Performance Planning 2.0: Four Steps to Turning Around Under-Performers

Thanks to Brent Holloway for this guest post. Brent is a regional sales director for Verint Systems Inc. and coauthor of “Sales 2.0.”

According to CSO Insights data, fewer reps are achieving quota, yet quotas, on average, are going up. At this time of year, many of you may be looking at your headcount and budget plan for 2011 and evaluating which members of your existing sales team should be counseled to find a new job. With more reps falling short, what should we sales managers do with reps who are not cutting it? This is, of course, a subjective question, and the right answer depends on many factors, but I feel it’s fair to suggest we should all have a methodology and process to follow — not just for a termination process, but also for the time leading up to a possible termination.

Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, are often given to sales reps who are performing below expectations. By integrating Sales 2.0 principles into your PIPs, you can optimize the opportunity to turn around and improve the performance of a rep who may be struggling. Here are four suggested steps for PIPs:

Have a process. After X quarters in a row (X will depend on your company), present your PIP. Be clear about how long the rep has to turn around his or her performance. Set a clear expectation about the timeframe.
Know your team’s best practices, and share them early and often. Give under-performing reps every chance of success by giving them specific ideas for how to improve.
Include measurable objectives. Your PIP should give reps specific and attainable metrics you have identified as necessary for achievement. This could include number of weekly calls and number of demonstrations, as well as goals related to adding new pipeline and booked orders.
Get feedback from your reps. You can increase their buy-in if they are included in setting the goals.

Based on feedback from some of my peers across a wide range of companies, general consensus seems to be that, while PIPs are positioned as tools to help an employee succeed, they are often viewed — and used — as tools to justify termination and prevent lawsuits. I believe PIPs can serve both objectives, with an emphasis on giving the employee every reasonable opportunity to succeed — if they are written fairly and presented well.

Presumably your sales reps know what is expected of them based on their compensation plan; the objectives in a PIP, when necessary, are often more tactical. A PIP can also be used as a commitment test, giving a rep a chance to “self-select” and resign before getting fired if he or she is not committed to improving.

I have experience giving a few PIPs, and one recent one resulted in a successful turnaround. This may not be the norm, but I feel it’s worth celebrating and sharing. After two years of consistently missing his quarterly goals (sometimes by a little and sometimes by more than 50%) and being at the bottom of his peer group, an employee was given a formal PIP at the start of Q4 of last year. The plan had clear pipeline-building and revenue objectives, and the rep is now thriving with three straight quarters of excellent results. I can’t give all the turnaround credit to the performance improvement plan, but from eight missed quarters to three good ones in a row, plus good progress so far this quarter, the plan clearly had a role. I think it forced him to focus more, and it was clear that he became more proactive and creative in his selling.

How are other people using PIPs? How do you determine the appropriate time to present one?