Boost The Performance

of Your Sales Force

JOBAID

Through observing 800 salespeople in the United States in 2010,

management researchers Lynette Ryals and Iain Davies discovered
that even though companies are investing ever-growing amounts in
their sales process, 63% of salespeople underperform! As a manager,
how can you identify them and help them improve?

KEY IDEAS

Only 9% of appointments lead to a sale, and less than 0.5% of salespeople

1. beat their objectives.

Among the five decisive steps that make up the sales process, prospecting and negotation
2. are the ones where salespeople judge themselves to be least effective.

Training and collaboration are the two key performance factors for the sales force in the long term.
3. Managers’ efforts need to be concentrated on them first.

Based on “Do You Really Know Who Your Best Salespeople Are?” by Lynette RYALS and Iain DAVIES (Harvard Business Review, December
2010) and “Sales Signals Report,” a Krauthammer study in collaboration with the ESC Clermont Graduate School of Management Group, 2010.
JOB AID Boost The Performance of Your Sales Force
1 STUDY THE MAKEUP
. OF YOUR SALES FORCE
The first step for managers is to identify the types that make up their
sales force. The study of Ryals and Davies shows that salespeople are
divided into eight different types, whose performance varies widely. Only
37% of them can be described as effective.
Three Types of Leader
• Experts (9% of the sample): their sales seem to be effortless,
their clients are always highly satisfied, and their sales volume is
systematically greater than that of their peers.
• Closers (13%): these salespeople are capable of sealing very
large-scale deals, and know how to overcome their clients’ objections.
But their “smooth talker” approach can sometimes lead to their losing
out on certain prospects.
• Consultants (15%): are great listeners and are gifted at finding
solutions to their clients’ problems, although they sometimes lack
business vision and may miss out on the most profitable sales.
Five Types of Underperformer
• Storytellers (7%) are very customer-centered, love to make the
arguments for their product, but they talk too much and waste time on
appointments that do not lead to sales.
• Aggressors (7%): they approach their job as though their main task
was to negotiate a price. They may generate a lot of sales in certain
periods, but customers generally find their offensive approach
unpleasant.
• Focusers (19%): they know their product perfectly, but lack self-
confidence. They spend their time detailing all the characteristics of the
product, and do not listen to their potential customers’ questions.
• Socializers (15%): impress customers straightaway with their
friendliness and their ability to move outside the sphere of the purely
professional ... but they generally do not manage to get back to business.
The result: they close very few deals.
• Storytellers (15%): they know their product and their market perfectly,
but rely heavily on a script that is prepared in advance. They hold on
desperately to their marketing material and are incapable of responding
to customers’ concerns.
2 • JANUARY 2012
2 PERFORM A PERFORMANCE
. DIAGNOSIS
The sales process can be broken down into five distinct steps, each of
which requires specific skills. Understanding the needs of the sales force
at each step makes it possible to identify various stumbling blocks.
Understanding the Five Key Steps in Sales
• Prospecting – Identifying and approaching potential customers:
telephone prospecting, emailing, scheduling the first appointment, etc.
• Diagnosis – Defining each customer’s concrete needs: questioning
them in-depth, understanding their expectations and their fears.
• Persuasion – Convincing clients of the value of your product: providing
clear explanations, knowing when to say no, etc.
• Negotiation – Reconciling often-contradictory demands: reaching a
win-win agreement, responding to objections, etc.
• The closing of the deal – Signing the contract and building a
durable long-term relationship: guiding the customer to the final “yes,”
helping with the installation of the chosen solution, preparing the
following steps, etc.
Study the Weaknesses of your Sales Force
In fall 2009, Krauthammer consulting surveyed 111 salespeople (the
large majority of whom work for multinationals) and found that while the
prospecting and negotiation phases are the ones where salespeople
deem themselves to be least effective, there is progress to be made at all
levels... provided that the right measures are taken.
• Prospecting: are your tools for selecting prospects effective? How
long does it take to get an appointment? Could this be improved? Do you
know how the first contact happens (telephone or face-to-face)? Have
your salespeople received enough training?
• Diagnosis: have the questions needed to identify the prospect’s
concerns been formalized? Are you making the efforts required to
identify key decision-makers? Is there an overall sales strategy or do
your salespeople work alone?
• Persuasion: are the sales points precise enough to allow salespeople
to stick to the facts? How do they manage their time spent on
appointments? Could it be reduced? What data are you using to
continually improve the sales pitch?
• Negotiation/closing the deal: are the salespeople well trained for
negotiation? Is there a clear pricing policy? Are customers’ objections
(particularly those relating to the competition) centralized in order to
collectively work out the best way to respond? How does the sales force
prepare the post-signature period?
© Business Digest
 JOB AID Boost The Performance of Your Sales Force

