Underperforming Sales Team Meets Management Expectations

I was once being interviewed for the role of Sales Manager in a company with a then under-performing sales team.  I had taken a role as a sales person in the company only a few months earlier and was surprised to learn that only about a third of the sales people were meeting or exceeding their targets.

There was a 'let's beat up sales' culture, while the company was at consecutive quarter number 20 (yes, that's 5 years) of revenue decline.

Why was the sales team not meeting sales target?  Because they didn't need to, as long as they were hitting the crucial target of their executives' performance expectation, year after year.

When I said this in the interview the Country Manager looked stunned.  He made it clear that he expected better of the sales team.  Somewhat red faced, and in what may have been a career limiting move, I told him I was about to prove to him that he didn't expect more of them and they were in fact delivering to his expectation.

As a New Zealand subsidiary of a multi-national tech company I suspected he would have a budgeted cost in his annual financial plan to cover the expense of sending local sales people who exceeded target to the company's regional over achievers club.  When I asked if this was true, he validated my assumption.  Sure enough he had to pay for over-achievers to go on a weeklong 'training' expedition somewhere in Asia or the Pacific.

Then I asked the telling question, "what percentage of the sales team can you afford to send to club based on the dollar value you have budgeted?  I'm guessing you could send about 30% of the sales team?"

I hit the bulls eye, and he wasn't just red faced, his jaw hot the floor.

However, not only was the sales team working to their executives' assumptions and expectations, they were working to their own.  At the start of the year they opened their Sales Plan letters and looked at the target they had been set and, 70% having missed last year's, instantly assumed that they would miss the new year's target as well.  In their minds they had failed before they started.


I was shown a model by a friend of mine, included below.  It will help you break down your own actions, and the actions of people you work with including colleagues, customers and business partners. 

People's actions are driven by how they think and feel about a situation.  How they feel about a situation is driven by what they believe about the situation and the assumptions they have made.  And their beliefs and assumptions are driven by what they value.  I will save the discussion on core values, and whether people really know their own, for another post, but let me deal with the other three.

My actions are ultimately determined by my core values.

In the scenario above, as a sales guy opening my sales plan envelope on the first day of a new year, chances are I have assumed the target will grow even though I didn't reach last year's number.  Once coupled with a belief that nothing I do will change my chances of success, I am instantly disengaged and definitely won't own my sales number.  I am likely to come in late before leaving early, drink a lot of coffee (normally with colleagues while we whine about everything wrong with the business), and execute minimal sales activities.

On the other hand if I believe, based on correct and validated assumptions, that I can make my number, I will feel engaged and motivated to get out and sell.  Why?  Because on day one I assumed success and believed I could get there.

The lesson for sales managers and executives is this.  Assume and plan for 100% success of all sales people.  Don't require that sales people change their actions but instead help them change their beliefs and assumptions.  They will make more calls and work harder when you create an environment where they believe they can achieve, and the company is wired and configured in a way that demonstrates it genuinely expects them to succeed.  How does a sales person know it's your expectation that they succeed?  Because you invest in training, presales resource, marketing and events.  You spend time with them sharing your dream and vision for your organisation's customers.  You create an environment where they can trip over and spill the ball, but have your support to get up and still win the game.

The lesson for sales people is equally as simple.  If you assume you will fail, you will.  Don't be a victim - either get off your chuff and make difference in the environment you are in or get a new job working in an environment where you believe you can succeed.  You will be happier, more motivated and you will make a difference.

Here's to success.

Cheers!