It happens to everyone at some point, no matter how you create sales goals, there is a period when sales performance drops. When this happens, there can be a loss of morale, which can further hamper efforts to recover performance and return to winning ways. In the long term, this can seriously affect the business’ profitability.
So, how can you help a team (member) recover from a sales performance slump? Here are some solutions.
1. Understand why the sales performance slump happened
The first thing that you need to do is understand why there has been a sales performance drop. It could be due to frequent illnesses recently or taking a holiday, or something that is related to industry performance. Sales commission software should be able to identify trends and/or changes in sales performance.
Other factors may be the addition of a new sales process and staff have struggled to close prospective clients. This is often the case when new processes are implemented, as staff take time to align their work behaviour to the new processes.
2. Resolve issues
Once you’ve found the reasons for the sales slump you can take action to resolve the issue. If, for instance, you’ve noticed that a staff member has taken a lot of time off because of illness, then you can look for ways to assist them in getting them back to work.
Or, if there is a problem with a new sales process that is hindering the close of sales, you can look at ways to improve said sales process.
3. Create sales goals to inspire people to improve
The next step is to inspire your staff when you create sales goals for the next sales period. You should always create sales goals that slightly increase the performance from the bad sales period. For instance, if they sold only once in that period, then increase it to two in the next period.
It is important that you don’t increase your expectations too much. This can be a stressor for staff and could continue the trend of poor results. Instead, smaller, sustainable (but higher) sales goal can result in happier staff who will perform better.
So when a team, or just one person, suffers from a sales performance drop, you need to act to ensure that they recover. This is done through careful management, analysis and taking time to create sales goals that will help teams grow in confidence to recover.
Commissionly is a leading sales commission software service that can assist you. If you want to find out more information about how we can help you to reward your staff, contact us now.