Sales Training: Change A Player Habits

Sales Training: Change A Player Habits:

Sales Training Article: Three Ways for Sales Managers to Change the Habits of A Players

Originally published by Dan Perry, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)
87% of sales management tell me they want to spend more time with their 'A' players Yet, Sales Manager selling time is hovering around 48%. SMs don't have the time to spend with their 'A' reps (or any reps like they should). In comparison, World Class selling time is around 77% for SMs. And part of this time must be spent with those 'A' players.
Why?
You need to retain these people and help them increase their productivity even more. Your best sales people are being recruited away daily. Heck, I get phone calls from recruiters about every other week. Great talent is hard to attract, recruit and retain. But once you get them on board, losing one can cost the company literally millions of dollars.
Recently, one of my customer's sales managers called me. He just had his best sales person ('A' player) resign. "Dan, what do I do? What can I say to 'save' him? Give me something good" he asked me. Of course I asked him how have you retained him? "Couldn't spend time in the field with him Dan. I have too many 'B' and 'C' players that I need to ride with" he claimed.
By the way, that's a big problem. Best in Class SM coaching performance tells us you should spend 20% of your time with 'A' players; 70% of your time with 'B' Players and only 10% with 'C' players .
My next question was 'Why did he resign?". Answer: "The new sales process and coaching program you guys helped us put in place is frustrating him. He doesn't want to use it and thinks his productivity is dropping and I am micro-managing him because of it. The competition kept calling him and he finally agreed to meet with them and make the jump."
SBI has recently helped numerous organizations map their sales process to a buying process. We have designed, developed and implemented many Sales Management Programs in companies worldwide. And every one of them needed a change management plan for the sales force. The problem is they don't separate out the 'A' players from the others. 'A' players don't want a new process. They don't want to be coached differently. They just want to be left alone.
There are three big problems with this thinking:
1.What got the 'A' player there currently won't keep them there long term.
2.The 'B' and 'C' player says "If they get an exception to the process, why do I have to follow the process?"
3.Without consistent process throughout the organization, you can never understand what you did right or wrong. The process provides a baseline. And without this baseline it leads to low or no growth in companies (ever wonder why some companies, big or small, just don't grow)
Got it. So what do I do?
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