How To Optimize 1:1s

for Success

A step-by-step template to ensure your 1:1s are part of

your sales strategy

Courtesy of TopOPPS

Overview

I believe millions of dollars in sales is lost due to poor execution in sales 1:1s. By Sales 1:1s, I am talking about when a sales manager meets with a sales representative on her/his team to develop them into an A-player and make sure they are hitting their number. Adopting this methodology should improve sales growth and help in meeting the number on a regular basis.

The foundation of this methodology comes from my previous two companies that are market leaders in their categories - Gainsight, #48 in the Inc 5000 and Host Analytics, the leading finance performance management solution in the cloud.

The following is a guideline and template that will help you become much more effective in your sales 1:1 meetings maximizing the development of your sales team.

By Jim Eberlin, CEO & Founder of TopOPPS

PART ONE

What’s Wrong With 1:1s

1

These three approaches will kill any opportunity of increasing the

performance of your sales reps - avoid them.

What’s wrong with 1:1s

Just Another Forecast CallDon’t make your 1:1 the forecast call - save that for, well…..the forecast call. We tend to use that 1:1 time with the sales reps to review the shiney deals - but we need to separate the Forecast Call from the Sales 1:1. The 1:1 time is for the sales rep. You tend to their priorities first - this is their sales development time. If you have a problem with juggling time to develop sales reps and get a good handle on the forecast and help the rep with deals, then let me know by sending me an email at jim@topopps.com and we’ll send you another template on Forecast Calls and Pipeline Reviews to help you in saving time and be more effective.

Just Another Forecast Call

What’s wrong with 1:1s

De-motivatorsIn sales 1:1s avoid the the de-motivation comments that do not provide any guidance or next steps. Just focus on metrics, facts and make sure the sales team is seeing them at the same time as you. Jointly discuss the problem positively and put together a gameplan and next steps. Everyone has to be accountable but applying negative pressure will not help. Examples of these negative de-motivators:

“I really need you to hit your number this quarter”

- Gee thanks boss, I was planning to take it easy this quarter:) How about we make sure we’re aligned on a good gameplan and make sure we execute on it.

“You don’t have enough emails/calls/pipeline”

- Yeah, Vice President of Obvious, I’m looking right at my metrics and yes, that’s what they tell me:) But I could use your help on some things to fix that.

Demotivators

What’s wrong with 1:1s

The Disjointed 1:1 meetingStarting a sales 1:1 from scratch, where you ask what happened last week and what’s coming up this week without knowing where you left off from the previous week, will get you nowhere. Having a record of the previous week and a heads up on the discussion will make the meeting much more efficient and effective. The meeting not only has to tend to the sales reps needs, but it has to continue progression toward the rep’s personal sales goal.

The Disjointed 1:1 Meeting

These three approaches will kill any opportunity

of increasing the performance of your

sales reps - avoid them.

PART TWO

Systematized Sales1:1 Meetings

2

Weekly 1:1

MonthlyReviews

Weekly 1:1

Weekly 1:1

Weekly 1:1 Weekly

1:1

Weekly 1:1

MonthlyReviews

Weekly 1:1

Weekly 1:1

Weekly 1:1

QBR

Systematize Your Coaching

Sales Quarterly Business Review (QBR)This is the sales meeting where sales reps will present to sales management the review of their personal previous quarter, then they’ll present their game plan to hit their forecasted number for the current quarter. This meeting is done within the first week or two of the quarter.

1. Sales rep reviews the quarter just ended2. Sales rep presents their forecasted number and the game-plan to meet

their numbera. Download the QBR Template

Quarterly Business Reviews

Systematize Your Coaching

Weekly Sales 1:1Weekly sales meetings should utilize a google drive to record what happened at the most recent meeting. I’d keep the notes as simple as possible. Make sure you address the sales reps priorities first and keep them guided in the right direction. Then make sure your priorities are linked to the gameplan for proper execution.

Here are the main sections of your google document or spreadsheet: 1. What the rep wants to talk about

a. Examples could be that they need resources or help on a situation with a prospect

2. What you want to talk about a. You should be reviewing demos and meetings by the sales rep and

coachingb. You want to make sure the sales rep is staying on course with what

was committed in the QBR3. Objective from previous week

a. Record action plans that came out of the meeting and next steps4. Date last updated

Weekly Sales 1:1s

Systematize Your Coaching

Monthly Sales 1:1s Now that you have had time to move the needle, you can look at metrics to measure results to make sure the game plan is working and that you’re on track to meet your number.

