How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance - Part 1
by Alan Rigg
Published on this site: June 13th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
Business executives and sales managers frequently bemoan "80/20"
performance on their sales teams, where approximately 80 percent
of sales are produced by approximately 20 percent of salespeople.
Why do salespeople perform so differently? What is it about top
sales performers that enables them to achieve such vastly superior
results?
Certainly there are some sales skills that anyone can learn. For
example, it is easy to learn how to ask reflective questions. These
questions begin with the words "who", "what",
"when", "where", "why" and "how",
and tend to encourage more detailed answers than questions that
can be answered with a “yes” or “no”.
You can learn how to ask reflective questions by participating
in a simple role play. In this role play, every time you ask me
a "yes/no" question, I'll answer "No". Getting
stonewalled with a bunch of "no's" will break you of the
yes/no questioning habit pretty quickly!
Other sales skills are tougher to learn. A good example is teaching
salespeople how to ask questions and "follow the thread"
in the answers. To explain this concept, let's use another role
play. If you ask me a reflective question, I'll respond with answers
that contain some "pain points". If you recognize the
pain points and drill down into them by asking additional questions,
I'll eventually agree to engage in a sales cycle.
Do you know what my experience has been with the “follow the
thread” role play? Some salespeople learn this skill easily.
Others struggle, but they eventually master it. However, some just
never get it, no matter how hard they try!
Why can some salespeople learn this critical skill, but others
can't?
- Reason
In their book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham
and Donald Clifton report that great managers and average
managers have different expectations for their employees.
According to Buckingham and Clifton, average managers assume
that "each person can learn to be competent in almost
anything", while great managers assume that "each
person's talents are ENDURING and UNIQUE".
Most sales books and training programs seem to take the
"average manager" point of view. In other words,
they seem to assume that ANYONE can learn how to sell. Their
unspoken promise is that all you have to do is invest enough
time, effort, and money to learn the skills they teach.
If you make the investments, you will learn the skills and
succeed in sales.
Unfortunately, there are countless examples of sales books
and training courses not producing the desired improvement
in sales performance. Think about some salespeople you know
personally. How many of them are struggling to make their
quotas? Why are they struggling?
Is it the state of the economy? (If other salespeople on
the same sales team are making their numbers, blaming the
economy won't earn much sympathy.)
Is it because they don't work hard enough?
Is it because they don't have enough product knowledge?
Do they need to work harder on their selling skills?
Do they need more coaching from their manager?
What if the "great manager" point of view is correct?
What if everyone CANNOT become proficient in sales? What
if success in sales requires a UNIQUE set of talents?
- Reason
Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney report
this very conclusion in their book, How to Hire and Develop
Your Next Top erformer. After correlating hundreds of thousands
of assessments thatwere performed over several decades with
actual sales performance measurements, they reached these
startling conclusions:
"55% of the people earning their living in sales should
be doing something else"; and
"Another 20% to 25% have what it takes to sell, but
they should be selling something else"
Wow! Those are some sobering statistics! They indicate that
MORE THAN HALF of all salespeople are NEVER going to make
it in sales. Another quarter have some chance of accomplishing
sales success, but only if they find the right job selling
the right kind of product or service.
How can you identify whether salespeople have the talents
required to succeed in YOUR company’s sales job? That
question will be answered in Part 2 of this article.
Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in
Selling:Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform and What to Do About
It. His company, 80/20 Performance Inc., supplies specialized sales
assessment tests and consulting to help organizations build top-performing
sales teams. For more sales and sales management tips, visit: http://www.8020performance.com
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