A very useful outcome was that managers learned that their people weren’t qualifying out of enough bad deals. They rewrote their qualification criteria to focus on their more winnable deals.

The last outcome was to identify which managers were conducting strategy sessions and which were not. Interesting phone calls followed. Greater visibility had pushed accountability to the front-line sales managers, where it belonged.

Performance Reviews — More Than Just Deal Competence

I am still amazed at how many companies don’t consistently use performance reviews at all and how many sales organizations use the standard one provided by HR as a way to review salespeople. Based on the effectiveness of most canned reviews, one can understand why.

The best practice is to write performance reviews for salespeople that include the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required to execute your best practices sales cycle. Otherwise, reviews usually are a waste of time.

But there is more to overall performance than deal competency and personality. In addition to competence and chemistry, many salespeople fail because of a lack of commitment, lack of character, lack of communication skills, or lack of cognitive ability to think quickly on their feet.

Deal competency alone may be less than half of overall sales competency, and this can only be measured by observation by sales managers and documented in a performance review designed specifically to measure performance in the field. Figure 9–2 presents a useful diagnostic tool for identifying performance problems in both deal management and the other important elements of overall performance.

Written tests and training session “smile sheets” only measure awareness and acceptance. Assessments on behavioral “smile sheets” only measure awareness and acceptance. Assessments on behavioral traits and other things just measure potential. Win-loss reports and numbers just measure deal competency. Only a manager can tell whether the salesperson is competent, as well as committed.

Salespeople become unmotivated because their goals are out of reach, they have lost belief in the company, they have lost belief in the products, or maybe they have personal distractions or have lost confidence all together.

We find that a large number of salespeople fail because of a lack of character. They are not trustworthy. They think selling is a manipulative game. They are not honest with their clients, they are not honest with their managers, and they are not honest with themselves.

Some of them have other businesses on the side. Some of them are not honest with their managers about where they stand in their deals. Some of them set expectations too high, hoping they’ll be gone by the time the price has to be paid.

In order to build trust with a client, a person first has to be trustworthy. It’s not a matter of what they do; it’s a matter of who they are. This goes back to the hiring profile and can only be identified after the hire by performance. Obviously, a 360-degree assessment is even better because teammates and customers sometimes will spot this before the sales manager will.

Numbers alone are not always adequate. A sales rep can make his or her number and still lose a lot of business based on the territory’s potential. I’ve seen hot markets where a chimpanzee in a three-piece suit could make quota.

Conversely, I’ve observed one of the best salespeople I know do everything right and still struggle for a year. A good performance review spotted the problem (we had changed his territory twice — he had been setting up deals that other salespeople closed). Performance observation saved a future star who went on to become an extremely successful performer and manager.

What about Motivation?

To me, there are two sources of motivation— inside-out and outside-in. One lasts; the other doesn’t. I think real motivation comes from inside:

• A quality solution or product that they feel really helps a customer — one that the customer will thank them later for selling to them.

• A solution that can win. It doesn’t have to be superior; it just has to have relative strengths that they can focus on the right prospect without stretching the truth. It must be one in which they can have contagious conviction. Salespeople have to have a playable hand. They can only make up so much gap.

• Good compensation — competitive, no-caps, fair, high-upside. In most companies with successful sales forces, a salesperson is often the most highly paid person in direct compensation. And management thinks that this is wonderful because the stock would be sky high if the company had 20 more of them. And never, never cut it in the middle of a year unless somehow you think 100 percent sales force turnover is a strategy. (It’s happened.)

• Trips. It’s not just the trip; they can afford the trip. It’s the peer and management recognition. And it’s being able to go to your spouse and tell them you won them a trip to a very nice place. Visions of warm climates seem to drive salespeople though the snows of December.

• Personal standards and drivers. Ambition, ego, self-image, fear of poverty, achievement mentality — I’ve seen them all work.

• Working for good management that they can trust and the opportunity for personal growth.

• Achievable goals. Make ’em stretch — but an unattainable goal will demotivate a sales force faster than anything.

• A support organization that will help the sales force create a great buying experience for the customer and make them feel good about what they sold.

If you don’t have these things, a motivational speech, cheerleading, or a merchandise contest won’t help. If you do have these things, you don’t need the others. Focus your speakers on achieving the preceding.

Primary Intelligence has an excellent “Sales Confidence Index” survey that actually measures confidence of sales forces in the preceding factors. If your salespeople don’t believe in your company and your solutions, then they can’t sell them with conviction, and you may not know until too late without third-party feedback.

Win-Loss Reviews — The Silver Bullets of Truth

Another great metric is a win-loss analysis by a third-party organization. The words of the client as to why you won or lost are the silver bullets of truth.

Companies such as Primary Intelligence create win-loss reports that are invaluable and must be conducted by an outside third party. These reports collect information and feedback as to why you lost so that you don’t make the same mistake over and over again. This information is pure gold (and you are going to pay for it in one way or another) and needs to be refreshed on an almost-daily basis.

It will help salespeople learn from win-loss reports if they first accept that all losses are the result of being outsold. Some will say that they were just in the wrong deal. If this is the case, and they stayed until the end, they were outsold.

In the case of the “lesser product” excuse, if they sometimes win with the lesser product due to superior selling, then they must have been outsold. If price is the excuse for the loss, why didn’t they find that out earlier?

It has been said that there are three things that can happen in a deal: You can win, walk, or get outsold. In reality, there are four. You can also lose to no decision after wasting resources.