Selling Power Blog

How to Be a Feel-Good Millionaire

Many people say that one of their goals in life is to leave the world a better place than it was when they entered it. The thought of improving the world may show lofty ambition – but also hints at arrogance. Good salespeople don't aim to improve the world; instead, they work at improving themselves. If self-improvement is the first step to improving society, what would be the next logical step?

We bring to the business of selling more than just the knowledge of the product, people skills, and the motivation to win. We also bring to our customers our own set of personal and ethical values, values that communicate who we are and what we stand for. Good salespeople know that real champions are not measured by how much money they can collect but by how much meaning they can contribute. Real champions know that laughing all the way to the bank loses its appeal when you realize that, on a gloomy day, a fat checkbook won't hug you back.

Within the last decade, value-added selling and ROI selling became a key ingredient in generating more business. Given the increased complexity of our changing world, I believe that the next wave of progress will be value-added meaning. Sure, business will always demand that we produce profit, yet our minds always demand that we find meaning. Sensible business leaders help their sales teams understand the basic human need for creating both.

For example, the White Dog Café, a Philly farm-to-table restaurant formerly owned by Judy Wicks, used to hold Table Talk programs, during which interesting speakers shared ideas with the patrons. Anita Roddick, the late founder and CEO of The Body Shop, was invited to speak to a wall-to-wall Table Talk audience. Her talk was called, "The Socially Responsible Business: Where Profits Meet Principles."

The idea of “food served with thought” caught on quickly, and Wicks won the Business Enterprise Trust Award for building a greater sense of community. She created value-added meaning for her customers, and business boomed.

Technology giant Google routinely invites authors, musicians, innovators, and speakers to their offices for talks, interviews, and conversations designed to explore the zeitgeist of the day. Examples include Stephen Colbert, who discussed his new book, America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t (October, 2012).

While value-added selling creates dollars that we can take to the bank, value-added meaning creates a different currency, one we might call "feel-good dollars." While it takes a long time to become a millionaire in real dollars, we all can become overnight millionaires by earning "feel-good dollars." How? By adding meaning to our customers' experiences.

Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff has found a way to sell software in the Cloud while adding meaning to communities around the world. He does good because it feels good. He said in a speech he delivered recently, “Philanthropy is the best drug I ever took.” His Salesforce.com Foundation has contributed more than $40 million in grants and more than 440,000 volunteer hours.

You don’t have to be a billionaire like Benioff to feel good. We can increase our feel-good worth by how much meaning we contribute. Good salespeople ask themselves, “What can I do today that will help my customers feel good about doing business with me and my company? How can I bring more meaning to my customers and community at large? How can I add value to the profession of selling?”

Add to your treasure chest of values by getting better at doing good because it feels good when you do it. Become a feel-good millionaire, starting today.

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The Persuasive Power of the Zeitgeist

No, I’m not an economist, but I do have a theory about what influences financial decisions, and it has nothing to do with anything Wall Street ever discusses. It’s called the zeitgeist.

This is a wonderful German word for which there is no English equivalent. It denotes the collective thoughts and feelings that dominate the era we live in. While the word zeit means “time,” geist has two meanings: “spirit” and “ghost.” Loosely translated, it means “the spirit of our time” or “the ghost of our time.”

For example, the zeitgeist in the Y2K era was paranoia about computers crashing on January 1, 2000.

The zeitgeist of the dot-com boom was marked by euphoria caused by the illusion of growth without limits. It was a Pied Piper that invited people to join in a happy parade celebrating greed.

The zeitgeist of post-9/11 was like a fire-breathing dragon that attacked at dawn, killed thousands and vanished into an invisible cave, which left us in a cloud of fear and anger. It was marked by severe disappointment. We paid a heavy price for harboring the illusion that our financial, economic, and military power would make us invulnerable.

Today’s zeitgeist is dominated by the bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, the nuclear saber rattling of North Korean leaders, the political debates about gun control and government spending.

Today’s zeitgeist is also influenced by mobile technology, social media, cloud computing, big data, a shift to an interconnected world that sets the expectation that delays are a thing of the past, since we want to do everything in real time. While technology mixes excitement and hope into the zeitgeist brew, the failings of humanity -- such as killings in schools and at marathons and other threats to our safety -- add a taste of futility and despair to the mix. HG Wells once described the character of civilization as a race between education and catastrophe.

