Accept the Slump: The Early Performance Drop That Predicts Your Next Top Salesperson
The important challenge for the modern commercial landscape is the accelerated change. As we observe the rapid progression of technology, especially with new AI tools and digital automated processes, organizations must constantly adapt to keep up with the pace and stay competitive. Yet, this focus on rapid transformation manifests the cost of such change: the performance decline. Leaders often expect the top sellers to adapt easily, but scientific evidence suggests this approach is a critical mistake. The research article published in the Journal of Marketing provides evidence that after a major change occurs, average sales employee showcases a drop in performance, followed by recovery and ultimately stabilization. However, salespeople who at the beginning experience only a small decrease in performance are the ones who fall behind in maximizing growth potential in the long run.
The study identifies two distinct characteristics based on which salespeople handle change in systems, knowledge, or selling models:
- The Performance-Oriented (PO) salesperson: driven by showing current capabilities, immediately performing with stable numbers, and achieving sales targets or exceeding them. Such individuals perceive the change as a threat to maintain their position on the leaderboard, and therefore, they try to find a way around adapting to what is new. They engage in superficial learning and avoid dedicating time to understanding the change. Hence, PO salespeople experience a relatively small initial decline, but because they never truly master the new tools, their recovery is superficial, simultaneously inhibiting the long-term potential.
- The Learning-Oriented (LO) salesperson: driven by mastering new skills, improving capabilities, seeking feedback, and treating failure as an essential part of the process. Such individuals perceive the change as an opportunity for development, and they embrace the journey, including committing mistakes. At the beginning, LO salespeople showcase a bigger performance drop, however, because they fully commit to the learning process, their recovery happens faster and steeper, leading to achieving a significantly higher performance in the long run.
The takeaway? A salesperson who initially looks like the worst adapter - the one whose numbers drop the most in the first months – is likely the best long-term growth potential.
This evidence calls for an overhaul of how leaders manage the change. As leaders audit their teams for the year ahead, the focus should be shifted away from punishing LO salespeople for their short-term hurdles, but instead, the focus should be on managing the PO individuals who reluctantly embrace the change. Essentially, the success of change adaptation is guided by the organization's capacity to control the failure and facilitate the transition period.
Leaders should actively create a culture where the initial decline in sales performance is expected, supported, and understood as a sign of adaptability. Failing to create such an environment exposes organizations to vulnerability against unstoppable technological change and prevents the deep learning required to master new systems and fully capitalize on the benefits of transformation. Leaders who focus on short-term metrics over long-term change adeptness will find their organizations stuck in the past, compromising the ability to compete and grow in the future.
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Ahearne, M., Lam, S. K., Mathieu, J. E., & Bolander, W. (2010). Why Are Some Salespeople Better at Adapting to Organizational Change? Journal of Marketing, 74(3), 65–79. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.74.3.065
