The Sales Boss

CHAPTER 14 Keep Score Publicly; Motivate Individually

Once you understand your sales process and the key metrics that drive selling success, you should have the foundation for keeping score. Scores should be posted publicly. If you are using your CRM tool effectively, it is simple to have a visual dashboard that shows each of the key metrics in easy-to-understand graphs. These dashboards should be seen not only when people log into the CRM, but also on a large-screen TV in the office that publicly displays these real-time results. The results should be individualized so people can see how they relate to the rest of the team. By doing this, you are leveraging the human behavior tendencies we discussed earlier: people want to belong, and things are good or bad by comparison.

If someone is having a bad month and is fourth on the list for dollars sold, he or she will think: “I might be bad, but I’m not that bad!” And he or she will work extra hard to rise on the list.

Don’t list just the sales totals. List all of the metrics that are relevant to your team. Some companies list total prospecting calls, live demos, lost accounts, total quote volume, win/loss percentages, and margins. You are trying to tell a story of what is important through the data that is displayed. Beware of the unintended consequences that arbitrary numbers can have. For instance, if there is a focus strictly on the number of quotes issued, you might find salespeople indiscriminately sending out quotes to unqualified ...