A quick, easy, and straightforward way to measure your sales team is to rate each rep on a scale of 1 to 5 on two different factors: Competence to sell and willingness to be coached.
Given that your time for proactive developmental sales coaching is limited, you want to focus 1-on-1 coaching on the salespeople who can produce the greatest results, the fastest, as a result of your coaching.
Why is it that many sales managers work on their biggest problem reps (poor skills/low willingness) and their top reps (not much room for skill improvement and often low willingness to be coached) while ignoring those reps with the greatest potential for fast improvement? (moderate competence/high willingness)
Now, perhaps most importantly, this assessment is not solely meant as a tool for you to evaluate your salespeople. If you agree with me that primary responsibility of a sales manager is to develop the competency and willingness of the people on your team, then this is much more than an assessment of your sales team – it is an assessment of you and your performance as the leader of the team.
After you grade your current sales team, ask yourself: “What can I do to improve the skill and will of my sales team over the next 90 days? Implement those ideas, then re-evaluate yourself to test your own progress as a sales coach.
