How do you know that your reps are better than their reps?
by Todd Youngblood
“Is your sales force better than that of your top 5 competitors?” I’ve asked that question of sales managers countless times. Even if sales and market share are both shrinking, sales leaders will wax eloquent about the knowledge, experience and savvy of their team. Something seems odd about that…
Just how would you determine whose reps are better? Is it revenue? No. That would mean that the largest company in an industry has a monopoly on the real talent, and the smaller ones are filled with dolts. Is it revenue growth? No. We can all cite numerous examples of obviously below average reps that sell a lot because they blindly stumbled into the right place at the right time; their predecessor left them a bunch of just-about-ready-to-close deals; their uncle is the decision maker…
Sales per rep? Number of reps that made quota? Percent of reps that got a satisfactory performance review? None of those metrics seems to hold up under even the slightest scrutiny.
The fact is, hard data – benchmarking data – about the quality of execution of sales best practices, is extremely hard to come by. Not only that, data to prove that a sales practice truly is a “best” practice is equally rare.
With your intellect, 15 minutes of your time and some analysis on our part, we can take a step toward addressing this inability to compare sales talent.
We’ve put together a self-assessment based on The Methodical Sales Process™ framework. It:
- Explores how well you execute a core set of sales best practices
- Determines how effective each of these practices could be if executed well
- Allows for write-in and ranking of practices that work well for you
In the early fall, we’ll publish results. They will enable you to compare the performance of your reps vs. standard benchmarks and each other. The next steps are obvious. Exploit strengths and enhance skills in the weak spots.
You don’t become the “best” sales rep or sales team simply by beating your chest and declaring it as fact. You’ve got to measure yourself against objective standards. You’re only the best if you score higher than anyone else.
Think about it…
