Video Mystery Shop: Feedback is your friend
I have the distinctive pleasure this year of working with two of my favorite people (Meredith Oliver and John Palumbo) presenting the Three Elements 2014 Sales and Marketing Rally to various home builders associations and builders around the country. We’ve been to IBS in Vegas, Tampa, Jacksonville and are heading to Raleigh, Birmingham and St. Louis in the next few weeks.
The program is a three-hour high-energy, fast-paced, and extremely content-rich subject sales training. It has the energy of a concert, the motivation of a retreat, and the skills and strategies of a two-day conference.
I cover several topics in my portion of the program, but the one I want to discuss today is FEEDBACK. Many people get intimidated or nervous about delivering (or receiving) feedback, but I am here to tell you that FEEDBACK can be your Friend!
I want to share with you six easy tips for GIVING good feedback. This can be extremely valuable for sales managers when they are presented with the task of having a ‘difficult’ conversation with a member of their sales team. Let’s say for example that your sales associate scored very poorly on their video shop, and you want to discuss this with them and set up a plan for improvement.
- Schedule a meeting in a private conference room, not across from your desk. Give yourself ample time for the meeting and please…TURN OFF ALL ELECTRONICS.
- Explain the purpose of the evaluation prior to the meeting. Let your sales person know WHY they are meeting with you and that the purpose of the meeting is to provide constructive feedback and to improve their performance.
- Start with overall performance and highlight specific accomplishments. Get input from the salesperson as to what areas they feel they are doing well in.
- Ask the salesperson where they think they need improvement…..and then shut up and LISTEN. Trust me, 99% of the time the salesperson is WELL AWARE of where they are falling short.
- Give the salesperson the opportunity to ask questions and make statements in order to create an action plan and timeline for improvement.
- Follow up and see if improvements are being implemented. Continue to offer words of encouragement along the way.
Finally, make yourself available to your team. The best sale performance we see is in direct proportion to the amount of time the sales manager spends in the field.
