You can see all the separate pieces of your sales plan, but the bigger picture is just not coming together. That’s because you have too many pieces missing from your sales plan! You can’t boost your sales performance if you don’t know how.

1. Your Forgot to Include
These Important Pieces
in Your Sales Plan.

2. You’ve got the box in front of you. You can see all the separate pieces, but the bigger picture is just not
coming together. That’s because you have too many missing pieces! You can’t boost your sales
performance if you don’t know how.
What are you missing?

3. Are you being being the best leader for your sales team?
It all starts with you – the leader. If salespeople fail to close deals, look to the training programs offered,
the CRM you put in place last year, the lack of accountability in your company’s culture and more. This
isn’t to say that sales reps are off the hook. It’s to say that leadership’s job is to install accountability,
both conceptually with defined processes and literally with KPIs.

4. Are you training sales reps properly?
Bad sales training has bad results: a missed opportunity here, poor judgement there. Study your team’s
most successful sales, and develop a defined sales process based off what you find. Create sales
training that addresses each step of your defined sales process and best practices. Arm your team with
seller-specific tools such as scripts, giving them credibility when meeting with prospects.

5. Is your team following up with leads?
Consistent follow-up is key. Sales could be made on the 5th, 6th, or even 12th follow-up.
The Salesforce article, Seven Key Performance Indicators That Every Sales Manager Should Use, states, “10% of sales
are closed on the fourth contact, and 80% are made on the fifth to 12th contact.”
Lead time is a factor here, too. Once they show interest, your sales reps should be on the chase
within the hour.
The same Salesforce article mentions, “Harvard’s study on response outcomes showed that sales reps that contacted
leads within 1 hour were seven times more likely to have a meaningful conversation with a decision maker.”

6. Is your team following up with leads? (cont’d)
Successful sales need more than one or two follow ups. Establish accountability between your sales
team and yourself by aligning the right CRM to your sales process. Once in place, your CRM solution
makes it easier for sales reps know when and how to follow up with a prospect.

7. Are you holding on to low performers?
Ever heard the 20%, 60%, 20% rule? The top 20% are star sellers – keep and incent them with rewards.
Your middle 60% are average, but have the potential – with training and incentives – to exceed quotas.
Your bottom 20% are not only underperforming, but bringing down team morale and productivity. Cycle
out chronic low performers. After all, one bad apple ruins the whole bunch.
As Jack Welch, former GE CEO, famously said
about bottom performers, “There is no sugarcoating
this, they have to go."

8. Poor sales performance ends when you pick
up the first piece, building out the solution
to your problem one part at a time.
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Atlanta, GA 30341
1.866.567.7432
www.incentivesolutions.com