One of the top challenges of sales management is being able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each of your team members.
Unfortunately, for many, it can be a guessing game. Looking over a sales team, one knows that a few reps do great, the majority can go either way—some months up, some months down—and there are those that never seem to make quota no matter what. Many sales managers simply accept the levels at which their salespeople are selling, urge them on throughout the sales period and help however they can, hoping for the best the whole way.
The truth, though, is that the actual reasons sales reps are not succeeding can be accurately pinpointed. They—and you—can actually find out what is blocking their full potential as sales professionals and take effective measures to raise their success levels. If you have a truly precise method of evaluating each of your sales reps, you can then take steps to either strengthen the weak points or make the strengths stronger.
Core Abilities
At SELLability, we have isolated the core abilities of top sales reps—what we call the “8 Cs.” These are:
1. Communication
2. Control
3. Contact
4. Certainty
5. Confidence
6. Competence
7. Closing
8. Customer Relationship
These are very definitely the core abilities of a salesperson. This is so true that each one can make or break a sales rep.
Each of these core abilities has particular attributes, which can be rated as “strong” or “weak.” The strength of Control, for example, would be “cause” while its weakness would be “effect.”
In another example, Contact has as its strength the ability to reach, while its weakness is “withdrawn.” It would certainly be difficult to be a withdrawn salesperson and sell anything at all.
The strength of Confidence is “belief,” while the weakness is “doubt.” If a salesperson doesn’t think the product they’re selling is good enough for the prospect, or just doesn’t believe in the product or service at all, that would put them close to “doubt.”
Competence is rated by “skilled” at the top or “unskilled” at the bottom. If a sales rep doesn’t really know what they’re doing, that would certainly be a weakness.
Sales Skills Analysis
Any sales manager who wants to know the exact skills and weaknesses of their team should have each of their reps take our free Sales Skill Analysis. The SSA graph will precisely show where each rep is weak, and where each is strong. Just armed with that information, you as a sales manager will be much more effective in being able to lead your team.
But the strengths and weaknesses aren’t the whole story—for at SELLability we’ve also worked out, in detail, how to address every one of these weaknesses. The best thing you could possibly do for your reps—and your company—is to sign each of them up for our online sales training program.
Learn more! Sign up at SELLability.com
