Boost Your Senior Sales Reps' Performance: Actionable Feedback & Free Checklist

In our previous post, we explored how to evaluate sales calls with your junior reps successfully.

The post tackled seven attributes crucial to a successful sales call.

1. Setting a goal
2. Knowing the pitch
3. Sticking to the facts
4. Exercising confidence
5. Maintaining high energy
6. Creating a connection
7. Listening to your prospect or customer

If you’re working with junior sales reps and haven’t read it yet, do take a look.

This time, we’re going to examine some of the more advanced attributes of giving your senior reps feedback on their sales calls.

You’d want to judge your more senior sales reps on the attributes below.

Let’s get started.

1. Proposing Solutions

The prospect’s needs sit at the core of sales. How can your rep propose a solution if they don’t understand their needs?

As you’re providing your sales rep with feedback, keep these questions in mind:

• Did your rep fully understand the challenges the prospect was facing?
• Did your rep assess those challenges properly?
• Did the rep propose suitable solutions?

Proposing solutions is not just about your product; it’s a teaching opportunity that will (if done correctly) provide the prospect with valuable insights for their business.

2. Red Flag Sensitivity

On almost every call, one or more red flags will pop up. These indicate that something will be difficult. There might be hesitation, indecisiveness, or unwillingness to commit.

Provide your sales rep with feedback based on these questions:

• Did your rep notice any red flags during the call?
• Did your rep ask questions about the red flags spotted?
• Did your sales rep approach conflict or run away from it?

Often, salespeople will want to ignore red flags instead of investigating them and trying to find a solution to the problem.

Here’s an example of how not to handle a red flag during a sales call:

See the difference? You want your reps to tackle red flags upfront so they can manage and control them.

Learn more about this in How to “virtually” close every customer.

3. Level of Creativity

The same old objection management techniques might not always bring the deal to a close. Sometimes, the same objection requires a completely new maneuver. How good is your sales rep at creating new stuff on the fly?

Here’s what to bear in mind:

• Was your sales rep creative during the sales call?
• Did your rep come up with new ways of disarming a reluctant prospect?
• Did your rep have a new way of working around a specific obstacle?

You’re in sales, but per definition, you’re a consultant. These things will be a testament to how good of a consultant your reps are.

4. Time Management

Time management is a challenging discipline, not just for salespeople but for everyone. Making the most of the time comes down to your goal for the call.

Here’s what to ask:

• What was accomplished during this call, and what was its duration?
• Could it have been accomplished in less time? How?
• How well did the rep respect their time and prospect’s time?

Time management is a skill that requires a lot of practice. It’s about taking control of your time and working smarter, not harder.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Sales Reps with Feedback

In the past, I’ve had a bad habit of overwhelming sales reps with feedback, leaving them with no clear improvement points.

This is demoralizing and takes away their energy and passion. It also doesn’t provide your reps with a clear path toward improvement. How are they going to fix 40 things at once? They can’t.

Focus on One Area that Needs Improvement

As a sales manager, you need to be disciplined enough to focus on one thing—the most important thing that you think will have the biggest impact.

You can look critically at everything your reps do and add it to your internal data, but give them only one thing they need to work on.

Learn as a Team

As the sales manager, you need to ask yourself, “What are the learnings from this call that go beyond the individual sales rep?” These are things the entire team can learn and benefit from, but also things you can learn as the sales manager.

Perhaps you’ve seen multiple people on the team make the same mistake. That might mean that you weren’t as effective in your coaching as you thought you were.

When you’re reviewing a call, take it one step further. What are the opportunities for growth and learning? Is there something your entire sales team can learn? Perhaps there’s even something the whole business can learn? Always look at the bigger picture.

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