This is not another discussion about sales performance appraisal. We see sales performance management as a challenge that is much broader than appraising sales reps' performance. In fact, we believe sales performance management should be every CSO's (Chief Sales Officer) new reality. The purpose of this White Paper is to provide a way to think about and execute sales performance management (SPM) that is helpful to sales leaders who share a common problem - assuring the CEO that revenue growth, sales profitability and other non-financial objectives (e.g., market share gain, customer loyalty) will be consistently met through effective sales force performance.

Consider this situation faced by the newly appointed VP, Global Sales for a top 100 technology company: “The CEO asked me to review how we set and assign company performance expectations to our sales channels. There is a concern that we are missing our annual revenue growth objectives due to sales force underperformance. I came from a company where we had a sales performance dashboard. It provided me with visibility into booked sales, the pipeline and activities related to each account in it. The nice part about it was that it was already in place when I took over that company’s US sales organization. That enabled me and my leadership team to focus on sharpening the business sales strategy, ensuring that we used the right sales metrics, setting objectives and quotas that supported our strategy, and evaluating effectiveness and taking corrective action where required.”

“I have begun conversations with my new sales leadership team about how they approach sales performance management in their sales channels. What I am finding is that there is no common understanding of what constitutes an effective approach to sales performance management. And, while I do not want to be harsh, it appears that we generally have random practices - everyone is doing parts of what could be an integrated practice. Part of the answer may be to have a software system like I had at my former company. However, before making that commitment, I want my team to have a common understanding of what sales performance management is and how we apply it here to address our CEO’s concerns and, ultimately, to achieve the status of a high-performance sales organization. Is there a best practices approach to accomplishing that?”

Download your free copy of Sales Performance Management: Integrated System or a Collection Disjointed Practices? authored by Jerry Colletti and Mary Fiss, both well known sales management consultants and thought-leaders who have authored over 70 publications.