Determining Strengths and Weaknesses of Individual Sales Team Members

Most likely one of your key activities as a sales manager is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each sales team member. In performing this process, you must make sure you don’t just base your views on personal feelings. Be objective. Don’t base your opinions on an overall positive feeling for the person or an overall negative feeling for the person. Don’t base them on rumors or unconfirmed information and don’t base them on comparison with others on the team. Instead, base your opinions on the needs of the business and on your strategic plan. Additionally, base them on your short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals, as well as on territory potential and the continuously changing needs of the target customers. Just as important, base your opinions on your coaching experience with the individual team members and observed behavior and on the continuing S.W.O.T. of the salesperson.

Watch the areas in the sales process that seems to present the greatest challenge to your salespeople. Through funnel management of the sales process (to be discussed in Chapter 7), you will usually find that there is one point that gives sales professionals the most problems and that is often the point where they lose the majority of their opportunities.

When reviewing the training needs of the sales personnel, analyze their strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the specific competencies required for success. Recognize that every day the salesperson is smarter than the day before, and incorporate these changes into any plan.