{"id":7018,"date":"2014-06-11T11:44:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T15:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theweekinimaging.com\/?p=7018"},"modified":"2014-06-11T11:44:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T15:44:34","slug":"building-a-high-performance-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2014\/06\/building-a-high-performance-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a High Performance Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sales-team.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-7019\" src=\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sales-team-300x268.jpg\" alt=\"sales team\" width=\"300\" height=\"268\" \/><\/a>No one would disagree that people are a company\u2019s most important asset.\u00a0 If I were a CEO I would be challenging my management team to develop their employees and search for highly qualified talent to bring into the company; employees with fresh ideas and approaches.<\/p>\n<p>In my thirty plus years of managing I don\u2019t know how many times I was told by a failing sales professional that they had a bad territory or an account we couldn\u2019t crack, only to have a different rep prove otherwise.\u00a0 A new set of eyes and a fresh approach, or perhaps another level of engagement, and the account opens up or the territory starts to produce.<\/p>\n<p>So why is it that sales managers, some of which produce the results we are looking for, who have been in their assignments five or more years still have non-performing reps on their team?\u00a0 Given that they\u2019ve had more than five years to put together a highly qualified team shouldn\u2019t they be in a position where all members of the team are contributing?\u00a0 The only legitimate reason to not have a team full of contributors after two or three years in the position is due to your ability to promote people off your team into other assignments.\u00a0 Short of that, lack of focus on hiring and developing the correct employees has to be the cause.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.strategydevelopment.com\/salesmanagement\">Click here for information on Sales Management Training that will arm your sales managers with the tools they need to build a winning sales team.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first thing that needs to change is senior management\u2019s expectation of the front line sales managers\u2019 responsibility to develop each member of their team. I\u2019m sure there are more, but here are a few focus areas to support that initiative:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A key metric would be balanced contribution from each team member. It begins with ensuring that each team member has a metrics based assignment to meet his quota commitment, that the rep possesses the correct skills for the assignment, and that each member is contributing to the expected level.<\/li>\n<li>There needs to be a company focus on what recruiter\u2019s call \u201csourcing,\u201d finding talent and developing a conversation with the individuals to attract them to your company.<\/li>\n<li>A willingness of management to balance fixed and variable compensation so that they pay the going salaries for top sales talent in their area of the country. Salary.com or Glassdoor are two Websites that can give you an idea what those competitive salaries are.<\/li>\n<li>A commitment from the sales manager to develop each member of his team. \u00a0Here the focus needs to be on helping each team member develop strategy and tactics in each and every assigned account and measured through pipeline growth.\u00a0 Additionally, each sales professional needs a written developmental plan focused on their personal areas of development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is critical to have both the \u201cwill\u201d and \u201cskill\u201d to be successful in a sales position.\u00a0 If you have team members that don\u2019t possess both of these characteristics you should de-select them, cut them from the team.\u00a0 I remember one instance in particular while in a planning session for the upcoming fiscal year a sales manager had a rep beginning his third year having never achieved 60 percent of plan. Whatever was lacking in the rep was not the issue, it was clear he was telling us by his performance he couldn\u2019t do the job. The question that produced the break-through moment for this sales manager was when I said, \u201cWhat if you replaced this rep with someone as good as Eric (his best rep)? \u201c\u00a0 When he saw it as an opportunity to make his job easier, that\u2019s when he agreed he would make a change.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a little insight as to why sales managers tolerate non-performing reps: forthcoming sales managers will tell you that they aren\u2019t protecting the non-performing rep, but rather that their toughest assignment is finding, on-boarding and training a new hire. They will tell you that the only thing worse than one new hire is two! They will also tell you that because their sales candidate pipelines are so thin and the selection process so weak that the odds of the first replacement succeeding are almost non-existent; they are hiring the \u201cbest of the worst.\u201d They know that if they deselect the non-performing rep they will need to go through the new hire process two or three or more times to get that one rep that would be successful and productive. That\u2019s why if you have coached them to have strong players in their pipeline and support them in hiring the best talent, they will be more aggressive in their approach.<\/p>\n<p>Something else to look for would be a sales manager with non-producing reps that are not on individual development plans. Your salary and benefits are wasted on these individuals. Even if the sales manager is not compensated on a profit &amp; loss statement, they should see these folks as an opportunity. They should either be developing them into high performance contributors or replacing them with someone who they can develop.<\/p>\n<p>It is often said that the first line sales manager\u2019s role in our industry is the hardest role in the company and maybe that is true, but the job should get easier if the manager is hiring reps with the potential to be developed and he is investing his time and energy in developing them.