Have you held sales performance reviews this year? Get back up to speed with these 6 sales performance review Dos and Don'ts.
Finding time to review your reps’ sales performance, goals, or skill progression can be tricky with our busy workflows. Consequently, it's no wonder why annual sales performance reviews are so significant: these one-to-one sessions are the biggest opportunity to really connect with your people and influence future sales success. If you're feeling rusty going into sales performance reviews this year, don't stress! In this blog, we’re looking at 6 Dos and Don’ts when running sales performance reviews with your sales reps.
> What to Do when conducting sales performance reviews
> What to Avoid when conducting sales performance reviews
Make sure your review is authentic, clear, and detailed. It’s no use sugar coating weaknesses - be honest about where reps need to improve and give examples. While it’s tempting to give brief ratings, explaining the what/when/where behind a behavior can help reps identify what they need to change.
If a rep is clearly performing poorly, now is the best time to discover why! Identify a rep’s top sticking point and ask when they felt things started going wrong and how the issue arose. With the full picture, you’ll be able to make objectives to rectify the situation.
Don’t create a vague action plan that puts your review and rep self reviews to waste: influence sales success by making corrective action easy with SMART objectives. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound objectives can help you create an action plan with the best chances for success while leaving no room for confusion.
Reps should have space to share their own thoughts first with a self review. Sales performance reviews should be two-way conversations. Make sure you listen to what your reps share and use the information to create SMART objectives.
To give a well informed review, you’ll need a good understanding of how your reps have been going: the good and bad. Each week leading up to the review, take note when reps win or have trouble. You can use these notes later to write comments.
Don’t focus hard on reviewing traits - these are personal aspects which are difficult to measure and change. If there’s a problem with a trait, it’s likely to have been caused by a problem related to behavior or results. Focus on review behaviors and results to understand how a rep has performed and what needs changing to increase performance.
When holding sales performance reviews for you team, use the time to get to know your people better. It’s a time to offer support, share knowledge, and help those who need it most. Let’s recap our 6 points:
Do:
Don’t:
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