Each time I traveled to Manila to visit a call center I owned, this was the typical traffic of a city of 10 million people- stop signals were rare, there was no regard for traffic rules, and no one seemed to have a plan. Many don’t even have their drivers license. In short, it’s complete and utter chaos. And despite it all, it sometimes worked. 

Sales can be like that. In Greenberg, Weinstein, and Sweeney’s book titled “How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer”, they report that:

– 55% of the people earning their living in sales should be doing something different. 

– 20-25% additional salespeople have what it takes to sell, but should be selling something else. 

It’s called the 80/20 rule, but I prefer to call it the 20/80 rule because it drives the point home more effectively if you realize that 20% of your sales team is producing 80% of your company’s results.

What about the other 80%?

Your 80 percenters are not performing optimally, and it is likely your 20% superstars will get burned out sooner than later. Something is wrong. 

There are a couple of primary reasons this typically occurs, but a major one involves “Activity Inspection”. As a sales manager, do you have a tactical plan for your reps that doesn’t simply say “achieve $X of billable sales monthly”? More importantly, do you stay involved in your reps plan, the activity inspection?

I have seen a fair share amount of sales managers simply go over the high level activities of the rep- how many dollars were brought in, and little more. Without a real plan that you and your rep develop, it turns out to be just like traffic in Manila. 

Sales managers, if your rep has a problem, do you dig deeper? Do you look at the number of dials, how many were transferred to voice mail, how many reached a gatekeeper, a decision maker, and the number of appointments set? Do you travel on sales calls to observe? Is the rep’s sales funnel activity legitimate?

If you have a tactical sales plan, it provides a set of activities that traditionally have been proven to achieve results, expectations, achievement date, etc. Often, it will not include the monthly sales dollar goals, but it provides the activities to help achieve those dollar goals. 

But more importantly, invest time with the rep and the plan, and if for some reason improvement is not made within a defined period of time, then either train, reassign, or terminate the rep.