Boost sales productivity by mixing Junior and Senior-level Reps: A mentoring approach
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Sun, Feb 15, 2009 @ 02:15 AM
In a management blog I read recently, the following question was asked by an Inside Sales Manager: "As a sales leader, would you rather spend your energy mentoring the timid or teaching the superstar? I am curious as to your thoughts on whether or not it is more appealing to train shy and unproven rep into a confident producer or instruct a sales superstar into a humble team player? Why?"
I put this under the category of having a good challenge instead of a bad problem. In the real world, we often work with both categories of reps. Most of my clients have a mix of junior-level reps - some right out of college - that begin as lead qualifiers, and senior level reps. And yes, some of the senior reps have egos (years ago, before I started my telesales training company, I was one of them.) Ideally, you want the junior reps to learn sales skills from the senior reps, so a good approach is to set up a situation in which a senior rep can mentor a junior rep without the senior rep losing productive time. There are many ways of doing this, but one way is to ask the senior rep to take the junior rep out to lunch one day every two weeks or so, impart a proven, effective sales tip over lunch, and have a discussion about it. Have the company pay for lunch. The sales superstar will then be a team player (although not necessarily humbled), the junior rep will learn from one of the best, and management will have the best of both worlds: a senior rep that's highly productive, and a junior rep that's quickly improving his or her sales skills.
Some of the best inside sales reps I know today were fresh out of college when they attended my telesales training courses. They were terrifically smart, but a bit scared, and they took to mentoring right away. I paired them with senior reps during class exercises, and the senior reps loved "showing their stuff" with a room full of ready ears. During the ensuing months, the junior reps kept learning at a fast rate, as the mentoring relationship became less formal and more collegial. Bottom line? Team communication is improved, the senior rep continues at the highly productive rate, and the junior rep begins to increase sales faster. If you're a manager, consider using this technique to make your team work more cohesively. Add it to your Best Practices playbook.