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A new sales manager, without the benefit of our insight, could take 8 months to a year to figure out what’s going on and, in all likelihood, still won’t come up with the answers. In most of the companies we evaluate, the managers have been in place for quite some time and don’t have the answers because they aren’t looking in the right places.

There are three more components to this puzzle.

You always know when salespeople aren’t prospecting. Their pipeline becomes stale – not empty mind you, just old. And finally, they aren’t closing enough business. You know it. You may or may not do anything about it. Some managers fire these people. Others ignore it. A few actually know how to provide coaching and motivation in such a way that they can fix the problem. But what happens when you know they’re aren’t getting it done and you aren’t able to say anything or do anything because you’re so uncomfortable with confrontation?

A candidate that had been assessed for a sales management position wrote, “….Don’t you think your sales specific pre-employment assessments are inflexible and not a true indicator of future success? Such tests compartmentalize people, placing them in strict categories. People are not black and white, but colorful, each with a unique identity.”

This inaccurate comment is a great example of how widely people misunderstand assessments in general so I thought I’d take a moment to provide some education.

This particular President made a decision to hire 9 green salespeople because he could afford to pay them only $30,000. What he fails to realize is that it will take the better part of a year to develop 9 green salespeople to the point where they are closing business, other than by accident or luck, on a regular basis. So he invests $270,000 and sees very little revenue in return.

What would happen if he chose to hire 5 experienced salespeople instead?

One client finally heeded some advice they hadn’t responded to for several years. They finally decided to replace 90% of their underperforming independent reps with direct salespeople. They certainly thought it through for a long enough time, considering the implications to the remaining reps, salespeople, customers and employees; programs, applications, legacy knowledge and costs. So on some magical day this year a transition will take place and the company will usher in the new era of performance and accountability. Or so it seems.