Focus on Sales Behavior

The recession has change a lot about how we do business—from hiring practices to marketing strategies. Just as establishing a more flexible business plan may be par for the new course, changing how we manage sales teams is essential to success in 2010. Since there is less money on the table to go around, taking different approaches to selling and sales management is necessary.

KBI Helps Motivate
In good times, key performance indicators (KPIs), such as sales per employee, number of sales per day, order backlog, call conversion rates, total daily sales, or gross margins or profit, can be effective motivators. They provide valuable information on how your business is performing in relation to your goals and objectives.

But in tough times, KPI can be less effective, and in fact, can be deflating. Watching KPIs steadily decline can get salespeople into a funk. However, refocusing the sales team’s attention on positive behaviors rather than negative sales numbers will help keep the staff motivated and productive.

Measuring key behavior indicators (KBIs) is one way to keep the team focused on basic behaviors that will lead to a sale. KBIs are daily behaviors that your team can do to stay in front of prospects, including cold calls, walk-ins, thank you calls, demos, and referral requests. Good behaviors breed good attitudes.

Tracking Behaviors
How often do you find that your best salesperson is the most disorganized person in the office? Fearlessness and organizational skills usually don’t go together. Also keep in mind that it is very easy for the sales team to look busy while nothing is really happening. This is why the sales manager needs to introduce a system of accountability that can track behaviors.

KBIs are not easy to capture. If you have a reliable sales system (e.g., CRM) that captures data, KPIs are easy to obtain, but these systems are not always calibrated for KBIs. However, you can implement a simple points system. (Note: if you have a more sophisticated data-capturing system such as Salesforce or your own in-house system, you can create a more complex dashboard of KBIs.)

Using the Matrix
This simple spreadsheet matrix sets a daily point goal for salespeople to achieve. This is a good first step, or even a baby step, for a sales team that has had it easy until the tough times hit. Sit down with your sales team and ask them, “What are the top 10 behaviors you should be doing daily to grow sales?” Then you have a choice, you can rank them by importance, or by level of difficulty. Then, as a team, assign a daily target of necessary points. There should be a mixture of must-do tactical prospecting behaviors such as cold calling (1 point) and client maintenance activities or touches such as client call (1 point), combined with strategic activities such as networking or referrals.

Over time you learn which activities your team is neglecting that may be preventing them from growing sales. For example, it is common for salespeople to fail to go after the low hanging fruit of referrals. Monitoring referral-gathering efforts will ensure that salespeople make it a priority.

If people are getting to their goals daily without cold calling, you may have to change the system. The matrix above is an example of a 45-point daily goal matrix. It has a combination of KBIs that are daily must-dos and some reward behaviors such as closing a deal: cold calling and setting up an appointment nets 1 point, attending the meeting is 5 points, sending a proposal is 5 points, and closing the client is 10 points. If certain behaviors are missing, consider adding quota points. In other words, each week a certain percentage of your points must be cold calls.

Establishing the point system should be done as a team-building exercise so everyone buys in. The total points required for each sales person can be adjusted up or down after a few weeks of gathering data. This matrix should be used as a management tool, not a compensation tool. Compensation is impacted only to the point that these behaviors should bring more results.

The Results Get Staff to Use Matrix
When introducing this concept it should be monitored daily. This is critical in order to build discipline and acceptance. After a month of daily monitoring, results should be reviewed in a weekly sales meeting. After the first month, managers should sit down with their team and review the results and ask for suggested changes. Tracking behaviors daily and over time will help the manager recognize individual and team shortfalls. As time goes on, daily totals can be raised or lowered as the team becomes more focused. By becoming organized through the use of the matrix, the salesperson who struggles to find the time to sit down and devote an hour to cold calling can achieve his or her daily goal in a less stressed way and still feel confident about behaviors and stay motivated.

Go with Your Gut
The matrix also includes a measurement for “10 seconds of guts.” This means overcoming reluctance to specific behaviors by participating in those behaviors for 10 seconds, 5 times a day. Work with your sales people on an individual basis to determine which behavior they should focus their gut time on.