In fact, I recommend that sales managers stop reporting revenue production as a comparison to other reps in the region or company. Instead, I strongly suggest that managers track specific metrics for reps as period over period performance. This is so much more motivating for sales people and more meaningful in managing performance metrics. Comparing a reps performance to the overall team average offers little in the way of value for performance management. There is too much discrepancy from rep to rep and from territory to territory. An this way (rep to rep comparisons) is more work (and one of the reasons I say managers should not have more than eight direct reports), but it is worth the effort.

By the way, add-on products and services are one of the greatest things about being in the software business. I don’t know of any other industry where it is easier to capture incremental revenue from existing customers. This is because if your company is listening to customer needs (and not developing stuff that only the developers think is cool), you have the almost perfect business model. Sadly, most companies don’t do this and is a key contributor to their ongoing pathetic sales performance. They instead allow developers to built the stuff the developers think is cool and then wonder the market doesn’t buy it. Guess who gets the blame? Yep - the sales force.

Essentially, you’d be enjoying the unique position that established individuals in enterprise software sales do every day. Your business would be on autopilot. Don’t laugh, because this is possible. I have seen it many times and it is where you want to be. If you don’t believe me, ask any of the big wheels at Microsoft, Oracle, i2 Technologies or Accenture. They will tell you that this is the kind of scenario you want to develop for yourself. Why? Because it is far easier and less expensive to develop ongoing revenue from an existing customer base, than it is to sell into a cold one. To put it very clearly, cold calling is dead.

However, you will only get to this level of achievement if you think of your territory as a corporation of which you are the president and CEO. That’s right, you must think about this career now from the top down from now on. To take this analogy further, you are actually going have employees of this ‘corporation’.

Make no mistake, there are going to be people working for you and they will be held to a higher standard of performance. Accountability is a good thing. Who are these people you ask? They are your systems engineers, field representatives, inside sales people, partner managers, regional office administrators, and senior managers, pre-sales people - everybody who works with you to meet your quota.

Now this is going to be a mental challenge for some people to accept. But remember what we discussed earlier, if you’re going to succeed you are going to have to challenge fundamental thinking. For example the manager or VP of sales that you report to currently is now an employee of your ‘corporation’. Yes, in this new way of operating they are going to theoretically work for you. Why? Well, first of all don’t forget the first chapter!

Companies in the coming years are going to have to support sales more than any other business unit of their organizations if they want to last.

Companies that don’t listen to, answer to and live for their sales organizations are never going to rise above mediocrity. In fact they will probably vanish.