\u00a0 With a focus on continuous improvement of their teams\u2019 the sales managers will help grow the company, while at the same time making their jobs easier.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.strategydevelopment.com\/salesmanagement\">Sign up Today for our July 15-16 Strategic Sales Management Workshop in Philadelphia and learn how to build the best sales teams that you can.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one would disagree that people are a company\u2019s most important asset.\u00a0 If I were a CEO I would be challenging my management team to develop their employees and search for highly qualified talent to bring into the company; employees with fresh ideas and approaches. In my thirty plus years of managing I don\u2019t know how many times I was told by a failing sales professional that they had a bad territory or an account we couldn\u2019t crack, only to have a different rep prove otherwise.\u00a0 A new set of eyes and a fresh approach, or perhaps another level of engagement, and the account opens up or the territory starts to produce. So why is it that sales managers, some of which produce the results we are looking for, who have been in their assignments five or more years still have non-performing reps on their team?\u00a0 Given that they\u2019ve had more than five years to put together a highly qualified team shouldn\u2019t they be in a position where all members of the team are contributing?\u00a0 The only legitimate reason to not have a team full of contributors after two or three years in the position is due to your ability to promote people off your team into other assignments.\u00a0 Short of that, lack of focus on hiring and developing the correct employees has to be the cause. Click here for information on Sales Management Training that will arm your sales managers with the tools they need to build a winning sales team. The first thing that needs to change is senior management\u2019s expectation of the front line sales managers\u2019 responsibility to develop each member of their team. I\u2019m sure there are more, but here are a few focus areas to support that initiative: A key metric would be balanced contribution from each team member. It begins with ensuring that each team member has a metrics based assignment to meet his quota commitment, that the rep possesses the correct skills for the assignment, and that each member is contributing to the expected level. There needs to be a company focus on what recruiter\u2019s call \u201csourcing,\u201d finding talent and developing a conversation with the individuals to attract them to your company. A willingness of management to balance fixed and variable compensation so that they pay the going salaries for top sales talent in their area of the country. Salary.com or Glassdoor are two Websites that can give you an idea what those competitive salaries are. A commitment from the sales manager to develop each member of his team. \u00a0Here the focus needs to be on helping each team member develop strategy and tactics in each and every assigned account and measured through pipeline growth.\u00a0 Additionally, each sales professional needs a written developmental plan focused on their personal areas of development. It is critical to have both the \u201cwill\u201d and \u201cskill\u201d to be successful in a sales position.\u00a0 If you have team members that don\u2019t possess both of these characteristics you should de-select them, cut them from the team.\u00a0 I remember one instance in particular while in a planning session for the upcoming fiscal year a sales manager had a rep beginning his third year having never achieved 60 percent of plan. Whatever was lacking in the rep was not the issue, it was clear he was telling us by his performance he couldn\u2019t do the job. The question that produced the break-through moment for this sales manager was when I said, \u201cWhat if you replaced this rep with someone as good as Eric (his best rep)? \u201c\u00a0 When he saw it as an opportunity to make his job easier, that\u2019s when he agreed he would make a change. Here is a little insight as to why sales managers tolerate non-performing reps: forthcoming sales managers will tell you that they aren\u2019t protecting the non-performing rep, but rather that their toughest assignment is finding, on-boarding and training a new hire. They will tell you that the only thing worse than one new hire is two! They will also tell you that because their sales candidate pipelines are so thin and the selection process so weak that the odds of the first replacement succeeding are almost non-existent; they are hiring the \u201cbest of the worst.\u201d They know that if they deselect the non-performing rep they will need to go through the new hire process two or three or more times to get that one rep that would be successful and productive. That\u2019s why if you have coached them to have strong players in their pipeline and support them in hiring the best talent, they will be more aggressive in their approach. Something else to look for would be a sales manager with non-producing reps that are not on individual development plans. Your salary and benefits are wasted on these individuals. Even if the sales manager is not compensated on a profit &amp; loss statement, they should see these folks as an opportunity. They should either be developing them into high performance contributors or replacing them with someone who they can develop. It is often said that the first line sales manager\u2019s role in our industry is the hardest role in the company and maybe that is true, but the job should get easier if the manager is hiring reps with the potential to be developed and he is investing his time and energy in developing them.\u00a0 With a focus on continuous improvement of their teams\u2019 the sales managers will help grow the company, while at the same time making their jobs easier. Sign up Today for our July 15-16 Strategic Sales Management Workshop in Philadelphia and learn how to build the best sales teams that you can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82,87],"tags":[151,1474,893,339],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7020,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7018\/revisions\/7020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}