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Nothing is more frustrating than watching one person crush it on your sales team…while another person in the same situation flounders. 

What’s the best way to improve a sales performance? How should we handle performance evaluations? And who is responsible for performance management, anyway? Is it the HR manager, the sales manager, or someone else entirely?  

Every good sales manager has wrestled with these questions at one point or another.  

Let’s take a step back and look at why improving sales performance can be so difficult. 

Improving Sales Performance is Tough Because People Are Complicated  

Can you solve a problem if you don’t understand it? No…and we typically don’t understand the causes behind sales performance. 

Who can blame us? People are complicated! 

It’s hard to know what truly drives, motivates and inspires someone, let alone in the workplace when we are each busy with our own responsibilities. However, we can’t improve sales performance until we understand the drives and needs behind their workplace behavior.  

Traditionally, we resort to guesswork and awkward, stilted conversations when addressing sales rep performance. We ask someone what would help them improve, what’s going wrong, or what they’re missing. Next, we do our best to accommodate those needs and set goals to motivate the sales representative to improve.  

And then nothing happens. Or we see an improvement…but fall back to square one within a few weeks. We see this happen time and again in sales.  

Unfortunately, these efforts are often built on a misunderstanding of the situation.  

The Answer to Sales Performance Lies With People Analytics 

It’s incredibly difficult to efficiently and accurately gain an understanding of workplace behaviors through simple conversations, interviews, or discussions. The sales rep in question might not feel comfortable sharing issues with their manager, they might distort the truth to make themselves look better, or they might not even have the self-awareness to put a finger on the problem. 

People analytics provide a highly effective solution to this complicated issue. 

With cutting-edge behavioral assessments, we can quickly gain in-depth, accurate insights on the core drives and needs of an individual. This helps us understand the behavior behind sales performance issues. Here at Qualigence, we use the assessments provided by the Predictive Index.   

These assessments can be completed in as little as six minutes and are accompanied by comprehensive write-ups that explain an individual’s natural strengths, needs, and drives, as well as what they may struggle with in the workplace. In short, it’s a cheat-sheet to sales performance! 

Understanding Is The Key to Stronger Performance

Once we truly understand why someone is acting the way they are, we can inspire greater performance from our sales reps. When you understand the core of what’s driving someone’s behavior – what drives them to crush it, or what’s leading them to under-perform – we can adjust our management style to cater to their unique needs.   

At the end of the day it’s all about inspiring our sales reps rather than simply motivating them. Motivation revolves around the carrot or the stick, both of which offer diminishing returns. By inspiring our sales reps, we light a fire inside of them to go on and crush their goals. It’s a holistic, long-term solution for boosting sales performance. 

For some individuals, inspiration might come in the form of public recognition of their accomplishments. For others, that may be embarrassing. They might feel more inspired by a personal note acknowledging their achievements and the opportunity to take on more responsibility. 

People analytics are your shortcut to understanding what someone will be inspired by, as well as why they are inspired by it. 

People Analytics Are Just The Beginning 

People analytics are just the start of the sales performance equation. You use these tools to gain an understanding of your team, but then it’s time to put that into practice by managing your sales reps accordingly.  

If you’re looking to learn more about this topic, please contact us today. One of our performance consultants can give you a free demo of these behavioral assessments. In just a few minutes, this scientifically validated assessment reveals a lot about yourself and your strengths in the workplace! 

Give it a shot with absolutely zero strings attached. 

The right people, empowered to perform.