3 Behavior Insights to help Sales Reps Sell More

Lewis Hamilton holds the record for winning the most number of races in the history of F1 (He’s bested Schumacher’s record!). He also holds the record for the most number of pole positions (starting position). So what does this tell us?

Behavior Insight: The best Formula 1 drivers work harder to get that pole position in the qualifiers than on the day of the actual race. Because they know that more than 40% wins come from drivers who started at pole.

Behavior science gives us a powerful lens to examine high performance behaviors and drive these best behaviors in teams. Here’s a look at three behavior insights that can help you help your sales reps sell more.

Insight #1 – An Early Start helps

Our research covering multiple years of over tens of thousands of sales reps highlights that high performing sales reps share this one thing in common with the best F1 driver of all time.

They start early. Much like F1 champions, their early start leads to big wins at the end.

Analysis of sales behaviors shows that high performers start their activities within the first week of the month. While the rest of the team is looking at the past month and how they did and taking it a bit easy the first few days in the month, these folks are off to an early start.

Result? Early starters typically hit 20% of their monthly targets in the first week & achieve almost 20-40% more than those who start later in the month.

Seems pretty obvious! So tracking early start behavior will help you support your teams faster, earlier.

Insight #2 – Find and help your late starters

So now you know who your “Late Starters” are. You can now help these late starters to start earlier in the month. The earlier the better! 

Our research showed that an earlier start can improve late starter productivity by 15%. 

The easiest way is to get them into the habit of starting their outreach/ customer calls/ etc in the first week of the month. So a 50% achiever can become a 60% achiever if she makes the push earlier in the month.

Insight #3 – Personalize the behavior intervention 

Using simple behavior markers of your sales teams can help you identify the early, and late starters in your team. Understanding their unique motivational profile will help you manage them better!

For instance, sales reps aren’t usually aware how their decisions impact their productivity. Just bringing that awareness (on starting early) will  sales reps make better decisions. E.g. telling each sales rep what behavior cohort they are part of is a start. 

The power of Behavior – Case study

In one sales team consisting of thousands of sales reps, getting team leads to focus on early start behavior got their laggards to start earlier in the month and improved their quota achievement by 11%. 

Using worxogo’s Nudge Coach to identify the behavior cohorts, team management worked on the late starter cohort. First the late starter cohort’s capability was built. Behavior shaping nudges helped them develop new work habits. Subsequently the group was given opportunities to grow and adequately motivated through appreciation and constant support.

worxogo’s AI behavior coach sent each behavior cohort a personalized early start behavior nudge support. The collaborative nudging included managers appreciation and guidance, leading to an increase in sales by 3%.

The best part – this improvement sustained over a quarter. And many of the “late starters” changed their habit to sustain the impact. 

For more information on how worxogo’s AI engine can help you identify your Sales team’s behavior cohorts and coach them to do better at work, write to us at sales@worxogo.com

Photo by Darren Nunis on Unsplash