Every org has its best practices, skill training schedules and incentives. But how many of you really understand your sales reps? Each sales rep, to be precise. When you have 1000s of sales reps, it is not possible to understand their behaviour, persona and precise skill gaps. But without understanding who they are, telling them what to do is but a moot point. It is like Cupid firing endless arrows at the wrong people, getting no fruitful outcomes.
Matchmaking is the core of sales success. Allocating the right leads to the right reps has disproportionate impact, every step of the funnel there on. How do you allocate(Based on heuristics/ historical pattern/ equal allocation to all reps) and Who you allocate it to (Is it always the nearest rep/ least busy rep/ most successful rep) forms the secret sauce to making sales teams successful. Let us look at some real use cases.
Rep 2 – Let’s call her Jane. Jane is highly successful; but not prompt, is poor on responsiveness and time to close deals Jane knows she performs well and meets her targets, gets her incentive and is happy with her work life. But her clients complain about the time taken. While Jane does not care about calling a new lead immediately or ensuring that turn around time is minimal; your org is hit by TAT and clients definitely care about this.
John and Jane are two very different reps, in the same team and involved with the same products. John needs skill coaching, pitch practice with his manager and scheduling 2-3 sessions to co-pitch with his manager. Jane, on the other hand, needs a workflow that mandates her to call the lead within an established SLA; barring which she does not get any new leads. Or include an incentive component attached to Jane’s TAT.
For a manager to track each rep in his/ her team is a daunting task. But imagine having a smart assistant in your mobile, who knows each rep and predicts their behaviour, eventually nudging them to success. If you were Cupid, wouldn’t you love to wake up knowing what arrows to cast on whom?
