Not A Place For Professional Sales People - Anonymous employee CoConstruct Employee Review

Hi, this is Donny, CEO and Founder at CoConstruct. The quality of our sales team and the respect with which we treat them is really important to me, so I wanted to respond personally on this review. I’ll break this down into the three areas of schedule, metrics, and “professional” salespeople. First, regarding the schedule, when I see a review, I always try to put myself in the reviewer’s shoes to see what is “clear” to me could be misconstrued elsewhere. But, in this case, I can’t find any way to explain these comments about a lunch break and two, 10-minute breaks. It’s simply false. Our salespeople don’t clock in and out. There’s no schedule set for start time, end time, or breaks. We hire professionals who manage their schedules to reach their goals. Other than a daily huddle at 9 AM and a couple of other standing sales meetings during the week, our sales executives’ schedules are defined by them. Second, we do watch a lot of metrics. Sales is an art, but the math helps you know where to focus your attention to get better. Are you able to get the first call, but not get them on a demo? Or do they do the demo, but not buy? The metrics are a tool to give our sales team insights to reach their personal goals. If anything, when I go to the sales standups, I hear requests for more *more* metrics, since they are focused on finding ways to improve (and make more money). Now, having said that, when a salesperson is having performance issues, we do have to set targets around various activity metrics, since we know what activities lead to sales. If someone is struggling to reach their sales goals, we have to help by focusing on the steps in the sales process to diagnose the issue. If the salesperson then refuses to focus on any areas (or insists that he has all the answers, despite low sales results), then the activity metrics often end up getting the blame. But, the real issue is either around someone whose skill or attitude isn’t a good fit for the team. Finally, I do take issue with the comment that CoConstruct isn’t a place for “professional” salespeople. If you look at our sales floor, I guarantee you’ll find more sales experience than any company of our type. We’ve got people in their 20s up to people with a multiple of that age with decades of selling experience -- and it’s great. We just have to acknowledge that there are different types of sales, and being a professional in one doesn’t always translate to another. For example, we’ve found that sales professionals in the cell phone market aren’t a good fit for us. Selling a mostly commoditized product to someone who walked into a store is different than doing a consultative sale to a busy business owner who is looking for software to make her life easier. You can be a pro at one, and struggle with the other, especially if you’re aren’t open to learning from those around you who do have experience at that type of selling. Having said all of that, I hate when someone is struggling on the sales team, loves working at the company, but, even after months and months of coaching (far more than most companies would do) can’t get his sales results on par with his peers. We continue look for what we know are predictors of success and incorporate that into our recruiting process. That way, we can make sure that we’re bringing in those folks who we know are most likely to succeed and avoid disappointment on everyone’s end down the road.