Archives for July 2008
Do you have an Under Performing Sales Person?
An under performing sales person is going to be an unhappy individual who descends into a downward spiral from which it is well nigh impossible to get out of alone.
Here’s the hard bit to swallow:
You are at least partly responsible for the situation if the decision to employ that person was yours - you got some part of the process wrong.
It can be expensive to remove that under performing sales person from your payroll.
Yet it’s expensive to keep such a sales person in terms of not only salary and overheads but also possible damage to your company’s reputation and certain lost business opportunities.
You cannot afford to do nothing: That’s really not an option.
You could
- Let the person go and replace them
- Move them to another role in the company and recruit to fill this vacant one
- Let them go and, if things are really tight, go back to doing the job yourself
- Or you see if help in the form of training and coaching can turn the person around into a success
It’s worthwhile to bear in mind here that there’s probably already been an investment of time and money whilst this individual went through a product/ service/ solution learning curve before it became evident that certain sales skills were missing. That learning curve will have to be gone through to a greater or lesser degree by anyone else you take on.
In the final option the four keys are:
- Does this individual want to learn skills that will enable them to do the job successfully?
- Is he or she capable of learning?
- Have you or can you provide the underpinning proven processes that will help successfully carry out the role?
- Are you prepared to invest in providing training for the individual to get the skills he or she needs?
What would be the best way forward for your company and all involved?
Linda Mattacks is the author of a series of training courses available at SellingForBusiness.co.uk developed to provide easily accessible training for small businesses who are not in a position (or may not want) to take time out to attend formal training sessions.
Recruiting sales people?
2 out of 3 sales people fail to meet expectations with the first year of employment.
If you’re the employer, how much is this failure going to cost you? Particularly if the failure takes several months before it becomes obvious?
And why does this happen so often when employers obviously take on the person they think can best do the job?
Well, the single biggest reason is that whenever we invest a substantial amount of money in a purchase (in this case a sales person) we always go through the same process:
We are initially attracted by a strong emotion, whether that’s to ease or cure a nagging pain or for anticipated pleasure that the purchase will bring. Then we use logic to justify the expenditure. And, finally, emotion takes over again. If the emotion is strong enough, we will buy.
Notice that emotion starts and finishes the process, with a smattering of logic in the middle! Let’s concentrate some attention and effort back into the logic.
We’re never going to eliminate the emotional factor, nor should we try. “Gut†feelings are particularly important, but we do need to strengthen the input of the logic!
Go to The Sales Professional for your free download on 7 steps to employ the right salesperson.
Linda Mattacks is the author of a series of training courses available at SellingForBusiness.co.uk developed to provide easily accessible training for small businesses who are not in a position (or may not want) to take time out to attend formal training sessions.
