From identifying new opportunities for growth to driving profitable revenue streams, salespeople are the fuel to your company’s fire. As sales managers and leaders, we often state that our team is our most valuable asset, but are we doing anything about it?

If we’re going to take this principle seriously, then identifying your human capital expense is essential. Do you ever wonder if you’re doing your very best as a sales manager?

Quick Exercise to Identify Human Capital Expense

At CSS, we believe talent is absolutely necessary, but it also takes coaching and mentoring for a salesperson to reach their true potential.

Here are the steps to a quick exercise that Matt Sunshine, Managing Partner at The Center for Sales Strategy and VP Talent Analyst shows in our Talent Focused Management (TFM) workshop that will help you identify your human capital expense.

This simple exercise ensures that you’re investing time with the people that are going to yield the greatest results on your team.

1. Take a plain sheet of paper
2. Fold it in half – vertically
3. On one side, rank your team based on performance. Rank from the person who performs the best to the person who performs the least. Performance could mean several things. Base it on who brings the most value to the team in how you’re looking to derive that value from them.
4. On the other side, rank who you invest time in to get that performance out of them.

When you open the page, you should have direct lines going across the page from one column to the other. If they do not match up, it’s time to reset your priorities!

Turn Talented Sellers into Top Performers

Talent can only get you so far. A person has to activate their talent in order to make big things happen, and sometimes they need extra  coaching from sales managers. If lines don't match up on your simple paper exercise, here are some ways to help turn your talented sellers into top performers.

• Tailor individual focus meetings
• Improve in-field coaching
• Utilize sales talent assessments
• Make it a point to designate the time for any coaching and development opportunity

Human capital expense is an integral aspect of assessing an organization’s recruitment process, the effectiveness of its onboarding programs, and the ability of managers to bring out the best in new hires. By keeping track of these measures, sales managers and executives gain a thorough understanding of what talent acquisition and retention methods are working — and what’s not working — within their organization.