Musings from Sales Reviews

Sales leaders, this should tickle your funny bone if these comments sound familiar:

• Deal is all but done, just one more meeting with the CxO to go, trying to get on his calendar next week 
• Best case – this gets signed this week, worst case next month
• 80% done, verbal confirmation received, we should get PO next week
• It’s an unpaid POC for now, but next quarter this could go into production at $1M a year
• Excellent set of meetings with 12 stakeholders, our technical team did such a fantastic job, they are eating out of our hands, sure shot at winning this deal
• I am at 40% of my goal for this quarter but have visibility to exceed next quarter’s quota and the following quarter is going to be a block buster. I expect to end the year way over my goal
• There are many other conversations happening, just that they are not in the system
• Have a fantastic new opportunity, it could start as soon as next month, great meeting yesterday

I am sure I have spouted similar words when I was on the other side of the conversation. I have begun wondering if this is sales optimism as most sales leaders magnanimously take it as, or an attempt to pull wool over the boss’ eyes. Or an attempt to paint a rosy picture in a team forum, so as to not appear to be the weak link in the chain. 

Now, I get it that few of us are like the confident Madman Don Draper, who responds to a customer asking him to sit down with “No. Not until I know I’m not wasting my time.” But most salespersons take time building relationships and nurturing deals to closure, so some element of uncertainty with opportunity sizing and closure is par for the course.

However, sales leaders are faced with a Hobson’s choice - believe the FIB (Future is Bright) and hope the salesperson meets their numbers - so stay with them even when they have missed numbers for many quarters in a row or, not believe the FIB and let them go. I say it’s a Hobson’s choice because like the famed Cambridge livery stable owner, the current salesperson is the horse in the stall nearest the door!  Letting them go is not really a choice, because hiring and ramping up a new salesperson in their place means losing the next two quarters’ anyway! Unless of course, there are other considerations beyond the visible sales pipeline that make the decision obvious. 

Many sales leaders find their own way out of this. Some do a deep dive into every deal, one on one with the salesperson (not easy to do because of the time and knowledge it takes) provide coaching and try and convert the FIB to short-term successful reality. Others give a long rope to the salesperson and see if they make something of the FIB or hang themselves with the rope. Yet others ask the salesperson to introduce them to the customer and try and close the deal themselves. In the process, they commit sales hara-kiri because they undermine their salesperson and prove that they are actually more of an individual contributor than a sales leader. Besides, the salesperson is now off the hook and the leader “owns” the problem!

My suggestion, not a unique one, but one that may provide consistent results and build a motivated yet productive sales organization – always have a redundant 10% sales capacity and consistently take out the bottom 10% performers every two quarters, as a rule that is transparently known to all team members.

Sounds harsh?