Coaching and giving sales performance reviews can be hard. Make it easier with these example phrases, plus a quarterly review template.
Written by: Mark BurdonEvaluate your reps' performance to goal, quarterly improvement, and areas of improvement to focus on.
Looking to motivate your sales team to smash their goals next quarter? There are many tools to coach your sales team into the best version of themselves, but one that’s often overlooked is the sales performance evaluation.
A sales performance evaluation is a chance for a manager and a sales professional to align their goals and determine a strategy to move toward them. When done right, this formality can turn into an opportunity for growth.
Keep reading for tips to create the best sales review experience for your team, or jump ahead to one of the topics below.
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According to 2022 Gallup research, only 21% of employees are engaged at work. Low engagement has an estimated cost of $7.8 trillion for the global economy. Engagement can also impact performance outcomes.
Sales performance reviews give leaders a chance to challenge and strengthen the team. We surveyed 1,400 sales reps and found that a culture of trust, collaboration, and transparent performance data are the top factors separating high-performing sales teams from underperforming ones. You need all of these elements for an engaged sales team, which leads to:
Giving a better performance evaluation is a skill you should aspire to and can reach. Gallup’s State of the Global Workforce 2023 report found that 70% of team engagement is attributable to the manager. When provided with training, managers’ team engagement rose as high as 18% in the following 18 months, which impacts performance.
Good performance evaluations don’t happen in a vacuum. Let’s take a look at the foundation you need before you can enter a successful performance evaluation.
Sales teams need a clear roadmap of the core competencies and performance goals needed to advance within your company. Beyond a skills assessment, they should have a big-picture vision of where they are, where they’re heading, and what they need to get there.
This doesn’t need to look the same for every company. Michael Maximoff, founder and managing partner at lead gen agency Belkins describes his team's seven-level sales career ladder for assessments and advancement.
“We call this ladder a competency ladder, and it measures not just their performance in terms of how much revenue they generated or how they closed their KPI, but also the impact of them on the company. This ladder is shared with every sales executive so they have access to it so they can see where they are,” Maximoff says.
When a professional can see how their actions will contribute to their long-term personal and professional goals, it motivates them to take action and improve.
An annual performance review shouldn’t be the only time you give substantial feedback and coaching, and it shouldn’t contain any surprises. Use team standups, one-on-one meetings, and sales ride-along calls to give continual feedback. This makes performance reviews much easier since it won’t be your first time discussing these topics.
For a performance evaluation to be successful, you need a foundation of trust between the sales manager and the sales rep. Our State of Sales study found that 24% of high-performing sales teams prioritize building a culture of trust in their sales team, compared with 13% of underperforming teams.
“The person who gives that feedback in a performance review should have credibility to give fair, constructive feedback. I need to have confidence that the person who gives me that feedback knows what that person is doing. Right? But for that to happen, you need to have some kind of relationship and context with that individual,” says Maximoff.
To set yourself up for success, you need a document outlining the areas of discussion for your sales performance evaluation, and which specific competencies you will review. You can create your own or use a template to do the initial hard work for you.
We’re sharing our HubSpot Sales Performance Review Template with you so you can access and implement a framework for improving sales performance, one review at a time. Download the template, make any adjustments you need to to fit your organization, and use the template consistently across your team.
It's tempting to jump into a performance review with your thoughts and impressions. But these are complex conversations that can have long-term impacts. So, do some preparation before every review.
Your company may have useful forms or job descriptions that you can use as a starting point for your review. If one of your salespeople has taken on extra tasks or responsibilities, be sure to add those in.
Complete a written review on your own. List out strengths and areas for improvement based on the job description. Then, add any other observations you have to add about sales training or performance. Remember, measurable specifics are more useful than general observations.
Next, ask each member of your sales team to write a self-assessment. Set clear expectations for self-assessments.
Offer a short and simple set of questions to cover:
It‘s also useful to ask them about how they feel they’re performing and where they feel they can improve.
Be sure to offer examples that can help guide salespeople who are evaluating themselves for the first time.
Another way to prepare for sales reviews is to gather feedback from other employees. You can collect their insights with casual conversations, email, or online chat.
If it fits your company culture, online surveys can also help you gather insights on performance. Be sure to ask clear and specific questions to get the best feedback.
Once you have the information you need, put your key points in writing. This may seem like an extra step, but putting your review on paper before the review can help you remember key details during your conversation.
Your completed performance reviews might include:
If the review is a challenging one, this step can also help you give a positive and learning-centered tone to critical feedback.
Ideally, there won't be any surprises in the review for members of your sales team. This means that each review can focus on how to improve in the future.
Starting performance review talks can be awkward sometimes. So, instead of starting with what went well and what needs work, set expectations. Beginning with the job description can lessen the stress and confusion that can come up during reviews.
Another strategy is to talk about career ladders in your company or department. This can help each sales associate understand where they fit and how they can improve.
As you start the review, be sure to highlight that reviews are a chance for both of you to grow. The focus is often on the feedback that you are offering to each salesperson as their manager.
But it's also important to share that you are also collecting feedback that can help you improve processes and strategy.
This is a positive experience where everyone gets something valuable. Be sure to set that tone from the start and each review should go smoothly. If you're looking for tips on how to get the most from a review, this podcast from Gallup has some useful tips.
Evaluate your reps' performance to goal, quarterly improvement, and areas of improvement to focus on.
