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Client-facing teams like sales are the first point of contact for a company. But many companies fail to do one thing: honing their rep’s skills.
A Spekit report found that 52% of sales reps have left a job because of a lack of training opportunities. That’s not all. When it comes to hitting their sales targets, 43% of reps agree that ongoing training is a factor, while 65% of reps say that support from leadership is a factor.
It goes to show that they value continuous improvement. It’s not just a goal now—it’s a necessity. Considering that the sales team directly contributes to your topline revenue, it’s high time companies implement a solid sales feedback process.
In this article, we’ll look at the benefits of such a process, types of feedback to offer, and tips to provide nuanced feedback.
Every professional was a beginner at one point. Apart from experience, training and continuous development molds individuals into the experts they eventually become.
Similarly, sales representatives seek constant feedback to improve their jobs. When you consider that what you put in directly comes back in the form of a healthy pipeline and revenue—there’s a lot to desire.
“As someone who used to work as an SDR, I found that the hardest part was not even receiving feedback at first,” says Jose Moya, a partnership strategist at Capicua. “It demotivates the sales team. However, the hardest part is when it’s not genuine feedback.”
When your reps don’t get feedback, they have no idea what to improve. Should they improve their decks? Negotiation skills? Cold emailing skills?
There’s no clear roadmap for improvement, eventually impacting sales performance. For example, a Prezentor report found that 80% of B2B sales are happening virtually now. If your reps are unprepared to take on new challenges like social selling, use of sales enablement tools or virtual selling, they’ll fall behind.
Direct feedback helps reps in many ways:
Over time, they’ll be more satisfied with their job as their efforts are noticed and appreciated—while feedback is continuous.
It’s hard to draw an improvement plan based on that unless you know what type of feedback to offer.
Here are a few examples of feedback you can provide your reps:
Create a feedback form that touches on four things:
It’ll show you how they interact with potential customers and if they adhere to brand guidelines on external conversations. It’ll also help you create personalized training programs based on their shortcomings.
This feedback process looks into the sales team as a whole, not at the individual level. You can use surveys, third-party review services, or even direct communication like email to learn more about how satisfied customers are.
For example, ask them questions like:
This will give you specific insights into how different departments work with your sales teams and how external stakeholders perceive your company.
Every company requires reps to always be at the top of their game. But that’s not always possible—especially if there’s no internal enablement initiative.
For example, reps risk falling behind if you’re not encouraging them to conduct competitor research or benchmark their performance compared to other companies.
Instead, ask them if they’re noticing any changes in the market or if they’ve read something that indicates that. Based on that, help them create an action plan to tackle such issues during the sales engagement.
In the heat of the moment, reps likely miss an opportunity to mention a key feature. Or they may leave money on the table by missing out on upselling or cross-selling opportunities.
Regularly review product/service data with your reps and inform them of new feature/service launches. Based on the conversation, you can also test their ability to loop in the right features.
Gather feedback from sales managers, peers and self-assessment surveys to understand how each rep performs. This will also show you how each rep contributes to the team’s overall performance.
Use that information to offer specific feedback during the performance review.
For example, “You’re not performing well” is vague feedback. Rephrase it as ‘We noticed that your performance is X% lower than the team’s average performance. Is there something that’s preventing you from doing your best work?”
Here’s how you can create an internal system for getting more nuanced feedback:
For starters, you need a tool that lets you collect feedback easily. This tool needs to be intuitive and easy to use so that reps can modify the survey easily or access reports on their own.
Here are a few tools you can consider using:
Also, it’s important to note that if you’re asking quantitative questions, you need context behind that data.
“Many times during feedback surveys, we’ll see things like, ‘It was great!’ or ‘It wasn’t great!'”says Jesse Knox, the head of content at Ship The Deal. “It’s challenging to give our reps the coaching they deserve when our only feedback is reasonably vague.”
To overcome this issue, the team at Ship Digital started offering incentives to offer thoughtful feedback (qualitative questions).
Knox explains, “We restructured how our questions were worded to drive that. Adding a reason for customers to give us a couple of minutes of their valuable time and explicitly asking them to give us a bit of context and specificity in their feedback has allowed our reps to improve at a breakneck speed vs. the typical standardized formula we’d used in the past.”
It’s hard to measure sales performance without actual goals and metrics in hand. And it’s a clear preference for high-performing sales teams, too.
A HubSpot report found that 17% of high-performing sales teams prefer having performance data available. This way, they can benchmark their performance against their peers and competitors, making it easier to determine performance levels.
