Do you own a multi-salesperson rep firm? When was the last time you evaluated the members of your sales team? Rate each of the following qualities on a 1-10 scale with 10 being best possible.

If your team overall doesn’t rate at least eight, you have trouble. If any one individual doesn’t rate eight you have a problem.

It is simply not smart to run an independent rep agency with a sales force that is less than 80 percent on the 100-point scale. You know the only thing you have to sell is the quality of your sales team.

• Planning

Do your salespeople plan effectively for each significant line? We call a line significant if it represents five percent or more of the salesperson’s over-all volume.

• Planning More In-Depth

Do your salespeople have effective plans for each customer that is significant — same standard? By a plan we mean for each line that the customer buys and for development of that customer with the lines they are buying and the lines they should buy.

• Time Management

Does each salesperson manage their time in their territory/market to maximize their impact?

• Prospecting

Does each salesperson do an effective job developing new opportunities?

• Principal Relationships

Does each salesperson communicate effectively with principals — regional managers, sales managers, customer service? Is the salesperson liked? Respected? By principal personnel in all aspects of the principal’s business?

• Internal Positioning

Does the salesperson actively participate in helping the agency grow and develop its resources? Is the salesperson respected within the agency?

• Interpersonal Skills and Contribution

Does the salesperson help other members of the team in whatever way he or she can with information, advice, support, and generally helpful thoughts and ideas?

• Over-All

Is the salesperson an 8-10 level representative of the agency and him or herself?

Summary

Effective evaluation of the salespeople is vital to agency success. How to improve the salesperson’s performance is a big challenge. It is not acceptable to allow a mediocre performance to go unchecked.

The salespeople are the lifeblood of the agency. Their performance is the reason the agency will prosper and grow. A manufacturer is looking for top-level performance, not mediocrity.

Harold Geneen, the famous CEO of ITT at its height said, “Management manages.”

Developing the Sales Management Function

The bottom line of the agency business is that most owners/principals don’t take the time to manage. One rep suggested to me that he had cut down his personal responsibilities for customers substantially so that he had three days a week to manage the salesforce. Taking the time to be a sales manager and a positive developer of the agency sales team is absolutely vital.

Making Judgments

If you rate one or more of your salespeople below eight — what are you personally going to do about it? Firing the person is one possibility, but turnover can hurt an agency’s prestige. Principals want very stable sales teams working with the customers. Getting and keeping the sales team at an eight level or above is vital.

Time should be devoted to the sales team and each individual on it. The leadership should develop a plan to build the quality of the sales effort for every line and every customer.

Demanding Performance

The entire mindset of the agency is required to be focused on performance. Accepting less than top performance is just not acceptable.

All of the members of the sales team should be involved in discussing and evaluating performance. Having the salespeople self-evaluate is a good starting point. Building a common language to judge performance is critical.

The key element is discipline and second to discipline is time. The leader should be sure he or she is disciplined and closely focused on evaluating and developing the sales team.

Finally, putting in the time to evaluate and develop the sales personnel is the only way to be sure that the “product” the agency is “selling” is at the highest possible level. The manufacturers who are represented will know and feel the standards of performance.

Good luck and good selling.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].