This is a guest post from Mike Battaglia, Vice President, Sales within the Global Automotive Division at J.D. Power. He is responsible for growing J.D. Power’s book of business with automakers operating in the U.S. and other global markets. Mike manages a team of sales reps and sales operations personnel tasked with supporting automakers across the portfolio of J.D. Power products and services.
Great salespeople are competitive by nature. This competitiveness not only fuels their motivation to hit quota but also to stand out among their peers. Tapping into and harnessing this is one of the primary roles of a sales leader. But it’s difficult striking the right balance between healthy competition and embarrassing a rep who’s struggling.
To create a competitive environment among my reps, about a year and half ago I started sending out a twice monthly rank report detailing objective attainment to date. My goal was to provide transparency and visibility into performance to drive increased client activity (meetings, phone calls, product demos, etc.).
My updates to the team contain:
Spreadsheet that ranks my team of reps based on booked business versus objective. I use the SalesDirector AI Dashboard, which shows where the team stands versus their individual objectives, to quickly pull this information.
Example:
Call to action. If business is slow, I will highlight a significant upcoming client meeting, positive sales action or idea to spur activity
Achievements & highlights. If someone closes a big deal and climbs the ladder, I will provide a shout out in the opening sentence of the update
I also try to lace a bit of humor into the notes to keep the tone light and foster banter among the group.
Every time I publish this, it generates a slew of emails and phone calls. The content ranges from, “Thanks for the recognition!”, to “I have these deals working and I’ll be out of the basement soon!”. When a rep closes a high dollar deal, they often send me a note emphatically asking that I publish a new ranking.
I’ve used this method for the last 18 months and I’ve never had negative feedback. The key is to recognize those that are excelling and encourage those that are struggling. If you have the right people on your team and believe in their abilities, it’s easy to do.