It’s easy to find prefab lists of standardized competencies for jobs, but few identify the specific success metrics that these behaviors are assumed to enhance. In a typical 360 feedback process, superiors generally equate “success” with compliance; subordinates look for cooperativeness; customers measure the effective rep as someone who matches their selling style preferences and the degree to which the salesperson contributes to the customer’s profitability. Unfortunately, there is frequently little agreement between these perspectives and little if any correlation to factors that contribute directly to the bottom line. The end result is the identification of broad and complex behaviors that become subjectively measured and irrelevant to the average employee.
Competency models were designed chiefly to provide evaluation points for jobs with few objective success measures, such as customer service personnel or manufacturing supervisors. But within sales organizations, PMbC is not necessary and seldom repays the huge expenditure of time and money required to facilitate the typical 360 feedback process. I have worked with three companies that had previously engaged in this process of building sales competencies and job profiling. In each case, performance did not improve and the end product was never used in the hiring or evaluation of salespeople. “We wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said one VP of HR. “The only people who made money were the consultants.”
Let’s keep it practical. The success measure for both salesperson and sales manager is simple and objective. Do they meet and exceed company sales goals? Of course there are many duties and activities salespeople must perform, but all other so-called competencies support this one outcome. Job descriptions may help identify skills necessary to function within various sales processes, but sales performance management is based on achieving targets.
Over-reliance on a competency model can actually undermine sales productivity when the list of behavior skills becomes more important than sales results. For example, one list of sales manager competencies includes the following: has written goals, has positive attitude, takes responsibility, strong self confidence, controls emotions, etc. etc. The list goes on with 21 more “competencies” (although I contend these are not measurable, objective behaviors, but subjective mental states). Even if these “competencies” could be objectively measured, are we saying that someone who does all these things and still doesn’t meet their production goals is doing a good job? Of course not. In sales organizations, performance management is quickly, efficiently, simply, and accurately carried out by checking rep production against targets.
My experience is that PMbC appeals to companies with under-performing sales organizations who have to reward something other than sales production because the majority of the sales organization is, objectively speaking, mediocre or worse. It is also frequently the case in these organizations that performance management is undermined by managers who rank everyone “good” or “excellent.” The same cultural dynamic that skews evaluation is the same problem that keeps salespeople from closing sales and managers from exercising accountability for results.
The job description of both salesperson and sales manager is relatively simple: capture new accounts and grow incremental business for existing clients. It’s PMbR – performance management by results.