I wanted to title this blog "Top performers WANT to be measured, but poor or average performers NEED to be measured," but I was told that isn't a very strong title for click-throughs.
Nevertheless, I will continue with this blog despite my disappointment.
As you know, your best salespeople want to be better!
- They want/need feedback.
- They want to know the score.
- They want to know how they compare to others.
- And they want to be measured so they can see how good they are compared to the rest of the team.
I LOVE working with top performers. They push themselves, they push their teammates, and they push me! Your sales team (and the world) would be so much more fun if everyone were a top performer. **Sidenote: You can have a team of all top-performers, but that is a blog for another day.
However, your poor and even average performers NEED feedback. They need to be measured. Sadly, one of the reasons that they're poor or average performers is that they don't want to be measured. They'd rather wallow in a sea of uncertainty and ignorance of their success (or failure), which is why you must be proactive and measure and provide feedback.
What do you measure? Excellent question.
In today's "data crazy" world, we can often be drawn in the sea of dashboard data, so you need to focus on the most important data to measure.
2 Ways to Measure Top (And All) Performers
1. Revenue
Yes, this is an easy measurement.
Are they at budget? Yes. Good. Your work here is done.
Wrong.
This is just the first step in measuring your salespeople. And sometimes, it's not even a very good measurement. We often confuse success with talent. Just because a rep is hitting budget doesn't mean that he's good at their job or talent. They might just be in the right place at the right time with the right account list. It could also mean that you set their budget too low, and they are leaving money on the table and underperforming.
2. Activity
If the revenue is not where it needs to be, or you think they are leaving money on the table, then you should definitely be measuring their activity.
If you've read my posts before, you know that I believe in measuring "leading indicators" because this data can help you adjust in the middle of the month/quarter to make a difference still.
What are these leading indicators? They are the activities that lead to revenue.
The number of:
- prospect engagements
- discover meetings
- presentations
- new business closed
This is the kind of activity that should be measured to improve sales performance.
- If you want to make top performers elite, then look for ways to measure and provide feedback on what they are doing.
- if you want to turn poor or average performers into top performers, then you need to do the same for them.
We can't manage what we don't measure, so start measuring today!
*Editor's Note: This blog was originally written in 2017 and has since been updated.
