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Understanding the Sales Force
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One of my clients is recruiting and, despite plenty of quality candidates to choose from, had failed to hire anyone in a span of ten months, 1200 resumes and dozens of interviews. He loved 5 of the 20 final candidates but, for one reason or another, was unable to land them. The process was being conducted the right way, he was using the assessment at the right time, and the first live interview was conducted properly. In an attempt to rectify his problem, I identified two issues with his final interview.
1) Two much time was elapsing between the first live interview, the final interview and the decision to make an offer. This was more than enough time for other companies to make offers and it was smart for the candidates to take the sure offers. Candidates are perishables and great candidates have a spoil date of tomorrow!
2) My client was not effectively selling his opportunity. Sure, he presented the company, described the job, showed the compensation package, etc. Boring. Not compelling. I introduced him to my secret weapon. The recruiting scene at the beginning of the movie Anti-Trust provides a fantastic example of how to sell your opportunity in a compelling way. As my client said, "that was the missing link" that was preventing his company from generating three times his current revenue.
What are you doing to sell your opportunity?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
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Our son read 130 pages to us at bedtime when Mommy usually reads to him. He's always too tired to attempt sounding out words but tonight he read two 65 page books. And when Mommy helped him with the one word he had trouble with, he said, "It's OK, I don't need your help Mommy!" And he laughed so much harder when he heard the funny words coming out of his own mouth. He reread one funny passage five times he liked it so much. And he was so proud of himself he just wanted to keep on reading, and reading, and reading. He was still reading when we checked in on him a half hour later.
The same phenomenon takes place with salespeople. Not just new salespeople, but veteran salespeople too, who find themselves with new companies, industries, products or services, or calling into new markets.
At first, they just want to listen. Then they want you to go with them and help them do it. Finally, at some point, just when it seems like they can't do it by themselves, they successfully read the call, execute the entire process and have a great big smile on their faces, so proud of what they accomplished. Finally, they don't need your help anymore - you might screw it up!
As their manager, you must have the patience to allow this to happen, while at the same time having the urgency to push them along, coach and encourage them, provide constructive criticism, and make sure they're performing enough activity to drive results.
And then one day, when you aren't expecting it, they surprise you and read you the email they received from the client or customer they just closed.
When you are consistently hiring the right salespeople, it gives you greater confidence to demonstrate the patience required to develop them. When you play the numbers game and know that half of the people you bring on won't stick, it's difficult to differentiate between a slow bloomer and a chronic failure.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
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Frank Aubuchon of Aubuchon Associates, an HR Consulting Firm, wrote an article about Compensation to incent salespeople. With his permission, I have taken an excerpt from his article to share with you.
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Adopt the philosophy that "the more sales my people bring in the more money the company makes. Everyone wins! Arbitrary earning caps are killers for your very best people and demotivating. Naturally the plan must direct sales efforts to the most profitable products and services and perhaps the plan should more richly reward new sales verses repeat business. Also, be careful of monthly or quarterly targets that may encourage salespeople to hold off on writing a sale. "If it doesn't help me now, I might as well wait until next month or next quarter" so an incentive can be earned. Finally, avoid setting unrealistic targets which breed the "why even try?" attitude.
The Plan
The bottom line is that the plan should be easily understood; how incentives are earned, what are the qualifiers, when they are paid. The type of sales that are more important to the company's strategic direction should be clear and those should be highly incentivized. The plan should also have some legs. Year to year tweaks are expected. Wholesale scrapping and rework sends the wrong message and causes confusion and mistrust.
Payments
As stated above, scheduled dates for incentive payments should be part of the plan and must be strictly followed. In a very real sense it is the salesperson's pay check and pay checks should never be late. It also helps to explain how the payment was calculated so that discrepancies can be readily addressed. A salesperson should never be asked to just trust the system. Your best people know exactly how much money they are making and if your figure is different they shouldn't have to ask why. |
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There is a great post written by a guest blogger over at the Inside Sales Blog. This post should be provided to salespeople in all companies that employ product managers who, despite the many ways they are utilized, cannot be confused with sales managers. Those of you who employ product managers might also want to take heed as this guy gets it and is quite frustrated by the salespeople who rely on him to do their jobs.
This could have been written by other people with other titles too. Salespeople tend to use Account Engineers, Application Engineers, Product Specialists, Technicians, Manufacturer Sales Engineers and other technically inclined people this way too.
There is a time and a place for others to become involved in the sales process. They key is for your salespeople to use them wisely, get the call set up where the expert's presence can be used as leverage, and do that consistently.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
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The 4/30 Issue of Inside Training Newsletter, published by Training Magazine, lists Sales Representatives as the 5th most difficult position to fill. But that doesn't really tell the story.
If you have an ordinary sales position with average compensation, it's the 5th most difficult position to fill. But, in my experience, if your compensation is below average ($96,000), it's significantly more difficult to fill. According to the most recent National Sales Compensation Survey, $67,000 is the average compensation for underperforming and entry level salespeople. How difficult is your position to fill if the compensation falls below the average at any level of performance but your requirements describe someone better than that?
Chances are, the economy will loosen things up a little and there will be many more salespeople looking for positions as sales for products in their industries dry up. But employer beware, the first wave of available salespeople will usually be those that are least effective so make sure you are using a world-class sales assessment to differentiate the performers from the actors.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
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