Sales Force Performance Evaluation

and Control
 Presented by-

Raj Gupta 315

Shardul Pandit 333

Shrey Jain 319

Adrito Sengupta 345

 Evaluating Sales Force Performance
One of the most important responsibilities of sales
managers is to evaluate the performance of the sales
personnel.
The factors affecting sales peoples' performance are
many.
 Some of these are beyond the control of the
individual, while some can be modified.
 Aspects like:
 motivation,
 skill-set,
 Evaluating Sales Force Performance
 role perception,
 personal factors like age, sex, height, etc;
 the ego drive,
 and empathy towards the customers.
Environmental and organizational factors, along with
the different functions of sales management come
under external factors.
Purposes of Sales force Performance
Evaluation
 To ensure that compensation and other reward
disbursements are consistent with actual
salesperson performance

 To identify salespeople that might be promoted

 To identify salespeople whose employment

should be terminated and to supply evidence to
support the need for termination
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 To determine the specific training and counseling needs

of individual salespeople and the overall sales force

 To provide information for effective human resource

planning

 To identify criteria that can be used to recruit and select

salespeople in the future

 To advise salespeople of work expectations

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 To motivate salespeople

 To help salespeople set career goals

 To relate salesperson performance to sales organization

goals.

 To enhance communications between salesperson and

sales manager.

 To improve salesperson performance

Dimension of Salesperson Performance
Evaluation
Professional
Development
Behavioral

Salesperson
Result
performance

Profitability
 Behavior
Consists of criteria related to activities performed by
individual salespeople
 Sales calls,
 customer complaints,
 required reports submitted,
 training meetings,
 letters and calls
 Professio nal Develop ment

Assess improvements in certain characteristics of

salespeople that are related to successful performance
in the sales job
Characteristics include –
 Attitude,
 product knowledge,
 initiative and aggressiveness,
 communication skills,
 ethical behavior, etc
 Results
Salespeople measured objectively based on results
such as – sales, market share, and accounts

A sales quota represents a reasonable sales objective

for a territory, district, region, or zone

Some research shows that rewards for achieving

results have a negative effect on performance and
satisfaction
 Profitability
Salespeople have an impact on gross profits through
the specific products they sell and or through the
prices they negotiate for final sale.
Salespeople affect net profits by the expenses they
incur in generating sales. Criteria Examples are:
 Net profit dollars
 Gross margin per sale
 Return on investment
 Number of orders secured
 Selling expenses versus budget
 Five steps of Performance Evaluation and
Control of Sales Force
Determine the factor that affect the performance of
Sales force
Selection of the criteria that will be used to evaluate
the performance
 Establishing performance standards that can be used
as a basis to compare the performance of the sales
force
Monitoring actual performance
Review and provide feedback to the sales personnel.
 Performance Criteria
The sales manager or the concerned person involved in
appraising the sales force can take the help of
quantitative or qualitative criteria.
Qualitative criteria involve all those activities that the
sale person does to achieve the end results. It includes:
 sales skills,
 territory management skills,
 personality traits, etc.
 Performance Criteria
Quantitative criteria are those aspects that measure the
sales performance in terms of the end results. It
includes:
 sales volume,
 average calls per day,
 sales orders, etc.
 Performance Standards
performance standards are set to compare and
evaluate the actual performance of the sales force.
The standards vary from industry to industry and are
different for different job profiles. Performance
standards come under:
 quantitative standards,
 qualitative standards,
 Methods of Performance Evaluation
Many methods of performance evaluation have been
developed over the years. Yet, there is no single
method that can be considered ideal for all
organizations.
Some of the commonly used methods are :
 essays,
 rating scales,
 rankings,
 management by objectives
 behaviorally-anchored rating scales.
 Methods of Performance Evaluation
Several modern methods of Performance evaluation
are:

 critical incident appraisal,

 work-standards method,

 family of measures, etc.,

 Graphic Rating Scale
Graphic rating scales are used in many surveys, they
normally consist of a line with four or five rating
criteria listed, such as
 Unsatisfactory
 Below expectation
 Satisfactory
 Above average
 Outstanding
 Graphic Rating Scale
Performance Unsatisfa Below Satisfactory Above Outstand-
Evaluation ctory Expectation Average ing
Productivity 
Quality 

Performance Evaluation 1 2 3 4 5

Productivity 
Quality 
 Global Rating
Evaluate the overall job performance of an employ.

Assist with decision such as paying bonus and

allocating performance based pay increases,

 It is unlikely to provide the employee with any ideas

on how to improve their performance.
 Global Rating

Performance Unsatisfac Below Satisfactory Above Outstan

Evaluation tory Expectation Average ding

Overall 
Performance
 Management by Objective
 MBO is generally used to define the performance standards of
people completing non routine tasks such as management tasks
or short-term projects.
 How it works:
 The manager and employee agree on the employee’s goals and
how they will be measured. 
 Once the goals are set they meet regularly to discuss progress
towards these goals.
 During the discussions the manager provides feedback on
progress towards interim goals.
 Management by Objective
 At the end of the agreed period the manager completes a
review of the employee’s performance against the new and
revised goals.
 In MBO Programs there also needs to be an assessment of the
way in which the goals were achieved, for example
 Did the project manager follow the business project
management processes?
 Were stakeholders engaged appropriately
 Did the manager meet objectives in an ethical manner?
 Was the brand or long term future of the business placed at
risk?
 The Essay Method
In the essay method the appraiser writes a statement to
describe the employee’s strengths and weaknesses
 To make recommendations about the employee’s
developmental needs.
 This method gives the appraiser some freedom to
describe the employee’s unique:
 characteristics,
 promotability
 special talents, etc
 The Essay Method
This method is reliant on the appraisers writing skills
and their ability to express their thoughts through the
written word.
To ensure consistency and improve the content of this
written evaluation a checklist of things to cover can be
created and could include items such as:
 Job performance
 Quality of work
 Team work
Performance Evaluation Bias
 Performance Evaluation Bias
Occurs when a manager’s evaluation of a salesperson
is affected by considerations other than the specified
criteria
Common sources of bias:
 Personal relationships
 Perceived difficulty of territory
 Outcomes (i.e., ends justifies the means)
Thank You....