The Argyle sales machine is powered by three very talented youngsters: Danny, Matt, and Clay AKA "DMC". Even though they're not 15 year sales veterans, they're very quickly learning the trade and very quickly driving results.
They're also very quickly showing many of the classic sales behaviors!
They follow the money. We made a minor tweak to our comp plan last month and the team very quickly figured out the types of deals that make them the most commission. And now they're trying to find as many of those deals as possible. Similarly, they're quickly learning to make calculations regarding their time, the particulars of the prospect, the likelihood a deal closes, and the likely pay-off. This is exactly the type of balancing act that you want them to learn as a manager.
They ask for what they need to make more money. Our product is constantly evolving and we definitely have a few shortcomings in some important funtional areas. And the sale guys are very vocal about it. In their minds, addressing these shortcomings will help them sell more product...which will help them make more money!
They ask for what they need to save time...which helps them make more money. We use Salesforce.com and we have (what I suspect is) a reasonably advanced implementation for a team as small as ours. But our guys are always driving for more process and cleaner workflow so that they can spend more time dialing and less time administrating. (This type of process feedback is one reason our team rocks!)
In short - our sales team does EXACTLY what we pay them to do. Which is why it is critical that sales compensation plans align with broader sales, marketing, product, etc. strategies. More on this in a future post.