Compare the money brought in, the actions taken in deals and how independently salespeople work, first separating new and regular customers. This approach to evaluating salespeople shows who only needs training, who needs a different task and where it is time to prepare for a replacement. The comparison makes sense when enquiries, time in the job and available help from the head of sales are similar.
When deciding who should get large enquiries or a pay rise, or whether to look for a replacement, revenue seems the fairest argument. Money has come in, so the person knows how to sell. But an employee's individual result already combines their own work, the customer base they were given and other people's involvement. Which part do you expect to get from a new salesperson if you decide to replace the current one?
Start with how your ranking is built. Does it separate buyers found independently from orders already in hand from regular customers? Can you see who led the negotiations after which the buyer agreed? If that information is missing, the surname next to the amount identifies the person responsible for the customer. It does not establish that they made the whole sale.
Assessing a salesperson's work
An assessment of a salesperson's work should link results to observable actions: how much money their deals brought in, how they worked with buyers and how much of the work they did themselves. The head of sales uses this information to choose a change for a particular employee; an overall score is no substitute for that decision.
First, state the work assigned to the person. A salesperson who finds new buyers and an employee who takes repeat orders are responsible for different areas. The first is assessed on bringing in new paying customers. The second is assessed on retaining orders from their assigned customer base and increasing purchases where there is a need for them. A universal ranking will mix up these tasks before the first calculation.
For an existing team, use the following assessment table. The head of sales gathers the figures and examples for it; the business owner gets the conclusion and the basis for a decision.
| What we assess | Information needed | How it affects the decision |
|---|---|---|
| Financial result | Payments and refunds on assigned deals; large one-off payments shown separately | Shows which sales the employee's total depends on |
| Conversion | Numbers of buyers and enquiries from the same group, with the same time allowed for a purchase | Helps identify differences in how salespeople work with similar demand |
| Sales terms | Discounts, deferred payments and agreed exceptions | Shows the cost of achieving the result and who authorised the concessions |
| Understanding needs | The conversation makes clear what the buyer is choosing, on what terms and what is holding up the decision | Helps identify a specific skill to develop |
| Following through on commitments | The step promised to the customer, the deadline and the action actually taken | Distinguishes a negotiation mistake from an unfulfilled promise |
| Independence | What the salesperson decided and what the head of sales did for them | Shows which area of work the employee can be trusted with without constant help |
| Response to training | One mistake that has been reviewed and the actions taken in subsequent similar deals | Provides a basis for continuing training or changing the decision about the person |
The number of calls helps establish the cause: whether there were enough attempts to contact buyers. By itself, it does not determine the employee's position in this assessment table. A CRM system with well-kept records also provides information for assessment, but it does not make up for a promise to a customer that no one kept.
Do not reduce the whole table to a simple average. High revenue does not cancel out a sale on terms the company did not authorise. Nor does careful record-keeping make up for a lack of buyers. Such discrepancies need separate decisions, even if the overall assessment looks reasonable.
First, make sure salespeople are comparable
Compare employees within the same tasks: new enquiries with new enquiries, repeat orders with repeat orders, one product with the same product. Then account for the source of demand, the time since the enquiry and the amount of work handed over.
Take one completed period in which enquiries came in. For each salesperson, record the number of enquiries received, the number of purchases and the total payments for that particular group as of the same date. If customers take several months to buy, yesterday's enquiries cannot tell you how well someone can sell. First compare the progress of deals that have had the same time to develop, then record the total money received after the observation period used by the company.
For example, with a similar flow of incoming enquiries, the first salesperson received 40 enquiries and had 12 buyers, while the second received 90 enquiries and had 18 buyers. The first salesperson's conversion rate: 12 / 40 × 100% = 30%. The second's: 18 / 90 × 100% = 20%. With the same payment of 100 thousand roubles per purchase, the totals will be 1.2 and 1.8 million roubles.
The second is ahead in money received. The first is ahead in the share of buyers from the enquiries received. The calculation does not choose a winner: it gives a precise question to ask about why the share of purchases is lower when there are more enquiries. This difference calls for a review of workload and actions. Automatically giving the second salesperson even more enquiries based on revenue means increasing the workload before finding the cause.
Repeat the calculation with your own data: divide buyers by enquiries for each salesperson, then compare the result with the number of deals active at the same time. If one salesperson's group consists mainly of repeat orders, separate these out first. Otherwise, the arithmetic will be correct but the conclusion about the person will be arbitrary.
Keep enquiries the salesperson has judged unsuitable in the original count and show them on a separate line with the reasons. Otherwise, an employee can improve conversion by removing difficult enquiries from the calculation. Calculate conversion for suitable enquiries alone as an additional measure when the same selection criteria apply to the whole team.
A small sample needs particular care. One purchase out of five is 20%; two out of five is 40%. A twofold difference came from one customer's decision. To draw a conclusion for a staffing decision, you need the result to be repeated in subsequent comparable groups and evidence of the work done; there is no universal number of enquiries that is sufficient for every sales department.