The pendulum of time keeps swinging, and so does the zeitgeist. Psychologists tell us that people who suffer disappointment tend to retreat and rediscover their true strength. What feeds the zeitgeist in the month of April is fear -- fear of acts driven by human insanity or natural disasters. What will change the zeitgeist of our time is courage. It takes a lot of courage to objectively appraise who we really are and what we truly want to get out of life. Upon closer reflection, we begin to realize that the zeitgeist does not really control our lives, we do.

History tells us that periods of disappointment are always followed by periods of going back to basics. For CEOs, that means trustworthy and responsible leadership. For managers, it means that their actions must inspire trust. For salespeople, it means more genuine face-to-face contact and more handwritten thank-you notes instead of hastily punched out texts, tweets, or emails.

Visionary leaders know that the zeitgeist is really a composite of the past that often ignores future possibilities. While today’s zeitgeist urges us to examine the past, we may elude its grip by envisioning and consciously planning a brighter future. Progress demands that we accept the basic insight that’s been taught time and again: our inner strength comes from hope, progress springs from our imagination, and greater meaning comes from building a better future for the generation that follows.

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How Well Have You Adapted to the Global Changes in Selling?

To survive in the sales world, global executives must be adaptable. Studies show that there are three ways people commonly adapt to foreign cultures.

The first is unconditional acceptance of the foreign culture with a critical view of home. For example, a VP of sales marveled that in Japan cab drivers wore white gloves and the hotel staff always welcomed her with friendly smiles. She complained about the lack of courtesy in American business and scorned the negativity of American workers.

The second approach shows a strong loyalty to "back home" culture and a critical view of foreign culture. A manager who went to France complained that everyone was rude, griped about the French taking too much time for lunch, and felt that the French were too slow to understand new business ideas. He concluded that the French could benefit greatly from American know-how.

The third approach is to selectively adapt and integrate the best characteristics from all cultures. A successful adapter will patiently sip green tea with a Japanese executive and refrain from drinking alcohol during a meeting with Arab investors while remembering to make specific notes for a board meeting back home.

Many salespeople don't realize that they need to adapt their sales strategies, as well.

The first style of sales adaptation is to cling to the past while being critical of the present. A seasoned sales rep told me, "I will not bring up the subject of business unless the client brings it up." This salesperson believes that social media is a waste of time, thinks that CRM is a hindrance to belly-to-belly selling, and refuses to leave voicemail messages.

The second adaptation style is to embrace new ideas unconditionally while categorically rejecting old practices. One salesperson I met declared that face-to-face selling was a thing of the past. Believing that the future of selling would be exclusively in electronic commerce, he built a Facebook page, tweets six times a day, started a blog, and built his own landing pages to attract prospects. After two years of hard work, he is still struggling yet scoffs at people who still travel to see customers in person.

The most successful style for adapting to the ever-changing present is to rely on those practices that continue to work well while searching for more effective ways of doing business. The well-adapted executive still writes thank-you notes and personally extends special offers to valued clients. Successful salespeople use social media to engage customers in conversations on their terms while not ruling out lunch meetings. And they know – executives and sales reps alike – that keeping up with what’s current is a demanding job. They realize that if they cling to the past they won't be free to seize new opportunities.

Conversely, people who think of only the future tend to live in their imagination. The best way to adapt is to constantly learn more effective ways to manage the present and be receptive to new possibilities. Adapting to the present demands receptivity and the desire to move into more successful ways of being in touch with reality.

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A New Way to Think about Customer Manipulation

Many books, blogs, and online sales videos suggest a non-manipulative, synergistic, consultative approach to uncovering a prospect's needs. These resources all advance the idea that manipulative selling is a thing of the past. But is it?

The word manipulation has many meanings. Its definitions range from "artful skill" to "to change accounts to suit one's purpose." Today, we seem to give the word one meaning: to make someone do what we want him to do against his will or better judgment. Of course, this is counterproductive in any selling situation. But does this mean that manipulation should not have a place in selling at all? Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of a living thought that may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances in which it is used."

Words are the tools of the selling trade, and their meanings change according to the circumstances in which they are used. Tone of voice, facial expressions, emphasis, and emotion are all in play when a salesperson uses any series of words. How we say something is often more important than what we say.

