It's such a common state that it's become accepted as a fact of life in sales:
20% of sales people bring in over 60% of the revenue
Year after year, surveys have backed this up. CSO Insights, in their 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Report, showed the following:
People just assume this will never change. But they're wrong, it is changing...for the worse. I've talked to several sales leaders in the last 6 weeks who have said that the gap is getting even bigger in the economic downtur, to the point that 10% of sales people are bringing in 80% of the revenue.
It's hard enough for average reps to hit their numbers in good times when companies are investing aggressively. A combination of luck and accidental sales helps some of them hit their quotas. But in a downturn, only flawless execution of the sales cycle will get you a deal.
I always ask them what their best reps are doing differently from the rest of the pack. They usually have no idea, because they don’t have enough visibility into what reps do in the field.
So they chalk it up to intangibles. It’s in their DNA, it's intuition, it's stuff that can’t be taught to the rest of the reps.
The fact is that the best of the best are adapting and figuring out what works. The best reps know how to get aligned with decision makers. They’re doing this by uncovering the real buyer’s pain and issues, and having credible conversations about how working with your company will make those issues go away.
The rest are struggling. You’ve seen it, they always talk about all the great phone calls they had this week, but the phone calls don’t end up going anywhere, and all this activity isn’t translating to enough pipeline opportunities and deals.
What scares me the most about this is the number of Sales VPs who put all their attention on that top 10%, and sink or swim for their quarter on what those 10% can produce.
What you should be focused on is finding out what those 10% are doing, and pull out the nuggets that can be replicated by the mere mortals.
Now expect you’ll get pushback from lots of places. Sales managers will balk, and say that the reps who aren’t selling just need more leads, or they’ll tell you that the best reps won’t reveal their secrets.
The reps themselves will likely tell you that they don’t know what their magic is. But if you push through this resistance, you’ll find gold. I know I find gold every time I do this for a company.
Listen in on sales calls. Listen to the words the buyer is using when they talk about their issues and raise concerns.
Get 20 minutes with one of your best reps. Ask them:
- What do the conversations sound like when you’re at that stage with a buyer?
- What issues are they struggling with?
- What objections are the buyers raising? How are you overcoming those objections?
But don’t stop there. Talk to customers who recently bought from that rep, and ask the customer one question:
When you were going through your decision-making process, what did the sales rep do to earn your trust and help you make a confident decision?
You’re really looking to find out why they bought, and hear in their own words how they describe what you do for them.
I guarantee if you make the effort to find out what's working, you'll find a whole slew of things you can package up and use to arm the other 90% of reps so they can be delivering more value in the conversations they have with buyers.