Whose work is credited to the salesperson
Independence shows in the decisions made within a deal: who clarified the terms of the purchase, suggested a way to continue negotiations and made sure the agreement was carried out. Getting an exception approved by the head of sales does not in itself mean the salesperson is weak.
If a salesperson gathered the customer's requirements, worked out the figures for the options and put forward a proposal within the scope of their duties, they did the work. If they forwarded the buyer's message and the head of sales then identified the need, chose what to offer and agreed on the next conversation themselves, the head of sales made a significant contribution to the result. These types of help need to be distinguished.
Do not deduct an arbitrary percentage from revenue “for the head of sales' involvement”. The money is still the company's money. Beside the total, it is enough to record the stage at which the head of sales stepped in and exactly what they did. This shows which skill the employee needs to develop and how much attention an increased workload will require.
For the first review, the head of sales can take two paid deals, two lost deals and one unfinished deal for each salesperson. This is an initial look at different outcomes, with no claim to assess the whole department from five deal records. At each disputed step, you need the customer's original message, the salesperson's action and what happened next. If a repeated mistake is found, the head of sales extends the review to other deals with the same difficulty.
The business owner's presence in negotiations should also be taken into account. If employees bypass the head of sales and get a decision directly from the owner, the assessment of independence will depend on whom the owner helped more often. Where people take a difficult question is covered separately: who they will turn to with a difficult deal after a head of sales is appointed.
How do you assess a salesperson and make a decision about them?
Conduct the assessment in four stages: agree on the task and criteria, gather comparable information, discuss discrepancies with the salesperson, then assign an action with a deadline and a way to judge the result. The owner needs the outcome for each employee, while the head of sales handles the preparation and discussions.
Before the conversation: prepare the evidence
For the first assessment, set the rules before calculating. State the salesperson's role, the period, the customer groups, the sources of money and deals, and the permitted sales terms. Keep previously announced pay rules in force: an assessment table must not change an earned bonus retrospectively.
The final record for each person needs six fields: assigned work, result, how they got their customers, specific difficulty, help provided and proposed decision. Links to deals and excerpts from conversations remain an appendix for the head of sales. This amount of information lets the owner make a decision without listening to every call themselves.
Give the salesperson a chance to correct a factual error. Was the order transferred to them before payment? Was the required product unavailable? Did the head of sales approve the discount? These facts change the conclusion. The employee does not have to agree with the assessment, but a verified fact cannot be dismissed simply because it gets in the way of a convenient explanation.
After the conversation: choose one change
The phrase “improve sales” does not define the work to do. If buyers leave after discussing the price, establish what is happening: the salesperson is not finding out what they are comparing it with, is promising a discount they cannot offer or is failing to come back with an agreed answer. Each needs a different way of putting it right.
| What has been established | Decision | How to judge the result |
|---|---|---|
| The salesperson loses buyers over the same recurring question | Review this step and practise the response using their deals | In new conversations, takes the required action without prompting |
| Results worsened as the number of active deals grew | Limit the workload and remove delays in serving customers | Meets promised deadlines; then compare conversion for similar groups |
| Handles repeat orders but can only conduct new negotiations with help | Consider a separate role working with the customer base, if the company needs one | Retains orders from the customer base without the head of sales' constant involvement |
| The salesperson requests information they cannot access, but no answer arrives on time | Fix the way information is passed on by the department responsible | The salesperson gets the answer on time and passes it to the buyer |
| The requirement is clear, resources are available and the mistake recurs after review | Prepare a decision to replace them, including the handover of customers | Evidence has been gathered from several instances; a new person has been assigned responsibility for each customer |
The deadline for the action should depend on what is being assessed. For example, you can allow ten working days to correct the way they respond and observe it in new conversations. To draw a conclusion from payments, you need enough time for the relevant deals to be completed. Set both dates in advance: training must not turn into endless waiting, and a long sales process must not become a reason to blame someone for no money coming in on the third day.
Separately assess the cost of continuing: the hours the head of sales spends helping, the available volume of suitable enquiries and the work that will have to be postponed. If the head of sales has no time to work with the salesperson, a deadline alone will not teach them anything. A new employee also has to learn the product; that is a separate review — when a busy new salesperson will start selling.
When you lack the facts to make a decision about an employee
If individual results are only recorded as an overall amount, the assessment depends on getting the information ready: each conclusion needs a link between money, deals and the employee's actions. The head of sales makes these links in day-to-day records or uses a tool that reads the available data.
RENTROP has AI ROP for this task: its sales team assessment shows money received and conversion by salesperson. The service analyses calls and correspondence together with the deal record and prepares a review of the employee for a one-to-one conversation; it only reads the data, and the head of sales makes the decision about the person.
The outcome of an assessment is particularly revealing when the top salesperson by revenue stays in their current area of work, while another salesperson gets more suitable enquiries. The first is still higher in the overall table. But the company now knows what it is buying with additional pay, training or a new vacancy: the ability to perform a specific job under known conditions. A place in the ranking does not give that answer.