How to Get Reps to Exercise Judgment

In my last post I talked about the increasing nature of variability within sales today. Most of us will agree that even in largely transactional businesses there is an increasing need for reps to be able to apply judgment to their interactions with customers. It may be about finding the right stakeholders, or identifying prospects open to teaching, the need to innovate and adapt is paramount.

Many of our members though struggle with the best way to ensure reps have the discretion they need to flex to a situation, while making sure that the needs of the business are served. Our opinion is that using a careful application of guided judgment can support both aims.

Guided judgment is about identifying the important outcomes to look for at each stage of the buying cycle and allowing managers and reps to innovate on the best means to use to achieve that outcome (within reason of course). One member, ADP, has found a unique process that places helpful guardrails (and ensures transparency) while still allowing reps to adjust their approach to each customer.

ADP uses customer verifiers to ensure reps are progressing through each sale and that their customers are progressing with them, ensuring a lower volume of ‘no deal’ outcomes. Managers work with reps, understanding if particular stage-gates have been met, indicating a customer is ready to move forward in their buying process. If a rep can’t identify a concrete buyer signal that deal is not yet ready to progress and the rep is encouraged to re-engage with the customer at that point in the sale until they see specific action. This emphasis on interim outcomes reduces subjective estimates, clarifies planning and encourages creativity.

CEB Sales members: Learn more about the impact of an empowerment climate on reps’ ability to innovate by listening to our webinar replay: Managing in the Insight Selling Era, and help your managers promote a climate that supports rep judgment using our FLIP tool.