Consider this simple question: "What is it that you would like to think about?" Read it aloud three times, each time emphasizing different words -- "what," "is it," "you." Can you hear and feel the different meanings when you change the emphasis from one word to another? What impact would those changes have on your customer? Selling superstars can deliver the same sentence 10 different ways, depending on the customer and situation. They manipulate language in a way that harmonizes with the customer. But they never manipulate the customer!

Manipulating customers only antagonizes them. But manipulating yourself to suit the situation will bring you closer to your customer and the sale. Salespeople who try to manipulate customers break the rules of ethical conduct and violate the rules of professional selling. Salespeople who skillfully manipulate themselves break only sales records.

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The Side Effects of Technology

The technology industry suggests that we all can win by out-innovating our competition. That’s a bold promise; however, in reality, technology is like medicine: it often has side effects.

For example, in the year 1900, automotive companies produced 4,200 cars, of which 28 percent were powered by electric motors. While electric cars could run efficiently at about 30 MPH, gasoline-powered cars could reach higher speeds and travel longer distances.

In 1908, Henry Ford began mass production of the Model T with a gasoline engine. The decision prompted Thomas Edison to stop the development of a longer-lasting battery for electric cars.

During the last century, automotive engineers designed more than 10,000 automobile innovations, such as the electric starter, the automatic transmission, the car radio, the electric turn signal, the electric window, power steering, cruise control, cassette and then CD players, ABS brakes, GPSs, heated seats, massaging seats, solar-powered cooling fans, and more.

Then there are related innovations such as traffic lights, speed bumps, detours, radar detectors, speed traps, traffic courts, and more. Today’s cars are designed to drive more than 120 MPH, but traffic conditions slow us to an average speed of about 30 MPH. It is ironic that after more than a century of innovation, we’ve only doubled the speed of a horse. But slow-moving traffic isn’t the only side effect of technology.

Imagine what would have happened if Henry Ford had decided to build the Model T with an electric motor. Charging a battery might cost only $5 per week. Global warming and dependence on foreign oil might not be pressing issues.

dan/freedigitalphotos.net

Information technology creates different side effects. We’ve accelerated the speed of information and increased the volume of information, and every day we master a smaller fraction of what there is to know. Surveys show that with all the computing power at our fingertips, neither business productivity nor customer satisfaction has increased. That’s because information is moving quickly and growing exponentially. Consequently, our days vanish in a blur of emails, conference calls, and insane travel schedules. Information technology tends to subdivide our time, which dilutes our overall focus and often prevents us from thinking harder and deeper.

digitalart/freedigitalphotos.net

Technology allows us to communicate with a lot more people a lot faster. The side effects are that we miscommunicate more often, and we often miss the chance to communicate with honesty.

What does innovation and technology teach us? First, all innovation has hidden side effects. Second, technology does not eliminate complexity.

Managing complexity is one of the toughest leadership challenges. The solution is not to blindly eliminate complexity but to embrace it where it drives up revenues and value. We need to eliminate it when it just adds to waste. Today we need an intense curiosity about how to win without allowing complexity to strangle our humanity or sabotage our hard-earned progress.

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6 Tips to Write More Profitable Prospecting Emails

Today's blog post is by Sue Hershkowitz-Coore, author of Power Sales Writing: Using Communication to Turn Prospects into Clients (Second Edition) which appeared on the Selling Power Best Books for Sales Success in 2013 list.

Every day people forward awful sales emails to me. A recent favorite opened with, "I just wanted to take a moment to personally introduce myself as your sole contact for XYX company! I am truly excited to be put in this position as I am very proud and passionate about … etc." 

It seems reasonable to assume that the salesperson who crafted that email also has her own email account, doesn’t it?  Would she take her valuable time to respond to an email like that? 

What can you do to ensure your emails don't end up on the "Can You Beat This?" segment of my Facebook page? How do you write a selling message that engages buyers and creates sales potential?

Here is the most important thing to remember: prospects are just not that into you. As awesome as your product or service most assuredly is, no one will care about a cheesy, self-involved, features dump. Here’s a hint. If your email begins with the word "I," you've just put yourself in the reader’s delete zone. 

Prospects are twice as busy as you are. Treat them that way. Show value for their time and eliminate all the parts of an email that no one ever reads anyway. From my book, Power Sales Writing: Using Communication to Turn Prospects into Clients (Second Edition), here are six practical tips to help you write more exciting, appealing, profitable prospecting messages:

1. Know why you’re writing the email. Most salespeople think the purpose of an initial prospecting email is to introduce themselves. Dead wrong! You’re writing to get the prospect excited or pique her interest about how she might do the best job. So why are you writing? Plan it out.

