Performance management has become critically important to keeping this focus. In the last few years, the move has been toward proactive performance management processes. While you can’t control the economy, you can control your efforts that can lead to optimal results.

The annual review should be completed with information gathered, monitored and documented throughout the year.

In the past few years, smart companies have made the shift to true sales performance management where they can proactively understand the strengths and weaknesses of their people individually and as a team. Many world-class companies are moving to proactive sales performance management processes.

If done as a standalone process, appraisals are more of a waste of time than ever before.

The annual-review process for sales teams typically includes two things. First of all, did you make your annual goal or not? Second, it also includes a review of the most recent memory of interactions or performance over prior month or two with the individual.

This simply doesn’t give a clear picture of the person and his or her potential. It also often misses the opportunity to coach the individual to maximum performance throughout the entire year. Very little benefit ever comes from the annual appraisal process, and in fact, they can be harmful.

When time is short and precious, salespeople see the appraisal process as a waste of time. They will overrate themselves and the sales manager will have to think of things throughout the year to confirm or refute the opinions. The only things that are typically solid are the results, and by now, it’s too late to affect them.

To add to the problem, companies that persist with once-per-year appraisals on their salespeople create an onerous chore for sales managers that typically take months to complete. The predominant disadvantage of these “one-and-done appraisals” is that salespeople and managers aren’t connected daily at a performance level and coaching doesn’t occur.

There is no way to fully understand if your salespeople are doing the right things, are recognizing and delivering upon the organization’s strategy and are aptly using the sales process.

High-frequency feedback drives achievement of the strategy.

With more focus on short-term critical objectives, regular “high-frequency feedback” will become of paramount importance. Employees want to know how they’re doing, if they’re on track, where there are issues and what else needs to be done.

Performance management software systems should provide a mechanism for frequent feedback on a monthly if not weekly basis.

This high level of feedback ensures that the organization stays focused, deals with issues before they become major problems and work toward achievement of its strategy. Imagine the impact the company can have on their people if they had meaningful discussions on performance 50 times a year.

Leverage technology to optimize resources.

Common with the contraction of economies around the world is access to resources. As organizations tighten their belts, resources including financial capital, human capital and others become difficult to obtain. This means managers have less financial capital available for employee incentives and bonuses and less human capital available to get the job done.

Therefore, managers will have to ensure that their employees are focused on achieving critical objectives and staying focused on these objectives rather than being distracted by less-critical activities.

Technology can be a key enabler to achieve these goals. If employees have clear and focused objectives that are tied back to the organization’s strategy and operational plan, it’s more likely that the strategy will be achieved.


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Patrick Stakenas is president and CEO ForceLogix, which is a Chicago-based company that builds on-demand sales performance management solutions