It’s convenient, and practical, to segment sales teams into three groups, the top performers, the bottom performers and those in the middle. Whether it’s a 20/60/20 split or a 30/40/30 is of little concern, what matters is that each have differing needs and need different support.
As a manager, it’s great working with the top performers, the ones winning deals. It’s often satisfying working with the middle group but naturally, the problem children don’t get the attention they deserve; it’s not fun and it’s not easy so it gets put off.
It’s well known that the cost of poor performers is high but how often do they languish at the bottom of the league table for far too long? The (still very common) tradition of simply getting rid of the bottom performers is rarely simple. It’s invariably time consuming, difficult, wasteful and in these litigious times, often risky.
Few managers like to admit failure, whether of recruiting, management or training but this is an area where, ‘step one is admitting you have a problem’ and step two, a proactive approach to fixing the problem can really pay dividends.
First of all, how much does a poor performing salesperson cost?
If the direct
cost is £5-10K a month then someone hitting 50% of target might just be
covering their costs but that’s deceptive. The opportunity cost is the
difference between that situation and what you’d get from an on-target
member of the team. That could be 10 times better if you’re a software
company or another high margin company.
A sum like £50k a month
concentrates the mind and should not be ignored but that’s often what
happens, every month action is deferred whether for good reasons or for
bad. There are also many less tangible costs associated with not being seen
to take action, what impact does your inaction have on the rest of the
team? What’s the impact on your career? It’s usually better to be seen
as being proactive rather than having to wait for some bean-counter to
point out the obvious.
The knee-jerk reaction is to
get rid of poor performers, which is why underperforming sales people
pushed out of one company often do better in their next job. This “sink
or swim” management style can be painful and wasteful if it leads to too
much churn with the resultant increase in recruitment costs and the
lack of productivity whilst each newcomer gets up to speed.
We wouldn’t advocate being a
soft touch, if someone is genuinely not capable of the job in sales
they should go. However taking the time to work out why someone is not
performing, identifying if it’s possible to achieve a turnaround and
then doing it is usually worthwhile.
A short period of intensive
mentoring will tell you if the situation really is irretrievable (and
the recruitment was a mistake) or if some support and perhaps some
training can remedy the situation.
In an ideal world the sales
manager would take on that role but in the crunch between high targets
and a tough marketplace few can find the time to address the issue, let
alone the objectivity to do it well.
“Help” from HR is usually limited
to booking a place on a standard but largely irrelevant sales training
course. HR rarely have the sales experience or skills to provide
relevant coaching. Once the “Performance Improvement Plan” die is cast,
it’s probably too late for both parties.
There is another way, mentoring by experienced individuals, often on a freelance basis, is
available at a cost that’s a fraction of the opportunity cost of ongoing
failure. Sales training can be provided on a one-on-one basis and
tailored to address the specific issues that are inhibiting performance.
Web meetings open up new opportunities to reduce the cost and increase
the effectiveness of mentoring by enabling short focused and
situation-relevant sessions to be held independent of geography and
within tight time constraints.
If it succeeds everyone benefits; if it doesn’t then the experienced
mentor will have set some targets that weren’t met, it’s likely to be
explicit why and the way to an amicable parting that minimises the pain
on both sides will be clear.Done well, it shows the team that
management is taking firm, positive action and prepared to invest where
it’s justified.
The middle of the Summer quarter is a good time to take a long hard
look at who’s at the lower end of the league table and what can be done
about it. If you don’t have the time the cost of getting help is much
less than the cost of doing nothing.
