Your higher level corporate body made the decision for you………..they would send in the “crack” team to run the diagnosis over your affiliate sales team, just like they had planned to do with all the other affiliates across the corporate global footprint.  “What the hell”  you thought………….”hey , I am not paying for it, corporate is, so no skin off my nose”, you rationalised.

You heard that your New Zealand brethren had received their assessment and report prior to yours and you were able to glean some insight as to the emerging key recommendations.

Report “big rock #1” ….. Improve in-field one-on-one coaching – it is the biggest impact thing you can do to drive sales team effectiveness!

Report “big rock #2” ….. Develop a sales exec capability and competency framework – recruit and train to it so as to drive consistency across your sales team!

And then you hear on your company grapevine that other affiliates that have undergone the same assessment received very similar recommendations.  You start “smelling” the carbon copy template solution approach.

“That’s all well and good” you think as your reflect on the recommendations that are also likely to be cast in your direction.  “But I need a baseline first…………I need to know what good looks like……….for the whole team………in terms of productivity and return on investment.  I need a system first that my team can operate to, then the individual effectiveness needs of each member will absolutely make sense as a tailored overlay.

Herein lies the heart and soul of “optimise your sales system/team/process first…………then apply individual member sales team effectiveness overlays”.