1. Forecast and Actual Bookings2. Current Quarter Pipeline3. Sales that will occur this quarter that are not in pipeline yet*

a. Add current pipeline that should win to the wins that “will be produced” that are not in the pipeline yet*

4. Opportunities scheduled to win in the quarter 5. % that this rep wins at each stage based of the sales process*

a. Reason: To see where deals get stuck - to coach them to be better in that stage. Review the exit criteria you use to move to the next stage and possibly insert a milestone that helps move deals forward.

b. Download Leading and Lagging Metrics

Monthly Sales 1:1s

PART THREE

Identify Sales Personalities

3

It’s important for your coaching direction to understand the

personality and tendencies of each sales rep.

Sales Personality:

SandbaggerSand-baggers tend to open up opportunities at the last minute and close them - as a deal is closing. For example, if your normal sell cycle is 90 days, their deals might show 10 or 20 days - when in fact they were working them quite a few days before that. Also, their win rates may be at or near 100%. Also, their commit win rates will be the same as their overall win rates. Don’t chastise the sales rep for doing this - get to know why. They may have a good reason - maybe they don’t want you knowing about the deal for some reason until it’s ready to close. So, it’s important to work together as a team to understand this tendency and get both of you aligned to support the rep and the company.

Sandbagger Metrics:

Avg Time to Won: This is the average amount of days to win a deal

Win Rate (Comprehensive): Of all the opportunities that were won or lost - what % was won. This shows the reps performance overall.

Win Rate (Schedule to Win): Of all the opportunities scheduled to win in the period - what % was won. It is # of wins divided by (# of wins + pushes). This shows the reps ability to predict when they will win.

Win Rate (Commits): Of all the opportunities that were committed by the sales rep - how many were won in that period. This shows the reps ability to understand their ideal prospects and an additional indicator of their ability to predict when they will win.

Sandbagger

Happy EarsReps with Happy Ears tend to hang onto deals longer and their win rates are lower than the other reps. They’ll also have more “no-decisions” and what we call “multi-pushes”. A single push is ok, because a rep tried to get a deal done in the current sales period but it slipped (also called “leaked” or “pushed”) into the following sales period - that happens. But a multi-push means the deal pushed (or slipped) twice - that deal is highly unlikely to close. Also, a Happy Ears rep will have a low commit win rate - which means they commit more often but these deals don’t close. They need guidance on what roles they should be dealing with, how to get a customer to the appropriate next steps, decisions and breakups.

Happy Ears Metrics:

Avg Time to Lost: This is the average amount of days that it takes for a rep to move an opportunity to closed lost.

# of Multi-Pushes: A single push is when an opportunity was originally scheduled for the current quarter but “pushes” into the falling quarter. A multi-push is when an opportunity pushes into two or more sales periods. Sales periods are usually a quarter or a month.

Win Rate (Commits): Of all the opportunities that were committed by the sales rep - how many were won in that period. This shows the reps ability to understand their ideal prospects.

Sales Personality:Happy Ears

Scattered The Scattered rep is not focused and chases most every lead that they get. They need help on understanding the ideal customer profile, roles that they should be dealing with and qualifying questions for the right kind of deals. They tend to discount a lot because it is hard to sell value to everyone. Scattered reps tend to have low win rates to ideal customer profiles - but it’s possible for them to have a decent win rate overall - but they have lower value deals.

Scattered Metrics:

Win Rate (ICP): Win rate of Ideal Customer Profile. Ideal customer profile could include industry, company size, # of employees or users, revenue size, contact roles and any other deal attribute of your highest value wins.

ASP: Average Selling Price is something to watch for scattered reps because they tend to discount.

Sales Personality:Scattered

PART FOUR

Reduce the time and effort to do these

meetings

4

There’s good news... You can see all this information and these metrics for your 1:1 meetings and not even request any help - it will be there automatically. Contact us and view our application that automates this for you. TopOPPS plugs right into your CRM, then automatically calculates and displays this information for each sales rep and summarizes it for your team. Contact us to learn more.

Predictive Analytics for SalesTopOPPS can automate this for you.