Sales teams should aim for 50 per cent performance to double their profits. Sounds crazy, but the maths does add up.
Dave Kurlan’s pioneering sales assessment company, Kurlan & Associates, has crunched the numbers on half a million salespeople in the last 30 years. The results make for a very sobering read.
According to Chris Mott, the company’s president of corporate training, 25 per cent of all those sales people are “functionally un-trainable”. Take the balance of what’s left and “anywhere from 20 per cent to 50 per cent aren't worth investing in”. Your return over the average employment timeframe will be too small.
Why? “My experience is that a lot of folks who are in sales roles shouldn't be in sales roles,” says Chris. “They ended up [in sales] when it was more account management oriented. It was more relationship oriented; it was more meet people and have a good time. And customers were less educated.”
All of which means you only have 25 per cent motivated, trainable, focused sellers in front of you – disappointingly missing the Pareto principle by five per cent. Damn you salespeople: rebels to the last.
What does this mean for business? Well, clearly there are a lot of wasted resources out there. But it also calls for a far closer relationship between sales and HR: to my mind one of the most crucial partnerships in an organisation. Because if your sales heads can identify that 25 per cent, then your HR team can profile them and find more. They may not get it right from the off, but it’ll be a huge step in the right direction. And if you’re turning a profit on one quarter power, imagine what would happen at half speed.
Find out how to win in the changing world of sales in this video.
Is the 25/75 breakdown true in your company? I would like to read your thoughts (not in a freaky ESP sort of a way; just pop them in the comments section below).
Read more about Dave Kurlan’s thoughts on understanding the sales force on his blog.