Feb 2016 imageSouce Digital Edition

Insight & Opinion
"You can’t be considered a
superstar if all you sell is a
traditional product."
Sales Superstars: How to Recognize,
Reward & Retain Them
By Tom Callinan | Managing Principal | Strategy Development
You’d think it would be easy to recognize the Sales Superstar: They’re the guys and
gals that sell the most, right? Not necessarily is my response to that question. OK,
well then they’re the guys and gals that exceed quota by the most, correct? Ah, not
necessarily. So the first challenge to recognizing your superstar sales professional is to
ensure that you have a fair measurement system in place.
When I work with a new client, his or her response to this suggestion
(of a system) might be “We are fair; everybody has the same quota.”
On the surface this may sound fair but let’s examine some situational
variances:
Account Base: If “Rep A” has a territory with 400 devices
under contract with your company and “Rep B” has a territory
with 60 devices under contact with your company then Rep A’s
results should far exceed Rep B’s. Account base drives sales
results in our industry.
Prospect Focus: Prospect focus could be driven by territory
or by the rep’s focus on spending his time on the accounts with
the highest payback. Territory can either be list-based or geobased,
say, by zip code.
It’s possible that one rep is in a very rural area where there are only
“Mom and Pop” companies and he (she) has no opportunity to sell
multi-unit accounts. If that were the verifiable case then the rep in the
rural area should have a lower quota then the rep in the metro area,
taking into consideration the Account Base mentioned prior.
Now let’s compare two reps in the same metro area with similar
account bases. Rep A randomly calls on accounts with no research
into the vertical market or company size. Rep B does research and only
calls on companies that, based on their size in their vertical market,
would have three to ten copiers. Rep B would logically sell more
26 imageSource February 2016
because once they “land” an account they will have the opportunity
to sell more equipment as well as MNS, MPS and software solutions.
Rep B is clearly a better rep than Rep A in that they use their time
more logically. In this case it is possible that Rep B is a Superstar Rep.
Ability to Sell New Products/ Services: Superstar
Reps can sell new products and service. If your company has
a traditional copier background but now sells MPS, MNS, and
software, your superstars will be selling these products and services
into their base of accounts as well as using these offerings to open
new accounts. You can’t be considered a superstar if all you sell is
a traditional product.
Team-based Selling: Superstar Reps know that they don’t
know everything and they are good at using other resources within
the company to gain share of wallet inside of their accounts. This
ties into the ability to sell new products and services. The Superstar
Rep gladly accepts help from other competent team members.
Quota: If you have logically set quotas, using Account Base as a
foundation so that you know that the rep has to both retain the
current base as well as sell new business to achieve quota, then the
Superstar Rep will meet or exceed that annual quota.