10 Keys to Solving the Sales Performance Issue

  • October 22, 2012
  • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
  • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

sales performance issuesYour kids won’t eat their vegetables, your parents won’t listen to you, your suppliers won’t provide customer service excellence, the President (as of 10-22-2012) of the United States can’t get the economy going, your football team isn’t winning enough games and the majority of your salespeople are underperforming.  You have no control over the football team or the economy, you may have given up on your kids and parents, you can switch suppliers, but what can you do about your salespeople?

You don’t have to put up with mediocre and inconsistent sales performance.  It’s a choice and you can choose not to do so.  Yet nothing will change if you don’t begin doing some things very differently.  Today I’ll share the 10 Keys for Overcoming Inconsistent and Mediocre Sales Performance:

          1. Identify Skill Gaps.
          2. Identify Neutralizing, Paralyzing Weaknesses.
          3. Make Tough Personnel Decisions.
          4. Raise Expectations.
          5. Eliminate Excuse-Making.
          6. Improve Accountability.
          7. Improve Your Sales Coaching.
          8. Hire Stronger Salespeople.
          9. Optimize the Sales Process and Pipeline.
          10. Provide Targeted, Results-Orientated Sales Training.
There are both right and wrong ways to accomplish these 10 steps and unfortunately, human nature often leads us down the wrong path.  Why?  We tend to choose that which is most comfortable for us rather than that which is best for the company.  Talk about gaps!  You can drive a truck through the gap between “most comfortable” versus “best for the company”.  If you want to enlighten yourself and need a place to start, create a 3 column spreadsheet and enter the 10 steps in column 1.  In column 2, “Most Comfortable”, enter what you believe would be the most comfortable way for you to achieve the corresponding outcome from column 1.  Then put the spreadsheet aside and save column 3 for our Nov. 14 webinar when you can compare the gap between your answers in column 2 versus what I prescribe for column 3.