What Should a Sales Performance Standard Look Like – Or What You Should Expect From Your Sales Team

When defining the tasks and goals for a sales person, it is important to be clear regarding what you expect. What should you sales performance standards look like however. Shown below is an example (at a high level) of a Sales Performance Standard.

• Maintain a high level of customer satisfaction with each of our clients.
• Maintain a professional attitude congruous with what would be expected of a professional salesperson
• Sell the amount in your territory as agreed to with the VP of Business Development or your sales manager.
• Properly qualify prospects Actively pursue all opportunities within your sales territory to maximize sales revenue potential for your entire territory.
• Provide estimates for all product lines monthly.
• Provide 3X the number of estimates for each product line. X = the quota number for each product line monthly.
• Know how to use the company CRM for all sales processes including: contact management, lead management, opportunity management, deals closed and look back into historical data etc.
• Track, maintain and update your leads, contacts and opportunities using the CRM.
• Properly qualify and identify probable leads in your region and develop them into estimates and deals.
• Actively grow your contact database gathering all contact information as noted in the CRM. This includes: name, address, phone, email address and any additional information that can be used for either marketing or sales purposes.
• Demonstrate professional selling and negotiation skills in all engagements.
• Be able to present and demonstrate all product lines per you sales plan.
• Demonstrate a high level of expertise for each product line that you sell.
• Develop industry relationships with influencers in your selling geographies.
• Attend all sales meetings and functions.
• Follow up on company generated leads.
• Utilize all company resources to your fullest advantage to accomplish these goals.

With these as suggestions, develop your own standards. If you are a sales person you can even do this. By going through the exercise of creating what you think your company should expect of you, you might surprise yourself about what you learn. Happy selling!