Although 63 is technically correct, the reality is that no one is going to be making any buying decisions the days before or after Thanksgiving, and given where Christmas falls this year, I'm planning that most of our customers and all of our prospects will have at least mentally closed up shop on the 21st. Bottom line, it looks like we have about 55 or 57 days to close deals.
And all of that makes the world of sales the most exciting, most demanding and most rewarding profession there is...as long as you know how to consistently manage your time, focus your value proposition and balance walking on the sharp edge of the tension knife.
As a sales manager, (or any manager for that matter), here's a couple of ideas to think about over this weekend that you might want to put to work as you dive into Q4. Neither of these concepts has much to do with reducing the good tension of working in Sales, since I regard that type of tension as a positive. On the other hand, as managers, we too often create unnecessary tension-negative tension-for ourselves and throughout our organizations, by not being direct and by not making the tough decisions quickly.
Is it better to spend your time with the below average C's and mentor them along to better performance? Would success be enhanced if you spent your time with a few of the B's, or is the organization better served if you were to personally coach and actually co-sell along side the the two superstar A's? The choice is up to you, but you need to make that choice quickly since there's only 57 days, and when Q4 ends, it's for all the marbles.
Too often, we HOPE that performance is going to improve, but the reality of the math and the personality of the person clearly says something else -"average" is going to remain "average".
As a result, unnecessary tension builds up. By delaying "The Talk", on one hand, there's some level of revenue that's coming in from the underperformer, but on the other, the manager realizes that that person will never reach quota and the only way to achieve their objectives is to either raise their cost of sale by hiring another salesperson to buttress the less-than-good performance or face reality and finally have "The Big Boy/Big Girl Talk".
Managing a sales organization is difficult enough without creating even more tension ...especially negative tension. At the beginning of the quarter...as in next week...you should not only think about those one or two salespeople or that one pain-in-the-neck manager you need to have the talk with, but actually schedule it into your calendar.
Perhaps, you're going to make a decision to wait until the end of Q4 for "The Talk", and that might be practical given specific Q4 revenue objectives, but don't let it go any longer than the first couple of days of January. On the other hand, by having "The Talk" next week as you kick off Q4, you just might find by being very direct about your concerns and laying out very specific short term performance requirements, the performance of the underachiever immediately improves. At the same time, that person could also quit, but I would argue that in that case, it's better for you as the manager and for the sales organization as a whole to have "The Talk" sooner than later.
Good luck in closing out the quarter!
Welcome to the fall...and Good Selling!
Jack
Head Coach
To reinforce a few basics for your Q4 launch, take a look at a few of our tools, by clicking on the toolbox below...