2. Be authentic and transparent. Opening your message with: Your name was given to me because you plan meetings... is respectful and quick. It may not be earth shattering, but at least you haven't turned off your potential lead with a phony or self-serving statement. By beginning with a simple truth, you've started the groundwork for a trusting relationship. Of course, if you have a referral, always start there ("Sophie Spaniel suggested I contact you … ”).

3. Paint a picture of your prospect's success. Instead of going into sales-kill mode, think about what the prospect gains by talking with you. Let's say you're a hotelier representing a luxury brand writing to a meeting professional.  Use words that evoke a positive emotion to help the prospect feel what she can gain from talking with you. For example, “Your name was given to because you plan meetings and when you're looking for a beautiful backdrop for your event -- one that creates a relaxing, positive learning environment - we may have an awesome option for you.”

4. Explain the next step. Depending on your brand and complexity of the sale, you might either explain how you'll take the next step or ask permission to do so. You might write, “I'll plan to phone you Tuesday morning to learn more about what ensures a productive event for you. If another time is more convenient, I'll follow-up as you suggest.”

5. Don't use pressure tactics. If the prospect wants to buy right away, she’ll tell you. In the meantime, avoid phrases that make you sounds overbearing. Instead, try saying, "when the time is right." This reduces pressure and sounds less pushy. 

6. Use a subject line that gets to the point. The best subject lines accurately reflect the main point of the email. If you're writing to request a phone call, the subject line could be, “Action request: Phone call Tuesday.” When you want your message to get opened, especially when you don't yet have a relationship with the reader, use a subject line that doesn't sell and quickly explains the essence of the message.

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What's in a Next-Gen Sales Pro's Toolbox?

Today's blog post is by Jacco van der Kooij, sales leader at Harmonic Inc. 

 

 

Traditional focus: internal tools that power the sales process

Over the last decade, marketing and sales processes have been very focused on understanding and managing the transactional part of the business. These include processes that focus on lead generation, demand generation, opportunity creation, demo/trial conversion, closing, order processing, account management, and so forth.

We call it “a process,” which is pretty accurate considering the striking similarities to a production line at a car manufacturing plant, where robots make sure all cars look 100 percent the same.

What tools did we deploy to help our clients and facilitate the role sales plays? 

So what happened to the sales professional in the field? Well, most of us still tap out a couple hundred emails a day on our smartphone while accumulating frequent-flyer points traveling to a client to deliver an in-person death-by-PowerPoint experience. Or if the client’s lucky, we just drown him or her in white papers.

SaaS created a demand for NEW sales tools.

Fast forward to SaaS solutions. With its lower ASP, traditional selling simply became too expensive. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of small companies needed a new class of tools that could help them make transactional sales at a fraction of the cost (no travel), at a higher quality (engaging), and 24/7 (online).

After a couple of years, these tools have matured, and together with key developments that make them compatible with the iPad, they are now ready for deployment in the more complex B2B sale. The one who masters new tools first wins first.

New tools are externally focused on client experience.

It is important to recognize that, unlike CRM tools, the new marketing and Sales 2.0 tools were not built or designed to fill the requirements of a few large corporations. Instead, they were born to fill the needs of hundreds of small, often start-up companies. Most of the smaller companies flourish as they lack irrelevant processes and focus on the client.

These businesses live and die by a great and personal client experience. The very same tools that SaaS companies have used to scale their success are now changing the way we do business. Not only are the solution and consultative sale impacted, but the strategic sale is impacted also. Below is an overview of the tools I’m using these days, and I’ve separated them into categories.

1. Infrastructure 

• iPad mini in a Moko case is my preferred “delivery” tool and “consumption” device. For content creation I use a Mac to develop engaging content that wows clients.
• Because I move back forth between devices, I need everything to be in the Cloud, allowing me to instantly share with my clients.
• I use an iPhone with an additional PhoneSuit battery pack with service through Verizon, because I need a hotspot to connect into my AppleTV. I never depend on clients' networks.
• I also use AppleTV connected through HDMI to a projector or TV. I use the screen sharing to show Websites and apps and to play YouTube videos.
• SalesOpShop is my network place to exchange ideas and learn from others.
• I really appreciate SFDC and love Chatter. My main issue is with how it is deployed by most companies.  You can file that under "Using a Ferrari as a Lawnmower."

