As a sales leader, the most common way to evaluate your team member’s performance is to base this on where they are today versus their target. It is, in fact, the only hard KPI that you have to measure your people’s performance. Times have changed. Yes, numbers are still important. But do you have the courage to assess the performance of your people with more intangible criteria?
We all know those types of conversations with your team members.
‘’My numbers are bad indeed, but I have plenty of pipeline’’.
‘’This quarter, I won’t make my target, but next quarter it will be much better”.
‘’My numbers look not so good this year, but next year it will be different’’.
‘’I see that I am behind plan, but my customers are really happy and I have good conversations with them’’.
Many salespeople are good window-dressers; they are optimistic by nature, they always have ‘good conversations’ with their customers, and there are still a lot of new deals that will be signed – someday.
Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. The more difficult for you as a sales leader to assess their performance. But you can do a better job. We believe that a good sales leader can look through the numbers.
It’s not that we say that numbers are not important. They are. It is not just luck that some people outperform their targets year on year. It is also not bad luck that underperformers do not meet their targets consequently. But solely measuring on numbers is old-style sales management, better called Excel- or spreadsheet management.
Having someone new can even be more difficult, because what to assess as you understand that they can have a hard time hitting the sales targets in the first months?
So, besides the sales numbers, we recommend you to deep-dive into a few intangible criteria to assess your team members’ performance. We have summarized them below. Don’t only do this for your underperformers, but also do it for your top performers. Because it’s not a given fact that key performers are always the best salespeople.
”A good sales leader can look through the numbers”.
CEO of Sales
Relationship with customers
People can sign a deal with a customer, but that doesn’t always mean a customer is happy. Evaluate the relationship with your (key) customers and give them a call about how they value the relationship with their account manager. Evaluate how sustainable the relationship is that your team member has built. Has the account manager unconditional support of your customer?
Strategic view
Does your team member understand where the market is going? Does he know in which way your organization should develop to meet the new demands of customers? And does he know how to develop the customer relationship in a more strategic way? Top salespeople, whether they are on target or not, are always able to answer these questions. In the long-term, these people will be the ones that contribute to sustainable growth.
Teamwork
Look for team-players. Ask people from other departments how your salespeople are doing? Do they pro-actively collaborate? Do they share relevant information? Do they involve other people in their deals? Salespeople that are individualists will rarely share relevant information among other departments. They only work to secure their paychecks. People that genuinely take care of your organization and your customers will likely be top performers in the future.
Autonomy
As described in the previous paragraph, your team members must collaborate with other people. But when they ‘delegate’ without taking responsibility – in other words, they throw everything over the fence – you should be aware. As a sales manager, you should be able to evaluate their level of maturity when it comes to signing deals. Are they able to function fully autonomously when needed? How do they act when you are on holiday? Are they disproportionately dependent on other people?
Attitude
We believe that you should hire character over skills. A positive attitude is everything, especially in sales. People should be confident but not arrogant. They need to be humble but not shy to ask difficult questions. They need to challenge with a smile. A positive attitude works contagiously for other people across your organization.
Luck
There’s a saying that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And that’s true. Top salespeople never rely on accidental luck. But some people outperform because of luck.
We all know those people that had an excellent year because of one lucky shot. Frequently, they got promoted, receive a higher salary, and will get better customers. The year after, their performance is bad. The year after, it’s again terrible. But they still refer to that one good year that happened because of luck.
As a sales manager, you should have an eye on the people who had a disproportionate amount of luck. Deep-dive into their performance. Did those person receive a large incoming lead, that was too good to screw up? Did his customer purchase more because of strong customer success management, without any positive influence of the account manager? Does the sales representative frequently take credits for someone else’s effort?
Disproportioned luck could distract you from the brutal truth. It often puts up a smokescreen about the real performance. So be extra aware.
What do you think? Do you have the courage to further deep-dive into people’s performance and look through the numbers?
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