Guest Column: Are you a sales quitter, camper or climber?

So you consistently hear good reasons why your salespeople are not hitting their targets, and you agree with them.

You are OK with salespeople who are not growing professionally, as long as they are handling some reasonably good accounts for you.

No one is tracking the weekly behaviors of your salespeople and holding them accountable to their goals.

Maybe they don't have their goals written out, dated and shared.

Your pipeline is never as full as it looks, and your new salespeople rarely live up to your expectations.

If you were to rate your salespeople as quitters, campers or climbers, most of them would fall into the category of campers - happy campers.

These are the warning signs that the bar is set too low with respect to the revenue-driving side of your business.

Some things to be aware of: The average salesperson is less than 20 percent effective on a day-to-day basis.

Sales managers spend an average of less than 20 percent of their time managing their salespeople.

The hiring of a salesperson that doesn't work out costs the company 14-to-24 times that person's annual salary on average.

Four out of five sales job candidates who make it to the interview stage of the hiring process either can't or won't sell when they are hired.

The average salesperson should be looking to double or triple sales instead of hoping for incremental percentage increases.

Solution: Start raising the bar.

Forget about historic performance. Attaching small incremental growth targets to territories that have historically under-performed is a trap. Set expectations on what should be, not on what has been.

Forget numbers for a while. Sales are history. They're lagging indicators.

Develop and clearly define behaviors that are required for your salespeople to meet their targets, then track them and hold them accountable for doing them consistently.

Look at your salespeople as campers, climbers or quitters.

Start now to upgrade everyone to the climber, what you should consider A-players. If that's not possible, you may have to start over. And when you hire, do so with a no-compromise attitude. They must be A-players.

If you have more than five salespeople, you need to commit to having someone in place whose job is to supervise, train, coach and mentor your salespeople at least 85 percent of the time.

That's not a luxury. It's a necessity if you want to maximize your return on investment on your sales team.

You must unconditionally commit to raising the bar for your sales organization.

If you cannot see that bar at a higher level, no one else will either.

Raise the bar. Do it now.[[In-content Ad]]Brett Baker is a managing partner for TrustPoint Management Group in Springfield.