2. Social-Media Tools That Provide Scalability 

• With LinkedIn as the portal, I only do at most one very relevant update on my “day job” per day.

◦ I use SlideShare to present business ideas and share points of view.

◦ I like InMail for contextual cold calls andleveraging shared connections.

◦ I distribute a personalized newsletter relevant to my market (technology within media and entertainment).

• My Twitter infrastructure works as follows:

◦ I use Twitter as a newsletter and feed with approximately three messages per day. In the morning, I prefer to send out stats; in the afternoon,I like to send out photos; and at night,my tweets are of a social nature.

◦ I use TweetDeck on my PC and HootSuite on my iPad to monitor for content that may be of use to my clients.

◦ BufferApp loaded on all my devices and in my browsers serves as a workflow system for my status updates and tweets.

• I have a WordPress blog that serves as my FAQ resource and provides a reference site for my clients.
• I use YouTube for relevant videos. Sometimes a little “kapow” can change a block of text.
• Pinterest – I’m still figuring things out on this, but I do love it.
• I use Google+ to share very specific information targeting the engineer.
• And yes, I disconnected from Facebook (which goes beyond the scope of this post).

3. Other Cloud Tools

• Evernote is my notebook. I never thought I would use it so much.
• Box.net is my public file-sharing system. I can then upload docs and share them in a Twitter feed or LinkedIn update.
• I use abunch of Google tools (e.g., Google Voice and Google Docs).

4. Content-Creation Tools

• I use Prezi for remote whiteboard sessions and creating super-engaging content.
• SlideRocketis my tool for holding virtual Webinars and tracking viewer stats in detail.
• I use WeVideo to create simple online videosand Apple iMovie for more complicated ones.
• I still use PowerPoint but drastically less. It is more of an API to other platforms.
• I license my visual artwork via iStockphoto.

5. Communication Tools

• I use join.me for instant online meetings, and it allows me to very easily share my desktop.
• I use Skype on all my devices for multiparty, international video conferencing.
• I’ve also started to use VSee. It' superior in many respects, such as in high-definition multisource recording.
• Google Voice is my screening service.

What tools are you using, why did you choose them, and what do they do really well for you?

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The Sales-Performance Puzzle: How to Solve It

This is the month in which many sales organizations are busy with the Big Sales Kickoff. As the sales leader, you orchestrate a fast-paced show delivered by your company’s best platform talent. The CEO’s keynote is inspirational, the CMO’s presentation is aspirational, the product manager’s demo rocks, and your keynote is densely packed with bold and optimistic predictions and tough challenges. As the sales leader, you are the merchant of hope, and your salespeople are swallowing your message hook, line, and sinker.

But after the team heads for the airport, you may be left with a nagging question: what impact will this kickoff have on your sales numbers? Here is my guess:

1. Retention of information

Twenty percent of your salespeople will absorb 80 percent of the content and then use half of it with customers. Eighty percent of your salespeople will absorb 20 percent of the content and use one-third of it with customers.

2. Impact on motivation

Eighty percent of your salespeople will feel recharged and optimistic about the company and their future, and 20 percent will continue shopping for better opportunities.

3. Acquisition of selling skills

Ninety percent of your salespeople listened to some of the selling skills you shared during the kickoff meeting, but fewer than 10 percent will try to apply the new skills, and after experiencing some failure they’ll revert to their old behavior.

If you don’t believe my guesstimates, consider the solid numbers uncovered by ES Research: according to ES Research’s sales-training surveys, between 85 and 90 percent of sales training has no impact after 120 days. Of the $5 billion US companies spend yearly on sales training, more than $4.25 billion are wasted.

Last week I interviewed John Doerr, a sales-training expert. John is co-president at RAIN Group. I edited the one-hour interview to the most essential nine minutes, and I highly recommend that you watch them, since he shares uncommon insight into solving the sales-performance puzzle.

If you are short on time, you can skip to the end, where I summarized the key points in a few PPT slides (that you can download from our new Website, www.salesopshop.com). To watch the video, click on the image below.

Please feel free to comment below, or tweet your questions using #salesopchat.

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Will You Set Smart Goals for 2013?

