Years ago, a client hired SalesFirst Recruiting to find him a brand new sales team. He was the owner of the company, and he was the only person there at the time who was technical enough to understand the product and also social enough to sell it. His vision was bold, and he didn’t want to start small- so he hired 4 excellent junior professionals and started teaching them how to sell his product. He also set their goals and started measuring their activity. All of it.

It wasn’t long before the candidates we placed were calling their recruiters. Some wanted to vent. Others wanted out. The common denominator was that this leader micromanaged them, and they didn’t think they could ever hit all the different goals he set for them. Our team was a little surprised to hear this given how friendly and open the owner seemed to be.

SalesFirst offered to peek around and see if it could identify any quick fixes. The good news is our client was a great sport. He took our advice and changed his methods almost right away, but here’s what we found- and here’s what he fixed.

Too many KPIs

Steve jobs said it best. “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

This poor sales team had 20+ KPIs that were being tracked. The owner was a software developer by trade and spent most of his time writing code and explaining the software to other highly technical buyers. Sales leadership was new to him, and he didn’t realize he would have a happier, more focused team if they focused on just 2-4 KPIs per quarter or even per year. The team focused on too many things, and as a result couldn’t really focus on anything.

The KPIs weren’t motivating

This leader also didn’t realize that his KPI approach failed to take into account the human side of sales. By only focusing on the numbers, he couldn’t see what motivated his salespeople to make them successful. This quickly lead to a lack of engagement & frustration, and it almost lost him the team.

A major component to successful KPI management lies in understanding what motivates each individual on the team and then finding ways to leverage that information. This could be recognizing a person’s talents and setting realistic goals for then. Or it could be helping them develop new skills that will make them more effective in their role.

Some high performing sales organizations that really buy into this mentality adopt “Human-centered KPIs",” which measure the behavior of team members to figure out which activities lead to successful outcomes. For example, a human-centered KPI approach might focus on the number of appointments made by each member of the sales team or how many conversations they had with potential customers each day. Over time, you can start to make adjustments and confidently tell your team what works and why.

The KPIs were too complicated

In the owner’s defense, his product was complex and his buyers were sophisticated. But we told him in no uncertain terms: KPIs should be easy to understand, easy to talk about, easy to remember, easy to measure, and easy to access. We recommended some simple KPIs for him, and told him to take an afternoon with his team to fine-tune the details.

SalesFirst is best known for its recruiting, but did you also know that we consult on recruiting and sales matters? Ask SalesFirst Recruiting for help at www.salesfirstrecruiting.com.