{"id":7916,"date":"2012-07-10T14:25:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T14:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7916"},"modified":"2014-10-06T01:24:36","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T01:24:36","slug":"jack-welch-is-wrong-stop-churning-d-reps-to-improve-sales-team-attainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7916","title":{"rendered":"Jack Welch Is Wrong \u2013 Stop Churning D Rep To Improve Sales Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The traditional practice for Sales Leaders looking to improve their sales team\u2019s overall performance has been to upgrade the team<\/em> itself.\u00a0 Let\u2019s respectively call this the Jack Welch model.\u00a0 It says you stack rank your team, A\u2019s being your top performers and D\u2019s representing your worst, then replace your bottom 10% every year.<\/p>\n

The goal of course is that your \u201cnew hires\u201d become an A or B player and therefore improve your sales team\u2019s overall attainment.\u00a0\u00a0 It works in theory.\u00a0 The real sales world <\/strong>imposes three challenges to this practice.<\/p>\n

High Failure Rate of Sales \u2018New-Hires\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Studies continue to show that between one-third and one-half of B2B sales new-hires fail and are replaced again (or quit).\u00a0 That\u2019s an expensive cycle considering the hard costs that go into recruiting, on-boarding, salary, draws, benefits, training, etc.\u00a0 It\u2019s even more expensive when the opportunity cost of that failed new hire is calculated; meaning, the lost value of new business that failed hire<\/em> DID NOT produce.<\/p>\n

Long Ramp Up Cycles for New Sales Hires<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ramp up time for reps selling a complex B2B service or product can be 12 to 24 months.\u00a0 This is the time it takes them to learn their new company\u2019s product and selling process, build a pipeline and move their opportunities to closing stage.\u00a0\u00a0 This often means waiting two years or more to learn if your new hire becomes that A or B rep you hoped for, instead of the D rep you fired.<\/p>\n

The Short Tenure of Chief Sales Officers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Throw on top of the two preceding factors that the average tenure for Chief Sales Officers is as low as 18 months in some studies. \u00a0What this means for most companies is an almost constant rotation of sales leadership and sales reps as they apply the tried and true Jack Welch model to their sales organization.\u00a0 Team attainment rarely improves by any measurable amount and the cycle of churn continues on.\u00a0 The only ones making their team quota are the sales recruiters and headhunters.<\/p>\n

As weak as this model has been, it was the only way for companies to improve sales results \u2013 until fairly recently.\u00a0\u00a0 Over the last few years a much more technical and process-based B2B sales model has emerged.\u00a0\u00a0 Research from experts such as Aberdeen Group<\/strong>, Forrester<\/strong>, CSO Insights<\/strong>, Marketing Sherpa<\/strong>and others have provided a new template for improving sales team results.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0This new model doesn\u2019t mean hanging on to D reps, but it provides an approach that can consistently improve overall team results and therefore create fewer, but stronger D\u2019s and even better results from top performers.<\/p>\n

If you are a CEO or Chief Sales Officer ready to break the \u2018sales team churn\u2019 cycle in favor of a better, more predictable sales model where do you start?\u00a0 What does this new model look like and how do you transition to it?\u00a0\u00a0 Most simply put, you have two options: build it or buy it.<\/p>\n

How To Transition to a Best Practices Based B2B Sales Model<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Building Your New Sales Model<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fortunately, there is no shortage of studies, process documents, tools, templates and recommendations for those company leaders wishing to transform their sales model on their own.\u00a0 For example, in the last twelve months alone 3FORWARD has downloaded\/purchased nearly 200 unique sales white papers, research reports and studies for our own use.\u00a0 Each of them filled with process recommendations and detailing the best practices of leading B2B sales teams.<\/p>\n

Buying a Best Practices Sales Model<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your goal is to structurally and fundamentally improve your sales team\u2019s results \u2013 not become an expert in researching sales models \u2013 then hire a sales consulting company to help you get there. \u00a0Our recommendation to CEOs and Sales Leaders is always to start with strategy, then design the process and lastly implement the tactical elements to achieve sustained improvements.\u00a0 \u00a0There a lot of excellent sales consulting companies out there (we think we\u2019re pretty good at it too)<\/em> so finding one that meets your needs shouldn\u2019t be that difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The traditional practice for Sales Leaders looking to improve their sales team\u2019s overall performance has been to upgrade the team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8165,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7916\/revisions\/8165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}