We cannot expect to become the directors of our lives if we fail to choose a meaningful direction.

As we approach 2013, we can choose to sit on the sidelines and watch other people score or take charge of our lives by pursuing our goals. Goals are difficult concepts to grasp; many people don’t see themselves as capable of changing, growing, and achieving. They see goals like statues: cast in bronze and placed out of reach.

I suggest viewing goals more like a river that flows from the present moment to a rich land filled with amazing opportunities. Instead of focusing our attention on the two obvious points, the present and future, we need to look at the emerging road between these two points.

Goal setting doesn’t amount to simply creating a narrative about what we want to get out of life or what we want to give back. We need to decide on the quality of our journey. We need to choose a road that challenges our capabilities and our will.

Sometimes people attach so much meaning to their distant goals that they obsess about them while ignoring their need to feel good in the here and now. They overrate the value of the trophy and ignore the meaning of the trip. They tend to forget that success is not a vague destination that resides only in our imagination but a journey into a forever-expanding and precious present. If we can’t expand our awareness to match the richness of the here and now, we’ll never get a chance to claim the fortune we imagine in the distant future.

To become the director of our own life, we need to…

know who we are and take inventory of our talents,

know where we are and scope out our future,

and decide on our goal and the quality of our journey.

One more important thing to remember is not to be influenced by the noise on the sidelines, such as talk about the “fiscal cliff,” the “European debt crisis,” or the “growing economic uncertainty.” Pessimism is misuse of the imagination. Think of the two words “smart goal” as acronyms with two meanings. The logical meaning is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based. The emotional meaning is GOAL : Guts, Optimism, Attitude, and Loyalty.

With a little effort, we can shape our future in the image of our goals. But without a set direction for 2013, we won’t be able to direct our lives, and we’ll continue to repeat what we know hasn’t worked for us in the past. Take a moment now to write down your number one goal for 2013. Carpe diem leads to Veni, vidi, vici. 

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Are Your Managers Hanging On to Bad Sales Reps?

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

One of the benefits of collecting detailed data is the insight you can glean about your company's training needs. Armed with information that clearly highlights each field rep's strengths and weaknesses, sales managers can devise training plans that are tailor-made for each individual.

Great plan!

But while so much coaching advice focuses on field reps, another group has been all but overlooked: the sales managers themselves.

This year, Xactly enlisted researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to help us analyze some of the 200 million transactions we handle each month,  and some interesting patterns emerged when we looked at sales managers and their relationships to field reps. In the coming months, we'll report on our findings in more detail.

We're still interpreting the data, but our hypothesis is that many managers, if on the borderline of attaining their quotas, tend to keep low-performing salespeople on the books for too long. Those managers would rather keep underperformers on the books to generate even a few sales rather than the guaranteed zero sales they'd get if they fired the bottom tier.

That can have worrisome implications for company leadership. It doesn't do your company any favors to have bad salespeople representing you. They can tarnish your hard-earned reputation, blow solid leads, anger potential customers, and lose a lot of deals.

How did we come to this supposition? Through a lot of digital legwork. Our extensive study looked at data from

• 22 million transactions
• 7,492 sales managers at 244 firms
• 61,092 of their immediate subordinates
• 134 million events on which an individual is credited
• 5,897 distinct incentive plans

Here's some of what we found regarding sales managers:

• When managers were on target to hit their quotas, sales-rep turnover was 22.2 percent. If the managers are on track, there's no benefit to keeping salespeople who aren't up to snuff.
• When managers were clearly going to miss their quotas, turnover of sales reps was 18.6 percent.  If there's no advantage to keeping poor performers, managers will go ahead and cut them loose early.
• When managers were on the margin of making quota, when every little bit counts, sales-rep turnover was only 5.6 percent. The sales managers held on to bad reps if they considered them essential to achieving their own quotas.

The message here? You want to monitor your poor performers to determine if you should be coaching them or letting them go. But along with that, be sure to monitor the managers who might be protecting them. You don't want to waste good leads on bad salespeople.

This is just one facet of the data MIT is analyzing with Xactly. Look for more as we develop it further and create benchmarks beyond single companies. Our use of the most current technology, multitenant SaaS, allows us to gather this information across companies and industries.

We'll use this information to help us – and you – learn more about quota attainment and quota-setting trends, and learn more through benchmarking.

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