Home Resources Blog The 80/20 Rule & Your Sales Team...
The 80/20 Rule & Your Sales Team
by Kurt Ballard |07.01.2009
If 80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople - what the heck are the others doing?
Sales productivity generally tends to follow a bell-shaped curve divided into four groups.
Rock Stars - the top 20% who produce the most
B Players - people in between 80% and 50%
Dead Wood - who produce less than average
Fish Bait- the bottom 15%
Does your team map to the bell curve? Be honest. Ideally, you have more Rock Stars than chum, but most organizations have too many sales people sitting comfortably somewhere in the middle. Not good for the top line!
You can take one of two approaches to this dilemma – make excuses or go for results.
Many CEO’s and Sales Executives may think that a warm body (Deadwood and Fish Bait) are better than a vacancy. But, the rest of the team can smell the stench of the bottom dwellers and resent having them around. Make the Deadwood and Fish Bait available for industry to improve the production and morale of the whole company.
Excuses - There’s a misguided notion going around management training that encourages leaders to spend more time with the B Players in hopes of transforming them into Rock Stars. No way. Not going to happen. B Players rarely if ever become Rock Stars. That’s why they are B Players. If it makes you feel better, keep enough B Players on hand to round out the volley ball teams at the company picnic.
Results - get to know your Rock Stars. Understand their winning ways, their interests and what makes them tick. These are the people that you need to retain, nurture and support, and of course, find more of them to hire. Imagine a whole team of top performers. Any company that can infuse their sales team with Rock Stars will grow exponentially.
Resources 
