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Steve W. Martin
March 18, 2015
What separates high-performing salespeople who exceed their quota from
underperformers who miss their quotas by more than 25%?
I recently conducted a research project involving nearly 800 salespeople and
sales leaders to better answer this question. In addition, I have had the
privilege to interview well over 1,000 top salespeople who sell for some of the
world s best companies. The information from these two sources provides
interesting insights about the attributes of high-performing top salespeople
compared to their lesser successful counterparts.
Verbal acuity. This refers to a communication level where the meaning, nature,
and importance of the words spoken by the salesperson are personally understood
by the customer. For a salesperson to establish credibility requires that
messages be conveyed at the recipient s communication level, not too far below
the level of the words that the customer uses. On average, high-performing
salespeople communicate between the 11th and 13th grade level when scored by
the Flesch-Kincaid test as opposed to the 8th and 9th grade level for
underperforming salespeople.
Achievement oriented personality. Eighty-four percent of the top performers
tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on
achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to
their goals. Another interesting statistic is that over 85% of top salespeople
played an individual or team sport in high school. As a result, they are
well-equipped to function in competitive environments where self-discipline is
a necessity. For example, 52% of high- performing salespeople indicated they
were power users who take full advantage of their company s CRM technology and
internal systems compared to only 31% of underperforming salespeople.
Situational dominance. Situational dominance is a personal interaction strategy
by which the customer accepts the salesperson s recommendations and follows his
advice. While dominance is commonly associated with brute force, this is not
the case in sales. It s simply how people judge others. People are continually
sensing whether their position is superior to yours, relatively equal, or
inferior in some way. In turn, this impacts what they say during conversations
and how they behave.
A relaxed-dominant salesperson speaks freely and guides the conversation as he
confidently shares his knowledge and opinions with the customer. An
anxious-submissive salesperson is forced into reactive behavior and his
tendency is to operate under the direction of the customer, never being in
control of the account. Situational dominance test scores of high-performing
salespeople averaged 20% higher than underperforming salespeople.
Inward Pessimism. Over 90% of high-performing and underperforming salespeople
described themselves as optimists. However, upon further review nearly
two-thirds of high-performing salespeople actually exhibit pessimistic
personality tendencies. I theorize the explanation for this dichotomy is that
salespeople always have to maintain a positive attitude and pleasant demeanor
while in front of customers. However, inward pessimism drives a salesperson to
question the viability of the deal and credibility of the buyer. Therefore, top
salespeople are more naturally driven to ask the customer tougher qualifying
questions and are more likely to seek out meetings with senior level decision
makers who ultimately decide which vendor will be selected.
Sales management impact. Does a salesperson s manager play a determining factor
in achieving success? Study participants were asked, Outside of setting my
quota, my sales manager plays a key role in determining whether or not I make
quota? Surprisingly, the response from high and underperformers was identical.
Forty-six percent agreed with the statement and 54% were neutral or disagreed
with it. Moreover, 69% of high-performing salespeople rated their sales manager
as excellent or above average compared to 49% of underperforming salespeople
indicating there is a correlation.
Study participants were also asked to rank the different attributes of great
sales managers. In order of priority the top three factors for high-performing
salespeople were leadership and management skills, practical experience and
sales intuition, and communication and coaching skills. The top three factors
for underperforming salespeople were industry expertise and product knowledge,
communication and coaching skills, and fights for the team. These results
reveal how high and underperforming salespeople utilize their managers
differently. Underperformers tend to use their managers to make up for the
product and industry knowledge they lack.
Both high-performing and underperforming salespeople are in contact with their
sales managers at about the same frequency. For example, 51% of high-performing
salespeople and 55% of underperforming salespeople are in contact with their
sales manager all the time during the day. Twenty-eight percent of
high-performing salespeople and 20% of underperforming are in contact with
their manager frequently during the week while 15% of high-performing and 17%
of underperformers talk to their managers once or twice a week. However, the
conversations sales leaders have with top salespeople are quite different than
those with underperformers. They are collaborative in strategizing sessions
about prospective deals while the conversations with underperformers consist of
directional instructions and validating whether or not daily duties are being
carried out.
Sales organization influence. The research suggests that sales organization
morale influences individual sales success. Fifty three percent of
high-performing sales rated their sales organization s morale as being higher
than most sales organizations. In comparison, only 37% of underperforming
salespeople rated morale higher than most companies.
Sales organization accountability also influences individual quota achievement.
Thirty-nine percent of high-performing salespeople strongly agreed that
salespeople at their company are measured against their quota and held
accountable compared to only 23% of underperforming salespeople. In comparison,
36% of underperforming salespeople either disagreed or were neutral about
whether salespeople at their company were measured and held accountable
compared to 21% of high-performing salespeople.
Finally, the study results indicate that individual sales success is not
dependent upon the growth rate of the company the salesperson works for. The
percentage of high-performing salespeople was consistent to the percentage of
underperforming salespeople across high growth companies (over 20% annual
growth), slower growth companies (5% to 20% growth rate), companies with flat
revenues, and even companies with decreasing revenues. When taken into account
with all the research above, sales performance is more likely dependent on the
attributes of the individual and sales environment characteristics over
company-related influences.
Steve W. Martin teaches sales strategy at the University of Southern California
Marshall School of Business. His new book is titled Heavy Hitter I.T. Sales
Strategy: Competitive Insights from Interviews with 1,000+ Key Information
Technology Decision Makers