How to quickly identify and reward the best seller

The seller is the face of the enterprise. But how to identify the most effective seller in your team? Is the number of transactions always the most important criterion? And how to award the best, so as not to envy others and motivate the whole team? From the company’s point of view, BEITRAINING experts tell about effective methods of personnel assessment.

When the calendar year comes to an end, it is time to take stock and plan for next year. Correct assessment of the results of work and their analysis are the key to effective planning and help improve the work of both an individual and the company as a whole, which means that they directly affect the company's profit.

“The manager’s task is to regularly evaluate and direct their employees,” says Anya Pabst, head of the Russian branch of the BEI training company. “Statistics and the identification of the best are needed not so that employees strive to“ go head-first ”in the pursuit of encouragement, but in order to timely identify problems of an individual employee and help him solve them.”

In order to evaluate the work of their employees, the head or manager of the sales department needs to develop a system of quantitative and qualitative indicators. Of course, it is best to do this before the start of the period during which it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the personnel, since it is better to know in advance what to pay attention to and what statistics to keep. So at the end of the year it’s better to do the next step. If such a system was not developed, but you still want to identify and stimulate the best sellers, you will have to deal with the indicators that you have.

Consistent monitoring of available data is the second phase of the assessment. In the field of trade, there is almost always an established system of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly reports, the frequency of which depends on the size and type of activity of the company. As a rule, the larger the enterprise and its turnover, the shorter the time period is reflected in the report. On average, a monthly report should include indicators such as a sales plan (how much is planned to be sold), revenue (how much is actually sold), service ratio, average check and average number of units in a check. Ideally, a meticulous manager should process the following data every day: revenue and what percentage of it is from the monthly plan, the number of visitors, checks and units of goods sold, as well as the amount of return.

The easiest way to evaluate the seller involves the availability of information about the number of potential customers with whom the seller has negotiated, and the number of completed transactions for the same period of time. Then, to calculate the effectiveness of the seller, the manager needs to divide the number of completed transactions by the number of potential customers with whom the seller came into contact, and then multiply the resulting quotient by 100%. (For example, seller N contacted 150 customers for a month, of which 15 bought the product, therefore, its effectiveness (service ratio) is 10%.)

Other quantitative indicators can also be the number of calls, the degree of expansion of the customer base, the number of new, regular and return customers, the average check, etc. However, taking into account only quantitative indicators without regard to qualitative ones can significantly affect the objectivity of the assessment.

Effectiveness is not always effective

The best result in assessing the effectiveness of personnel gives a combination of quantitative and qualitative indicators. After all, if you use only the above formula, you can miss the mark by making the best employee whose unprofessional onslaught forces the client to make a purchase and at the same time give the vow to never have contacts not only with a particular seller, but also with the company as a whole. Therefore, whenever possible, statistics should take into account the number of repeat and / or regular customers who come back to you again and again.

Using a “bare” formula without taking into account other indicators can deceive you in another case. Suppose, seller M works behind a neighboring counter with seller N, who during the same period of time has talked only with 80 customers, 10 of whom left him, taking away new boots, slippers or shoes. According to calculations, the effectiveness of this employee will be as much as 12,5%, that is, 7,5% more than the outgoing seller N. What is to be done? Which of them is more effective? A combination of several evaluation criteria will help answer this question.

So, you need to distinguish between contacts with existing, new and former (who ordered two or three seasons ago) customers. Getting an order by working with strangers or contacts from a database is much more difficult and requires an employee toоless effort than working with regular customers. Therefore, if you like the formulas, you can calculate the seller’s production rating, which reflects the employee’s ability to form a customer base by working with a potential client. To do this, you need to divide the number of customers who have re-bought by the number of new customers, and then multiply the resulting number by 100%.

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A similar method is used to calculate the so-called status rating, which shows the ability of an employee to form his own base of regular customers. To do this, we divide the number of regular (regular customers) customers by the number of new customers and again multiply by 100%. The resulting data can be considered effective only taking into account such an important indicator as the average check: after all, ten pairs of slippers sold will still cost less than one pair of Italian boots of the new model.

When quantity goes into quality

Qualitative indicators are just as necessary a tool for evaluating personnel, as well as quantitative indicators. Qualitative indicators include the quality of customer service (good help - customer reviews), work with documentation, reducing the number of complaints, the level of employee self-organization, responsibility, punctuality, and communication within the team. An open reaction to changes, the use of professional knowledge, a willingness to improve qualifications, the ability to communicate with difficult clients - all these data are not easy to translate into numbers, but they cannot be ignored.

If during the year your company experienced such a useful, but very stressful event, as participation in the exhibition, you have a good chance to evaluate your employees at all its stages in preparation, participation in the exhibition, evaluation of results - when all employees require maximum perseverance and efforts. The behavior of employees in such a “stressful” situation effectively reveals their strengths and weaknesses. It involves both quantitative (new business partners, the number of units sold) and qualitative (communication with the administration of the exhibition, the ability to distinguish potential customers from idle interested, resolution of conflict situations) indicators.

When assessing quality indicators, it is difficult to maintain objectivity. Relations within the team, self-organization, responsibility - all these qualities of employees in the eyes of the manager are often formed depending on his attitude to people. “Self-discipline and introspection is something a good manager cannot do without,” says Anya Pabst. “The success of the enterprise as a whole often depends on the qualities of the leader and his ability to work with subordinates.”

Assessing the effectiveness of the staff, do not forget that not all employees came to work for you at the same time. A new employee who is just getting used to the workplace is guaranteed to not be able to quickly achieve the results of an old-timer, who works with a regular customer base and knows everything about the specifics of your company.

The period of mentoring, when a new employee is mastered in the team and joins the work, lasts an average of 60 days. When it ends, the employee who has mastered the new environment works more efficiently. This is the first part of the productivity cycle, the rhythm of which is individual for each person, and the frequency can be from 9 to 17 months. The average and most common indicator is one calendar year.

In the second phase, employees achieve the highest level of productivity and are confident. Then comes the third part of the cycle, which is characterized by a decrease in productivity. The reasons for this arise in the second, successful phase. For various reasons, critical, unproductive moments arise in the workflow that are characterized by a decrease in productivity and often entail a loss of self-confidence and even the thought of quitting.

Thus, during the year, each of your employees can survive a drop in the level of productivity, and it is not at all necessary that its production cycle coincides with the calendar year and the period for which you intend to choose the most effective employee.

Distribution of elephants

Encouraging the identified production leaders is a pleasant task, but only a little less complicated than, in fact, the process of assessing the effectiveness of personnel. The main thing is that the festive “distribution of elephants” serves to rally and motivate employees, rather than sow discord in the team. Perhaps at the end of the year it is worth encouraging several people - “the best veteran” and “the best newcomer”, and also choose by secret ballot the best employee, whom the employees of your enterprise consider as such.

Fixed wage bonuses are a good way to reward. In this case, the employee is financially interested in effective work, because the size of the bonus depends on his productivity, but at the same time less stressful, because he knows that part of the salary is fixed and in adverse circumstances he will not remain on a starvation ration.

Do not forget about the benefits of intangible signs of attention - congratulations to the team, delivery of a letter or a comic prize in the form of a balloon, a huge cardboard note or a souvenir. Many people remember these incentives for longer, becoming even more loyal to your company.

An employee who is motivated and confident in himself and his own enterprise is the dream of any leader, the achievement of which requires the efforts of all parties. Transparent and effective personnel assessment methods are an important part of these efforts and can tell a lot not only about the employees of the enterprise, but also about your managerial abilities.