3
• Make prospecting into an opportunity for mutual aid and
ENCOURAGING SKILL constructive imitation, by bringing salespeople together once or several
. DEVELOPMENT times each month on a common platform to prepare their appointments
together. Insist on the collective writing of sales pitches.
Managers often make the mistake of thinking that salespeople are born
• Help them to identify the best people so that they know who
and not made. Once the diagnosis is finished, guiding skill
to go to for help. Make use of modern tools (forums, blogs, wikis, etc.)
development—including that of the best salespeople—is decisive in
to promote the exchange of best practices.tiques.
helping sales staff to adapt to changes in their profession, product, and
• Make use of coaching: use experts, closers, and consultants to help
customer base.
lower-performing salespeople to progress. Offer coaches and mentors
to new recruits and employees who express interest.
• Move beyond the limits of the sales force: who in your company can
Choose to Train help sales staff drum up business? Are employees in other departments
Training allows managers to leverage performance in three ways:
(notably marketing and communications) in contact with the same
• Skills of the trade: training programs, the best way to improve an
customers? Can they recommend salespeople? ■
employee’s sales technique, must be based on feedback from
salespeople themselves. There is no
point in investing in negotiating
courses if the main difficulty facing
the sales force is making the first
appointment.
Go Further
• Knowledge of the product and
customers’ needs: only salespeople
THE ART OF PERSUASION: WHAT WE CAN LEARN
who know their product inside and
FROM SALES
Business Digest no. 154
out are in a position to satisfy their
What differentiates the average salesperson from what Steve. W. Martin calls
customers’ needs and become
a “Heavy Hitter”? Beyond mastery of sales methods and their product, they
business partners. Furthermore, the
pay special attention to the human dimension that is at the heart of their
greater their technical understanding,
relationship with their customers. Their core know-how is made up of a
the more they present a positive
mixture of intuition, persuasive ability, and highly developed listening skills.
image of the company: customers
Understanding these qualities is all the more essential given that the art of
respect this.
persuasion is important far beyond the world of sales. Based on Steve W. Martin’s book Heavy Hitter
• Engagement: retention rate,
Selling, (Sand Hill Publishing, 2004) and interviews with Anne Marie Bülow-Moller, professor
individual motivation, and thus the
at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and Scott Raskin, president of Telelogic Americas
overall skill level of the sales force
and Asia-Pacific.
increases with investments in training
programs.

SALES IS A SCIENCE: HOW THE TOP 2% SUCCEED

By Allan Lobeck, iUniverse.com, February 2011.
Place Your Bets
What does it take to become a truly high-performing salesperson in an
on Collaboration
extremely competitive world?
Is the profession of a salesperson a
How do the 2% of individuals with extraordinary sales figures do it? Forget
solitary one? To think so is a serious
everything you learned and start over: sales is an exact science, not an art!
mistake. Drawing on the shared
Based on more than twenty concrete examples, Sales is a Science gives an
experiences of salespeople and other
exhaustive overview of the different steps in the sales cycle. From planning
members of the company is an
and prospecting to signing the contract and customer evaluation, Allan Lobeck
excellent vehicle for informal
offers sales professionals a chance to adopt an approach that is rigorously established and that leaves
learning.
nothing to chance. This book, written by an expert who has spent more than 25 years in sales,
© Business Digest

will win over both salespeople and managers who struggle to establish processes to ensure that
their sales teams perform at their best.

JANUARY 2012 • 3