Our buddy Don Gray is occupied with some family challenges, so I thought I’d comment on a post that appeared recently by Scot Guber at Sales Benchmark Index’s Sales Force Effectiveness blog.<\/p>\n
Scott’s point was that you should automatically give your top accounts to your new top sales rep, and we don’t entirely disagree, but we think there are a lot of facets that you must consider.<\/p>\n
Don may well have different comments on this particular topic than I do, because his sales force consulting operation works with larger clients than I do.<\/p>\n
1. Top accounts always want to see the President or the CEO, so there might be a limited amount a top sales rep, even and possibly especially a new one, can do. He\/she can certainly help with top accounts, so some sort of shared account relationship might be in order.<\/p>\n
2. In our experience, just because you’ve hired what should be a top performer, and are probably paying he\/she accordingly, there’s not going to be evidence for several months whether he\/she is going to fit in with your company.<\/p>\n
3. We think that giving a proven top rep a top account should be something like a reward for becoming the top rep that you thought he\/she would be when you hired him\/her. This suggests doling out top accounts as the new person fits into the job.<\/p>\n
4. Fitting in is a loose term, because top salespeople aren’t necessarily best at fitting in…they may not ‘get along’ with your sales and or marketing people, for example. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because he\/she was presumably hired to fill a role in your company that wasn’t being addressed, and the upshot of this is that there will be some new attitudes and opinions coming out of the newbie.<\/p>\n
5. So there are no misunderstandings, when you hire what you expect to be a top producer, you should set your expectations with him\/her about what is expected on turnover of top accounts. Sure, the lure of top accounts is a great carrot, but there has to be, in our experience, some stick, too, because without some goals, many top producers might back off for a bit.<\/p>\n
But, none of us in the sales business is exactly a potted plant,\u00a0 so here are my comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
thoughts on turning over top accounts to new top producers Continue reading