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Advise from the Field
December 01, 2006
Struggling sales reps benefit from feedback as they go
By Betsy Cummings
When mediocre sellers are holding back sales at Business Payment Systems (BPS) based in New York, Steve Feldshuh takes action— but not by berating them on poor performance. Rather, Feldshuh, the president of the merchant-services company, tries to gear agents to move from the lagging 80 percent into the top 10 or 20 percent of sellers. He does that through concentrated, thoughtful, in-the-field strategies, warming reps up to clients first with short, non-pitching meetings. Then he asks them to "open their mouths" and deliver a pitch just days after they've gotten their feet wet from dropping off BPS materials at prospects' offices.
The tactic works, he says, and boosts their performance through gradual sales improvement rather than a do-or-die approach to closing the deal.
For most managers, developing a strategy to help mediocre sellers can be tough, says Joachim de Posada, president of Dr. Joachim de Posada and Associates, a sales consultancy in Miami. It starts with in-field observations, something that managers should spend 80 percent of their working time doing, he says.
Once in the field, says Steve Johnson, president of The Next Level Consulting, a business consultancy in El Segundo, Calif., and author of Selling is Everyone's Business: What it Takes to Create a Great Salesperson, feedback is the key to migrating a rep from average to stellar. Don't just verbalize whether a call was good or bad, Johnson says. Create a feedback report on paper and write down comments the rep can revisit later, along with a rating scale of how well he performed on the job. The point is not to browbeat sellers—criticism hould be constructive, not disparaging. Instead, provide specific information so that the next sales call actually improves once the reps have taken explicit steps (putting three more slides in a presentation, for example), rather than offer vague comments like, "You should be more enthusiastic when you pitch our products."
Ultimately, Johnson says, if a manager is an effective leader, observer and supporter in the field, "there should be a healthy migration" to his rep becoming a stronger seller.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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