You have set the expectation from the word go that anything below achievement of quota is unacceptable. Your salespeople need to hear this again and again, over and over and over. Sound like a broken record, its OK. You never want anyone to not know what minimum expectations of performance are. More importantly, you never want them to not know what is expected (i.e. excellent and far above quota) performance looks like.

Remind them of their goals constantly. Keep their goals in your tasks in your PDA or Blackberry. Know what they are and expect them to be accomplished. Remind your salespeople constantly. Then when they are talking about any sort of new business relate it back to the comp plan, then to their goals. Nothing motivates quite like money and achievement.

When I started as a new manager, I noticed that a salesperson who worked for me had consistently been at the top of the country for a number of years. It seemed like new sales just sort of “came to her”. It was especially puzzling as I got to know her and rode in the field with her: she was not particularly strong; in fact she was fairly unremarkable…if not even mediocre. But somehow, she always exceeded her quota, not just by a little but by several hundred percentage points.

When I started, I made it a point to work with her far more than anyone else. I didn’t do it because she was such a great sales consultant; I did it because I really wanted to know what she knew. Somehow, she was making it all click, with fairly minimal effort as far as I could see.

I watched her. I noticed that she made note of her accounts regarding certain activities, such as when an office added staff members or was expanding, she made special note. You could see it in her face when she got a nugget of information that although it had nothing to do with her ability to sell effectively, it would mean dollars to her if she used it correctly.

On our calls to those accounts, she sold the goods and services we were charged with selling pretty well, but she did it fairly unremarkably. What she was extremely adept at was uncovering information, not necessarily to use to her selling advantage, but information she knew would assist her in her bonus compensation goals.

I then studied her sales report at the end of the month. For the account mentioned, even though there was modest selling activity on my call with her, she wrote them in as a new sale.

I started to realize that sales success at this company had a lot do with how the commission plan was manipulated towards the advantage of the salesperson. The plan “was what it was” – there was no changing it. The only differentiators was that this salesperson had figured it out.

Once I realized this, I immediately taught the same concepts to the rest of my salespeople using her keys (without ever mentioning her in my communications), but also incorporating my own interpretations. Salespeople who were not even hitting quota suddenly were blowing it out.

We were on to something and it was all fair and legitimate according to company policy.

Post a response to this blog and tell me what are your expectations and performance looks like.