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Title: How To Match Sales Team Requirements With Management Input Post by: Shawn Tracer on February 14, 2008, 04:39:04 PM In commercial terms we should seek to develop our teams in two specific areas i.e. Competence and Commitment. Competence consists of the combination of knowledge and skills whilst Commitment is a combination of confidence and motivation. The degree to which a person has achieved certain combinations of these factors can be defined as Development Levels. They represent the persons development in the job. The four development levels are: Level 4: High Commitment & High Competence Level 3: High Competence & Variable Commitment Level 2: Some Competence & Low Commitment Level 1: Low Competence & High Commitment I realise that one or two additional levels could be added i.e. Some Competence & Variable Commitment etc. but as I have already stated, simplicity is essential This grading is then translated into the style of management required to obtain the best results from each individual and forms the basis of the Controlled Management model that we devised in 1995 i.e. Level 4: Delegating i.e. Low Supportive & Low Directive Level 3: Directing i.e. Low Supportive & High Directive Level 2: Supporting i.e. High Supportive & High Directive Level 1: Coaching i.e. High Supportive & Low Directive Whilst conducting this exercise you should consider taking the opportunity to not only classify the level at which you believe each member of the team is at right now but also where you feel they could get to in terms of their future potential and what needs to be done to get them there. The areas that you should consider assessing regularly are: Internal Sales Competence Areas Personal Organisation Communication Business Development Qualification Interpersonal Skills Integration Skills Resilience Pro-Activity Team Working Motivation External Sales Competence Areas Planning Communication Presentation Skills Business Development Account Management Opportunity Assessment Negotiation Skills Attitude Team Membership Process & Methodology Pro-Activity Organisational Skills Level Three: Consultative Sales Competence Areas Organisational Skills Communication Presentation Skills Business Development Opportunity Assessment Interpersonal Skills Creative Thinking Critical Thinking People Awareness Integration Skills Resilience Strategic Approach Pro-Activity Negotiation Skills Key Account Management Team Membership Process & Methodology I would also suggest that the following areas are critical to your own development and as a consequence, you might want to frequently stand back and benchmark your performance. Personal Organisation Internal & External Communication Creative Thinking Critical Thinking Resilience Pro-Activity People Awareness Organisational Skills Project Leadership Public Speaking & Presentation Skills Leadership Vision Motivational Management Delegation In Summary: The secret of designing a performance assessment programme, is to construct something that is as simple as possible to understand and implement, whilst retaining the means to benchmark performance as objectively as possible. My own teams have become used to a quarterly QBR (Quarterly Business Review) where their performance against all of their targets not just the financial ones is reviewed. The results from the four QBR meetings provide the foundation for the annual appraisal. What Should An Effective Quarterly Business Review Achieve? follows. The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. All rights reserved. This publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained. Jonathan Farrington is the Managing Partner of The jfa Group jf-assocs. To find out more about the author, view his latest articles or to subscribe to his newsletter, visit:www.jonathanfarrington.com |