For instance, give them specific metrics to improve, like win rates, lead quota, etc. It anchors their efforts in the upcoming quarter and gives them much-needed direction.
If you want your reps to offer and receive constructive feedback without worrying about criticism, you must create that culture internally. This means building the foundation by clarifying the purpose of the feedback and implementing different tactics to improve performance.
For instance, in his podcast Live Better Sell Better, Kevin Dorsey, the SVP of partnerships and sales at Bench Accounting, mentions focusing on positive outliers.
“Every quarter, I have my managers focus on the positive outliers,” says Dorsey. “Who has the highest close rate? Why? Who has the highest deal size? Who has the fastest deal cycle? Who books the most? And it was the shift because we always focus on what’s wrong. Instead, study greatness to go another layer deeper.”
Alternatively, you can schedule one-on-one time with your sales teams.
Tiernan explains, “Schedule 1:1 time with the employee and set aside time prior (usually the day before) to write down one’s thoughts. If the session is well planned out, it’s way more effective. I typically plan my quarters out one month before the quarter ends. So, as an example, in the last month of Q1, I sent invites for 1:1 time (with a 24-hour reminder) for Q2.”
These approaches take a positive approach to the process, allowing reps to see what’s in it.
If you have a template for different situations like getting internal feedback or customer feedback, train your reps on how to use them.
The training should show them exactly when to deploy the survey. For example, instead of sending it two days after the conversation, ask them to send it immediately via email.
On the other hand, reps should also know how to analyze the feedback. For example, they shouldn’t take one question out of context—rather, understand how each answer alludes to their overall performance.
Getting feedback from internal and external stakeholders is a daunting process. One way you can ensure it isn’t by taking a personalized approach to feedback.
“One of the best ways to create trusting feedback is by making it through a two-way conversation,” emphasizes Moya. “This process can encourage anyone to fluently share their opinions as they happen while receiving constructive feedback. By doing this, it’s clear that any team can improve their performance if they build a strong relationship with the sales teams and the possible client.”
Offer feedback and probe further as to what factors influenced their performance—whether good or bad. It lets you determine what your reps need to do their best, helping you create better enablement initiatives.
Outline the steps your sales team needs to take to address the feedback they’ve been given. Typically, you’ll have high-level input for the entire team and tailored feedback for each rep.
Make sure that both of those pointers align with each other. Also, use the SMART framework (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to make it actionable.
For example, if a sales rep needs to improve their performance, here’s what the plan would look like:
In the example above, you provide resources like coaching sessions and a clear time frame to measure improvement. Your rep has a clear roadmap on what they need to do.
When you’re implementing these feedback strategies, there are common issues you’ll run into. Here’s how you can solve them:
Many reps feel like the collected and used feedback will be used negatively against them. For example, to terminate them or reduce their bonuses.
To overcome this, reiterate how the feedback will be collected and used. Make the process as transparent as possible so that it’s viewed as a tool for growth and improvement—not as a means for punitive measures.
Unless you have a structured approach, you won’t be able to gather feedback continuously. It results in a sporadic process that leads to biased data. And as your sales organization grows, this becomes even harder.
Vivek Vardhan, a community and communications manager at Belkins, says, “Our sales team size is 300+ professionals, so you need a structured system that works for your company. Generally, you need an automation sequence that allows a systematic approach to feedback and lead information. CRMs help, but it’s not enough.”
As Belkins offers lead generation services, they need nuanced feedback of the rep’s capabilities. The team uses Notion (database), HubSpot (CRM), and Chili Piper (meeting scheduler) to review client data and ask for feedback accordingly. Then, they use Planhat (a customer experience platform) to manage the testimonials and monitor if they have been published or not. That way, reps get feedback and Belkins gets solid testimonials to showcase its capabilities.
Even having the right tools doesn’t necessarily mean you have a strategy; you need the right tools to execute the feedback strategy. Here are a few types of tools to consider in the process:
Also, some team members might hesitate to provide honest feedback if they know that their peers would know where it comes from. In that case, anonymize the feedback unless you give qualitative feedback in a private session.
It’s best to focus on the feedback—not so much where it came from, so it’s easier to digest and act on.
Feedback serves as a critical tool of growth for sales reps. It goes beyond identifying their strengths and weaknesses and turns them into better performers over time.
Also, you invest in your sales force by setting clear performance objectives and a positive feedback culture. This investment will result in better outcomes for your pipeline and revenue—helping your business grow as your rep’s performance does.
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