When it comes to the right salespeople, one of the hardest questions for a CEO to answer is also one of the most important:
Do I have the right salespeople for where my company is going—or simply the people who helped us get where we are today?
This becomes especially important when a salesperson has been with the company for many years, has strong customer relationships, and is well respected—but has started missing quota.
The instinctive response is often to conclude that the salesperson is no longer performing.
That may be true.
But it may also be the wrong diagnosis of whether you have the right salespeople.
To Know If You Have the Right Salespeople, Ask What Actually Changed
Consider a salesperson who has been with the company for 10 years and has historically performed well, but has missed quota for the last 18–24 months.
Before putting that person on a performance plan—or replacing them—look at the bigger picture.
Is the salesperson’s revenue actually declining?
If revenue is still increasing, the problem may be the quota rather than the salesperson.
Perhaps the company has raised the quota faster than the salesperson’s territory or customer base can reasonably support.
Perhaps the salesperson has reached the practical capacity of the territory or their ability to manage their existing customers adequately.
Or perhaps the salesperson’s role has changed without anyone formally recognizing it.
These are very different problems.
Are You Asking a Farmer to Be a Hunter?
One of the most common changes that occurs over a salesperson’s career is a shift from hunting to farming.
Early in a career, a salesperson may spend most of their time finding new customers, developing opportunities and winning business.
After years of building relationships, that same salesperson may have a substantial customer base that requires ongoing attention.
They become very good at managing and growing existing accounts.
That’s valuable.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean they are still the right person to generate large amounts of new business.
If the company now needs substantially more net-new revenue, asking a relationship-oriented salesperson to suddenly become an aggressive prospector may not produce the desired result.
The answer isn’t necessarily to fire the salesperson.
It may be to redesign the sales organization around what that person does best, so the right salespeople stay in the right roles.
Look at Where the Salesperson Is Spending Time
One of the most useful questions a CEO can ask is:
Where is this salesperson actually spending their time?
Look at the customer base in tiers.
Who are the salesperson’s largest and most strategically important customers?
Which customers have the potential to double or triple their business with the company?
Which accounts require significant management attention?
And which smaller accounts consume disproportionate amounts of the salesperson’s time?
A salesperson may be spending hours servicing relatively small accounts while a handful of major accounts represent the company’s real growth opportunity.
If so, the answer may be to reduce the salesperson’s administrative burden and lower-value clients to allow them to concentrate on the customers where their relationships create the most value.
Don’t Confuse a Territory Problem with a People Problem
Territory design matters.
If a salesperson has already developed most of the attractive accounts in a territory, simply increasing their quota won’t create more opportunities.
Likewise, if the salesperson is spending most of their time in a mature or declining market, asking them to produce dramatically higher revenue may be unrealistic.
Before deciding that someone is underperforming or that you don’t have the right salespeople, ask:
Has the territory changed?
Has the market changed?
Has the customer’s buying behavior changed?
Are the salesperson’s largest accounts growing?
How much time is being spent on low-value customers?
Is there enough opportunity in the territory to support the quota?
Is the salesperson primarily a farmer or a hunter?
Is the company asking them to perform a role that doesn’t match their strengths?
These questions can reveal that you have the right salespeople and the problem isn’t the salesperson at all.
Sometimes Keeping the Right Salespeople Means Adding Sales Capacity
Suppose the salesperson has excellent relationships with important customers and continues to grow those accounts but doesn’t have the time—or inclination—to generate enough new business.
You may have a valuable salesperson who is being asked to do two different jobs.
One solution is to separate those responsibilities.
For example, an experienced account manager could concentrate on major existing customers while a newer salesperson, business-development representative or outside prospecting resource focuses on creating new opportunities.
That can be much more effective than expecting one person to simultaneously be the company’s best relationship manager and its best hunter.
The Real Question Isn’t “Is This a Good Salesperson?”
That’s too simplistic.
The better question is:
“Is this salesperson in the right role for the company’s next stage of growth?”
A salesperson who was the key player to get you to $30 million may or may not be the most important to get you to $50 million.
That doesn’t mean the salesperson became worse.
It means the company’s requirements have changed.
The same thing can happen to the entire sales organization, even when you have the right salespeople.
As a company grows, having the right salespeople may require:
Dedicated account managers
Business-development or sales-development resources
More sophisticated prospecting
Larger-account specialists
Different geographic territories
Industry-specific sales expertise
Stronger sales management
More disciplined sales processes
The organization that got you to your current revenue level may not be the organization that gets you to the next one.
Before You Replace the Right Salespeople, Diagnose the System
A salesperson’s performance should always be evaluated in the context of the sales system around them.
If the company hasn’t clearly defined the markets it wants to pursue, the customers it wants to target, the activities required to win those customers and the roles each salesperson is expected to perform, it is difficult to determine whether an individual salesperson is actually the problem.
Don’t start by asking whether you have the right salespeople.
Start by defining what the right salespeople need to accomplish.
Then determine whether your current team has the skills, capacity, territories, customer mix and motivation to do it.
Sometimes you’ll discover that you have the wrong salesperson.
But just as often, you may discover that you have the right salesperson in the wrong role—or the right salesperson working inside the wrong sales organization.
That’s a much more valuable discovery for a CEO.
