When business owners, executives and managers complain about "80/20" performance on their sales teams (where just 20% of salespeople produce 80% of sales), in many cases a primary cause of this performance disparity is their own sales management philosophy.

Basically what they do is hire salespeople and turn them loose. They figure (and I'm paraphrasing here), "They're salespeople - they should know what to do!"

These managers are right…10% to 20% of the time

My experience has been that 10% to 20% of salespeople are talented enough and sharp enough to figure out for themselves how to succeed in their sales position. This includes:

• Determining which business problems their companies excel at solving
• Identifying and quantifying the impacts these business problems have on prospects and customers
• Leveraging this information to develop effective elevator pitches and prospecting messages
• Learning how to qualify opportunities for the company's entire portfolio of products and services
• Extracting "best practice" information to maximize their chances of success during each step of the sales process
• And so forth

If just 10% to 20% of salespeople can figure all of this out for themselves, is it any surprise that there is an "80/20 rule" in sales team performance?

The Overlooked Opportunity

According to research that I reference on the MySalesTest.com website, approximately 55% of salespeople should NOT be in sales. They simply don't have the talents required to succeed.

If 55% of salespeople SHOULDN'T be in sales, this means that 45% of salespeople SHOULD be in sales. If 10% to 20% of salespeople are talented and sharp enough to figure out how to succeed without any assistance, this means another 25% to 35% of salespeople COULD be successful... but only if they are provided with the proper tools, training and reinforcement. If management doesn't provide the necessary tools, training and reinforcement, these salespeople are likely to fail.

Creating a Predictable, Repeatable Sales Process

My approach to helping companies build and manage top-performing sales teams encourages management to treat sales as a predictable, repeatable process. This means that all of a company's salespeople are expected to sell in a substantially similar manner. Sure, there is latitude for salespeople to customize aspects of the sales process to fit their own personalities. However, there are also certain activities that every salesperson is expected to perform in a specific, clearly defined way.

One way to help salespeople become familiar with your company's well-defined sales process, plus reinforce any training you provide, is to supply your salespeople with a thorough, properly designed Sales Guide.

What kinds of information should a Sales Guide include?

A great place to start would be answering the following questions:

1. How would you describe your Ideal Customer? Components of your description could include industry, geography, company size, business unit or function, job title, personality traits, situation/need, etc.
2. What are your target markets?
3. What specific business problems do companies in these target markets have that your company can solve?
4. What are the impacts of these business problems? A great training tool is short stories that demonstrate business problem impacts.
5. Can you quantify the impacts of these business problems?
6. What types of activities should be included in a salesperson's prospecting plan?
7. What quantity of each activity should a salesperson perform on a weekly basis?
8. What messages should salespeople use when prospecting and networking? In other words, what can they say that will be so compelling that it will grab the attention of target prospects and convince them to schedule discovery conversations?
9. What questions should salespeople ask during discovery conversations to determine whether prospects have any of the types of business problems your company can solve?
10. If prospects have some of the business problems your company can solve, what questions can salespeople ask to quantify the impacts of these problems?
11. What questions should salespeople ask to ensure they are qualifying the full scope of available opportunity?

12. What questions should salespeople ask to determine whether prospects are worthy of the time and resource investments required to manage sales cycles?

The focus of the above questions is providing salespeople with information that will help them identify and qualify opportunities. This is the most critical information new salespeople need to learn in order for them to become productive quickly. Finding and properly qualifying new opportunities is also what most companies want most from their salespeople. If salespeople can find and thoroughly qualify opportunities, there are usually ample (expert) resources available to help them turn those opportunities into sales.

Should a properly designed Sales Guide include information about other steps in the sales process?

Absolutely! It is desirable for your Sales Guide to provide information that makes it as easy as possible for your salespeople to successfully execute EVERY step of the sales process.

For significant steps in the sales process that are performed with any frequency, it is desirable to record (in either audio or video format) a successful salesperson performing that sales process step. These recordings should then be meticulously scrutinized to identify all of the little things the successful salesperson does that improve his or her effectiveness. These "best practices" (which are likely the result of painful, expensive trial and error that took place over many years) should be written down so that new salespeople can refer to them while viewing or listening to the recording, along with explanations of why the best practices are more effective than alternative approaches.

Because successful salespeople have probably been using best practices for a long time, doing things this way probably seems natural and obvious to them. But, these methods are NOT likely to be natural or obvious to most new salespeople. Why hope that new salespeople notice best practices on their own and choose to adopt them? Why not intentionally bring this information to their attention as part of your new sales hire training process?

Developing an effective new sales hire training process requires careful thought and some tedious work. But, the payoff - helping new salespeople become productive in record time and "saving" the 25% to 35% of salespeople who would otherwise fail - can be extraordinary!

©2010, 2012 Alan Rigg

About the Author

Sales and sales management expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Team Performance and the companion book, How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling. His services for helping companies build and manage top-performing sales teams include developing the kinds of new sales hire training tools described in this article. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020sales.com.

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