There’s an accountability gap that’s hurting your firm’s growth.
Here’s the scenario… as a leader in your firm, part of your job is to manage your firm’s small team of seller-doers. And you’ve set them up for success! They’ve been through sales training, you’ve established a generous commission plan and there’s a well-thought-out sales plan to guide them. You hold weekly sales team meetings, and coach each of them individually on a regular basis.
But even with all the support and resources you’re committing to sales, one of your seller-doers is failing. Falling short of their goal… by a lot. So, you get them some extra training, spend more one-on-one time with them… even get Marketing to launch a campaign specifically in support of them. And still, they’re falling short.
What do you do?
In my experience, the vast majority of market research firms do nothing! They live with it. Sales is not considered an important discipline within the firm, but seen as a necessary evil… so, the seller-doers are not held accountable to the ‘seller’ part of their job. There might be a “you gotta do better” speech, but that’s about it.
So, what happens as a result? Sales stagnate… or decline. And if the scenario above applied to several of your seller-doers – not just one – you’d be in a world of trouble.
So, what are your options?
Option 1: Continue to ignore it (see above).
Option 2: Check the metrics. Are the seller-doers in question making enough calls, generating enough leads, networking often enough, etc.? If so, then it might be that the quality of their work is the problem. So, work with them on improving their exploratory calls, capability presentations, LinkedIn communications, elevator pitch… whatever is needed. Observe them and critique them. Then, give them a probationary period to make things right.
Option 3: You might decide to relieve them of their sales responsibility – and part of their salary and commissions that come with it – and put them 100% back into operations. If operations is their strong suit, it might be worth keeping them around. And they might even like that more.
Option 4: It might be time to let them go. Part of their responsibility was to sell your firm’s services… and they failed. And if you’ve done everything to help… then it might be time to part ways.
Bottom Line
If you’re going to say you take selling seriously, then you have to treat it as such. It can be just lip service. Imagine if the problem was reversed… that you had a seller-doer who was good at sales but kept messing up projects. What would you do?
As the marketplace continues to become more challenging – and as technology continues to embed itself in your clients’ research activities – the harder it will be to grow. And until you start treating selling as a discipline on equal footing with operations, finances, HR, etc.… you will continue to struggle with revenue growth.
Part of this is making sure that your seller-doers know that you’re serious about selling… and one way to do that is to hold them accountable to hitting their goals on a regular basis.
Good luck and good selling.