Seems like I am encountering many articles and posts regarding under-performing salespeople. Now SalesforceXP.com offers Move Bad Salespeople Up Or Out. The author offers 5 strong steps to get the mediocre salesperson performing. His first step is one we fully endorse:
Never lose sight of the ABR principle: Always Be Recruiting.
If you have five strong candidates in the pipeline, you don’t have to endure a low performer. But if you have no bench, you may opt to keep a warm body around €“ even if that body hasn’t sold anything in weeks.
That is an area in which we can be of assistance. There is much truth in this approach. If you know you have a strong bench, you tend to be more direct in your assessment of your low performers.
And the article closes with the crux of the issue for sales managers:
Realize that you need to get comfortable with confronting people on poor performance. You can’t be a sales coach and a conflict avoider. When someone is failing at selling, you’re not doing him a favor by letting him coast along.
Low performers eat away at your coaching time and can infect everyone else’s attitude and mental capacity. They pollute the sales culture and can actually bring down overall performance.
One of the tasks many sales managers avoid is holding their salespeople accountable. But sales managers avoid this activity at their own peril. Salespeople need to have direction while also having clearly defined parameters and expectations. Sales manager who abdicate their authority in this area weaken their leadership…drastically.
We will address this topic with a new addition to our hiring process next week so please look for the announcement.