After 28 years in the world of Sales as a Service™, MarketStar has forged many lasting relationships with leaders in our field. We’ve asked Claudio Ayub, a 20-year channel veteran and Chief Channel Strategist of Perks, to discuss his view on improving sales performance through his experience as a loyalty marketing expert with broad knowledge in strategy development, market management, and channel sales planning.
Solving Lackluster Sales Performance, Once and For All
Does this seem familiar? You meet with your team to talk about sales performance, and after an initial discussion that doesn’t provide any insights, the discussion centers on a familiar litany of exhortations, including the need to focus and work harder. The meeting is dismissed and members of the sales team trudge dutifully if somewhat quizzically out the door, not really sure of what to do next except to repeat their same efforts with greater intensity.
The key to turning around lagging sales performances is not to use the desired number (sales or revenue objective) as the end all and be all, but to use it as a starting point. In their book, Cracking the Sales Management Code, authors Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana tell us that the path to a solution is to work backwards—to “reverse engineer” from the desired number to find the performance metrics (the specific actions or activities) that are behind the numbers, and that can ultimately help deliver them.
While this solution at first glance sounds simple enough, it is not happening partly because sales managers are inundated with more data than they can handle. They rely on CRM systems that provide plenty of information on where, and by how much, sales are off, but do not offer any insights on the activities that need to be implemented or changed to help achieve the desired numbers. The authors believe that what is missing from all of the data are the instructions— the specific activities to engage in—to solve the problem.
Repeated client experiences show, as do research findings and plenty of case studies, that the activities that can help a company reverse persistently flat sales performances can be found with its best sales people. These individuals are top performers because, one way or another, they have figured out the activities or best practices that get results. By identifying and breaking down these activities into replicable steps and communicating these to others to adopt and implement, a company can take the crucial first step toward reinvigorating its sales efforts.
For an in-depth read, this is the resource for you:
http://resources.perks.com/h/i/203381277-case-study-enough-is-enough-sales-incentives-that-work
