Sales Performance and Productivity Series – post 1 of 4 

Those in the world of B2B sales live by performance, but we thrive on productivity. We’re often asked, “How much did you do?” (performance) long before we’re asked, “How did you do it?” (productivity). We know that we are rewarded and promoted based on our performance.

Performance is the trump card for everything in sales. It covers problems, hides deficiencies, and rides every economic wave. Performance receives help from great products, solutions, and successful customers, while it suffers from poor execution, strong competition, and weak messaging. There are many factors internal and external that impact performance.  All we know in sales is that we need more—always more. 

Two Choices

Sales leaders have two avenues to increase performance:  add headcount or improve productivity.

1. Adding headcount simply puts more quota bearing and revenue producing “feet on the street” by hiring more people to sell the way you currently sell.

2. Improving productivity, on the other hand, is based on how current sales people can sell better. This means focusing on:

• where they sell – coverage models, metrics, compensation plans, quota, funnels, forecasts, and sales cycles

• how they sell – sales skills, process, methodology, strategy, training for new hires, and a customer-engagement approach

• What they sell – product/solutions, customer messages, leads, knowledge, content, collateral, and sales tools.

Powering the productivity of the sales organizations is the frontline sales manager (FSM) and the underlying technologies that support sales efforts. FSMs are a powerful influence because they interact daily with their salespeople as both a customer management expert and a business management leader.

Sales technology provides transparency to the data, information, and intelligence that salespeople need to connect with their customers, collaborate with their team, and calibrate for success—which brings us full circle to back to performance.

Sales leaders must choose wisely the productivity initiatives they will invest in to fix their performance issues, accomplish their revenue goals, and avoid rebuilding their career.