You may have seen the viral video of a salesperson who recorded her experience of getting fired from her job. If you have not, here it is. It is a complete mess from both sides. Here is why, in short –
- CRM Activity Metrics are good. They are just incomplete for determining employee success.
- Not setting clear manageable (non-CRM) expectations creates situations like this.
This whole situation is easily avoidable.
Now, let’s get into it. There is plenty of opining on how things should have been handled from a pure HR perspective. We will skip that and focus on how this can—and should—be avoided through good SALES MANAGEMENT.
Start with the salesperson. She maintained that she was successful because, according to her side of the story, she:
- Was having “great meetings”
- Was having “good conversations”
- Had lots of activities that her manager approved of
- Had gotten 3 proposals out (none of which had closed)
- Was on a “3-month ramp”
CRM Activity: What is it and what is it not?
Let’s start with 1 through 4 from the above list, which involves her activity. She says that she was successful from a CRM activity perspective. CRM tools are great. They track activity, and they track a pipeline. In this case, the salesperson sold $0.00 during her tenure but had “good” activity. She probably checked all of the activity-based metrics and, as such, felt like she was being successful, especially given the holiday season she was selling into.
Activity is important to track. But it is NOT a good indicator of success. We have lots of thoughts on prospecting and believe in managing to outreach metrics, strategic encounters, etc. But this is where MOST COMPANIES FAIL. Companies of all sizes, from solo founders hiring their first salesperson to enterprise companies with a large sales team, begin and end sales management with some type of CRM tool. Too often, companies hire a salesperson, do a small amount of “onboarding”, and very quickly make a MASSIVE assumption that the salesperson knows how to sell based on some past experience, whether it is a degree that he or she has, a personality trait, or some other reason. It is a BAD assumption. On a macro level, it leads to the 80/20 rule in sales and dead-ends with the video that started this post —a salesperson being fired while thinking she was being successful.
For companies, managing solely based on activity is a bad practice. For a salesperson, thinking you are being successful because you hit your activity metrics leads to negative surprises from HR.
The point is, don’t do it. But MANY COMPANIES do. That’s why it’s vital for companies and salespeople to understand the difference between QUANTITY of activity and QUALITY of activity.
What about this “3-month ramp”?
From the video, we have no idea what this entails. This could be some sort of pipeline-building ramp, or it could have been a training plan. But given that the HR team did not reference the training program, we can probably deduce that it was more of a grace period for ramping a pipeline vs. a true training program. But we don’t know for sure. This company could do a fantastic job of onboarding salespeople. However, we do know there was a reference to the ramp and more focus on the activity.
In short, every company, from a pre-revenue startup to an enterprise company, should define what success looks like for their sales team. That means activity AND how they expect the salesperson to execute a sales meeting. It is the company’s obligation to:
- Position the employees for success
- Equip them to be successful
- See them achieve personal gains that create corporate success
Did this company define and train this salesperson on the following things in regards to her company?
- What to say
- When to say it
- How to say it
And did they verify that she could execute the messaging in a variety of settings where she will encounter prospects? It doesn’t seem like they did. And if they didn’t, then the company did not set the employee up for success. The corporation made the critical assumption, and we know how assumptions can turn out.
Did the company define how this salesperson should approach each and every prospect encounter an manage intentionality by preparing her on the following?
- What she was to say
- What she was to ask for
- What she wanted the desired next step to be
Seems like no. If not, then there is no way to determine if the meetings were good or bad or if the conversations were productive. They were just “activity” that lacked intentionality and no way to offer objective feedback on the salesperson’s ABILITY to execute a sales cycle.
Did the salesperson know how to qualify an opportunity properly before getting to a proposal? Is there a defined proposal process? In other words, were the proposals legit or just activity to check a box in a CRM tool and therefore didn’t go anywhere? We don’t know everything about this situation, but it does seem early to give up on proposals that were issued during the holidays.
All we have to go on is the video, but from that 10-minute conversation, it certainly appears that there was a “ramp” but that the ramp did not necessarily include defining how to sell for the company or how to create and manage to intentional interactions and judgement based on prepared plans on the success or failure of the interactions.
It could be that the salesperson may not have been performing and that a parting was necessary. But based on the video, everyone seemed to fail in this scenario.
The company seemed to fail by not properly preparing the salesperson. The company failed to create clear expectations. HR had one set of expectations of numbers while the sales management seemed to manage to CRM-based activities.
The salesperson failed because she didn’t recognize that there is difference in quantity of activity and qualify of activity.
We solve this problem.
I wrote this because this is literally a healthy part of our sales message. AskMultiply.com allows companies or salespeople to eliminate the assumptions that their sales teams know how to sell and execute a sales meeting. We provide processes, tools, templates, and technology that allow sales teams to define clear messaging, create clear expectations for success, and approach every encounter intentionally such that the CRM Activity becomes meaningful and strategic. We don’t compete or duplicate CRM functions. We complement it. Visit askmultiply.com or contact us at info@askmultiply.com .
