Salespeople require more frequent evaluation than other employees because their performance directly impacts revenue.
Waiting a year for a formal review can be disastrous. A well-designed quarterly review process guides salespeople toward both revenue and career goals.
Let’s dive into what makes a sales performance review effective and how to build one that drives results.
Key Article Takeaways:
- Establish a quarterly review cadence to ensure ongoing alignment and improvement.
- Clarify performance metrics so salespeople know what success looks like.
- Identify root causes of performance gaps and collaborate on action plans with clear timelines.
- Incorporate personal and professional development goals, not just revenue targets.
Best Practice Quarterly Review Structure
The first aspect in developing a productive sales review process is establishing its frequency. To enable your sellers, this shouldn’t be a once-a-year event but rather a quarterly building block process.
Implementing an effective sales review process can create a tremendous impact on revenue results!
Implementation shouldn’t be a burdensome undertaking for the sales manager. When designed and operated properly, the manager and seller invest approximately 1 hour in preparation and 1 hour in productive discussion.
Depending on time availability, you may want to substitute your routine 1-to-1 meetings with your salespeople to make room for a performance review. It’s important that you commit to keeping the quarterly review cycle on schedule. Consistency is key!
Adhering to a quarterly sales performance review cadence helps the sales leader and seller align in areas such as:
- What went right this past quarter?
- Establishing the next 3-5 focus areas to address identified gaps.
- Keeping a pulse on short-term and long-term career goals.
- Gaining insight into how the manager may need to adjust resources or support.
Next is developing the right performance categories for evaluation. Unlike the typical company-wide performance review form that includes three big picture questions, we want to take a more structured approach when reviewing salespeople.
To continuously improve sales performance and cultural impact, I recommend focusing on these three evaluation categories:
- Tangible Objectives – Sales goals, margin targets, and KPI trends
- Will Do Attributes – Behavior, attitude, and teamwork
- Can Do Skills – Ability to perform essential sales activities
The subcategories that go under each of these evaluation areas should be custom to each organization and reflect key points of measurement that drive success in each unique role within the sales department.
Developing an unbiased scoring methodology that gets applied to each rating factor is also a key design strategy, along with weighing the impact of tangible measurables heavier than the others.
After all, even if a salesperson is performing successfully in Will Do and Can Do aspects of their position, if they are not achieving the stated revenue objectives of the role, there’s a big problem!
If you need help designing a high-impact Sales Performance Review approach, please feel welcome to reach out. This is a foundational item I incorporate into my Fractional Sales Leadership engagements, as well as sales infrastructure build projects.
Delivering a Rewarding Sales Review Experience
Now that you have a strong sales performance review track to run on, the next critical step is delivering a powerful review experience to your sellers.
Instead, this is a time to partner with your people to help diagnose root cause of what’s causing undesirable results, behaviors, or skill gaps.
This clarity is necessary to ensure the salesperson understands where the true problem lies and for you to confirm their willingness to focus on improvement. From there action plans can be established to overcome what’s holding them back.
It is also a time to recognize when misalignment may have occurred. For instance, a leader might rate a salesperson as a poor communicator but after discussing breakdown examples, it may be that ineffective workstyle habits are causing the problem.
A seller should leave a performance review meeting knowing what they need to focus on to improve and that you are committed to supporting their development.
Compensation Plan Renewal Needs to be a Separate Focus
Contrary to what most people think, sales performance reviews should not involve discussion around compensation increases or adjustments. In fact, the compensation plan renewal process should be an entirely separate activity.
If reviewing your sales comp plan is currently at the top of your list, check out a previous article I produced for helpful guidance called, “How to Drive The Right Sales Behavior With Your Compensation Plan“.
Applying focus on your sellers’ financial goals, career objectives, and personal goals is a critical aspect of the review process given its tie to employee retention.
Therefore, referring to performance-based comp plan accelerators during the goal setting aspect of the sales performance review is impacting linkage, but be mindful to also address how other non-monetary goals can also be achieved through high performance.
Effective, Consistent Sales Coaching is The Difference Maker
Upon conclusion of a productive performance review, your salesperson should leave with a clear action plan for the coming quarter. This plan may include short-term monthly objectives or longer-term initiatives, depending on the specific improvement areas identified.
To support their development, offer specific resources based on their needs such as books, training courses, shadowing opportunities, or mentorship. Then continuously monitor progress through regular 1-on-1 meetings, acting as their dedicated coach.
In the event underperformance cannot be rectified and employee separation is necessary, it should not come as a surprise because you provided clear awareness of what needed to change and a plan to get there.
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I am part of a national group of Fractional Sales Leaders who collaborate to share insights like the examples shown in this article. We formed because of our shared passion to help business leaders exponentially expand their revenue.
