Some food for thought here from Barry Trailer over at the CSO Sales Insight blog.
Now, here’s a statistic from our SPO survey that has been constant the past three years. We’ve been asking: What percentage of your total year’s revenues last year was generated by the top 20% of your sales reps? The answer is not the Pareto’s 80/20 rule but it’s also not far off: 60%. That is, the top 20% of reps contribute 60% of total revenues (a 3X multiplier), while the other 80% of reps contribute 40% of revenues (a .5X multiplier). This means the top reps are six times more productive than the other reps.
Salespeople naturally connect with lots of folks. After all, it’s their job. But in thinking about some of the most productive sales reps I’ve seen, there is a common profile. They are constantly networking, leveraging new social media applications and/or simply making sure they are not isolated. What’s your experience? Think about the top reps in your company and among your own peers and friends. Are the most successful also successful networkers? My answer keeps coming up “yes!”
I think the takeaway here is the most successful sales reps — besides having a repeatable and measurable sales process — are willing to try new things: social media, sales 2.0, strategies, tactics, leverage inside sales reps, etc.
Successful sales reps know more about their target accounts and contacts because they have spoken to more people from different departments, functions, and project teams — they reveal more sales opportunities and ultimately close more business.
What do you think makes a successful sales rep? Please share your comments.
For the full blog post from the CSO Insights blog click here.
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