TOTALS

10  out of 20
50 %

Ultimately it’s all about making the numbers, and you’re falling short in this area. There can be a number of reasons for this, and you’ll undoubtedly find a few in the rest of this report.

13 out of 25
52 %

It appears that your sales team is not as effective as it could be. Pay attention to creating more value in your offering so that discounting can be eliminated, or at least kept to a minimum. Make sure your sales process is well understood by everyone and that you are qualifying opportunities effectively; this will insure that you are spending your time with your best prospects and eliminating the poor prospects quickly. Also, you probably need to do a better job at getting to the decision maker if you want to shorten your selling cycle and get more business.

24 out of 40
60 %

Sales management is an area where significant improvement could pay huge dividends. You probably want to spend more time managing the team and less time selling. You need to develop your people, set expectations for them, give them the resources they need and provide the motivation and feedback they need to succeed. Make sure you have the right people in the right place, and make sure you’re working to develop their strengths. You’ll get far more out of that than you will by trying to fix their weaknesses. We’d strongly recommend a new book on management, First Break All The Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Based on years of research, it shows what top managers do that other managers don’t, and why breaking the traditional rules for management work in today’s complex selling environment.

16 out of 20
80 %

Looks like training is part of your company culture. That’s good because there’s always something more to learn. All things being equal, the best trained sales force will deliver the best results.

18 out of 40
45 %

Seems like there’s a lot of room for improvement in your team. If you don’t have the right people to make your sales goals, you need to start to clean house. By the same token, you may have some good people who can, over time, rise to the occasion with your help. Your first job is to decide who should stay and who should go, and don’t be afraid to make changes. The cost of keeping someone who is not suited for the job is very high, both in terms of hard costs and lost opportunity cost. Assessments (behavioral style, motivational factors and skills) can help you make that decision intelligently. Your next step is to determine what you need to do to get the rest of your people up to speed. Provide them with a clear understanding of what your expectations are and give them the resources and training they need to succeed. Give them feedback as to how they are doing and provide proper motivation to keep morale up. Make sure their compensation plan reflects and rewards achievement of company sales goals. It’s a big job, but the key to success.