Assessing Sales Reps Means More Than Quota

‍The leaderboard tells part of the story, not the entire story. We constantly hear sales are all about numbers and quota. Walk onto the sales floor [now known as Zoom] and ask who the top rep is. The answer is the same old “look at the leaderboard”. It’s outdated. It’s narrow minded. It’s overly simplistic. Money will always come first but there are so many other pivotal ways to assess sales reps.

Characteristics turn into revenue

Curiosity, creativity, coach-ability, positivity, and the list goes on and on. These are the same characteristics we all want salespeople to possess. These terms make you feel like you are reading a job description on Indeed or LinkedIn.The repetitive answers prove their importance; I have to admit I yawn when I hear generic responses. I’ve seen countless bottom performers overcome their bleak attainment when they exhibit the right characteristics. I’ve also seen top performers suddenly fall off a cliff when they exhibit the wrong characteristics.A lot of highly successful sales leaders I’ve met say their stories started with failure. Drake knows what I’m talking about – started from the bottom, now we’re here. If their respective companies overvalued quota, these sales leaders wouldn’t have had an opportunity to prove themselves. There are businesses who regularly make this mistake and pay a huge price, seeing their previous employee flourish elsewhere after firing them prematurely.According to Salesforce, most reps will only spend 14 months in their roles. When that happens, the smart recruiters spend most of their time qualifying candidates on characteristics, not quota attainment. When I was the SVP of Sales at Qualia, I loved asking candidates: “What’s one thing you believe in that most of your colleagues disagree with and why?” Behavioral and situational based questions, questions beyond the surface level. That’s how you get to see what someone is really made of.Quota attainment only lasts 1-month, maybe quarterly or annually for mid-market/enterprise account executives. Come the end of the month, quarter or year, we go back to zero and start all over again. Characteristics travel with you from job to job. They’re an integral part of your identity. No matter the industry, type of product, average contract value, the best performers find ways to win because those characteristics are ingrained in their DNA.

The “It” Factor

Turn on an NFL game and the announcers say the “It” Factor to describe quarterbacks. It’s the same principle for sales reps. “It” Factor reps bring more to the table than last year’s president's club photo album.Defining the “It” Factor is extremely tough because it means something different to each individual. The commonality traces back to characteristic based answers. Bill Barnwell of Grantland said: What does “It Factor” mean? “It Factor” can mean just about anything you want it to mean, truthfully. The word is often synonymous with “intangibles”, which itself has been twisted to mean something like “things that can’t be measured that we will try to measure anyway.” Toughness, leadership, and bravery are familiar qualities we associate with intangibles, and likewise, they come up very frequently in articles about the It Factor.The NFL’s characteristics and sales characteristics are different, although the pain of a bad month and the pain of being hit by linebackers have some crossover. The underlying theme is identical. Within sales, it’s hard to quantify curiosity, creativity, coach-ability, it’s doable though.Curiosity can be quantified with the type of questions someone asks. Do they ask clarity and follow-up questions, or do they bounce around to a million different topics? Clarity and follow-up questions are a result of curiosity and active listening. A million topics will come off as interrogative and robotic. Prospects have to be understood to solve their needs.Creativity can be quantified with specific examples. What has the rep done to differentiate their messaging? I receive countless cold pitches and I only respond to the most creative messages. I’ve seen people leveraging video more than ever, enabling their outreach to feel authentic and funny. Quickly study up on how to do video before diving in. I recommend following Morgan Ingram on LinkedIn to learn how to turn videos into a strong pipeline. Morgan talked about the subject in depth via Hippo Video. Gong routinely sends their prospects Cameo’s from famous celebrities. That’s the next level of creativity.Coach-ability can be quantified with sales role plays. Sure, role plays are awkward and hard. I don’t ask for role plays and expect good responses; I use them as a test to see how they apply feedback. If they make a clear attempt to apply my feedback, they pass the role play with flying colors. You can also ask: What was the last piece of sales feedback you applied and why were you open to doing so?

Helping Others

The other aspect I value deeply is when reps help each other and are genuinely invested in seeing each other succeed. If the entire team is rowing the boat in the same direction, the team’s quota will become a matter of when, not if. Teams with great chemistry are overwhelmingly obvious and those same teams avoid tribal knowledge.Once I learn something that works, I immediately share it with the entire team. I was eager to see my coworkers’ results skyrocket with this advice. Whether it’s talk tracks, objection handling, email templates, the challenges and tasks at hand are the same. It’s way easier if we’re working on this together.Sales organizations usually have a high performer who frequently gets asked to coffee by peers. Sure, they are probably hitting their number but the origin of the ask goes way deeper. The coffee type of reps are clearly nice and selfless, getting great enjoyment out of helping others. To this day, I meet with reps and give them guidance to avoid making the same mistakes I did.There are many top performers who don’t get asked to coffee because they sit in the corner with their head down. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this type of attitude. We hire sales reps to hit their number, not to tutor their neighbor. From the broader perspective, there’s a lot wrong with this attitude. One great sales rep barely moves the needle, so it’s imperative to have his or her knowledge become commonplace.Collaboration and alignment are must haves. I will sacrifice a bit of one person’s number for more collaboration and synergy. Macro perspective over Micro perspective.

Example to tie this all together

Let’s quickly break down two scenarios to make this tangible and actionable.

• (Option A/Rep A): Sales rep averages 80-90% to quota and epitomizes the characteristics we’ve discussed.
• (Option B/Rep B): Sales rep averages 110% to quota yet lacks energy, complains regularly and isn’t open to new ideas.

Give me rep A all day. Easy call. Ideally, we get both, but we don’t live in a fairy tale world. I have also let go of plenty of the Option B type reps and their attitude can bring down the whole org. In doing so, many Option A type reps rise to the top and become stars.The amount of revenue between Option A and B might mean little to a company in the grand scheme of things. Developing the entire sales team dramatically improves the bottom line. Rep A will turn our vision of more Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) into reality. Rep B surprisingly and ironically puts us further away from the end goal. Even though Rep B individually brings in more revenue today, Rep A actually has the ability to contribute more revenue overall in the end.Mind trip and a jigsaw puzzle, I know.

The Point Being

The next time you assess one of your reps, keep this post and example in mind. Take a step back, think big picture and analyze what will drive the most impact to your business.It’s about creating the right behaviors. The right habits. The right processes. Top-notch characteristics produce sustained, scalable and predictable success.