue. You may have sales issues too, but until you have people to sell to marketing should be your highest priority.
Attitudes and behaviors are important. The quickest way to develop negative attitudes and poor behaviors is to dictate performance standards and measures. You talk in terms of accountability.
While I fully agree every has to be fully accountable for their actions and their results the way you word things makes a big difference in the results you see. When you communicate to your sales force that they need to be accountable you’ve just created a “we” (the sales people) against “them” (you) attitude. That doesn’t help anyone.
You can get the desired outcome more effectively if you speak in terms of support and partnership. When you want to partner with them and support them in a way that makes it easier for them to sell they’re all ears. In contrast, when you tell them these are your targets hit them or hit the road you may as well fire them on the spot because you’ve just created a non-selling sales person.
Bottom line you just need to be clear where the real problem is. Is it ineffective marketing? Is it the way you manage the sales people? Is it a poor sales process? Is it poor attitudes and behaviors? Is is a lack of understanding of your service and what it can do for your clients?
If you suspect it’s the way you manage those sales people view this little video TopGrading for Sales It’s cute and you may find some information there you can use.
If you suspect the problem is marketing related or sales process related I recommend the “7 Secrets Top Producers Know” report and e-course.
There’s no reason to continue either your frustration or the frustration your sale people are experiencing. Identify the cause(s) identify the solution(s) and take action to overcome your challenges.