Dave Kurlan wrote an outstanding post: Bench Strength – The Key To Replacing Salespeople. He mentioned that managers must always be recruiting. It’s such a simple concept, but Dave Brock is constantly amazed at how few managers–at all levels do this.
Here’s how the cycle goes. We have a bad performer in place, we worry about firing the person because it leaves an open territory – too often we think coverage is more important than quality. Maybe the manager might start looking casually for someone, but the normal day-to-day events slow the process down, consequently, nothing is done for too long.
Or it may go like this: One day, our star performer walks in and resigns. We panic–she’s going to leave a huge gap in our organization. We immediately look to back-fill the position. In our haste to fill the position, we may reduce our standards by recruiting the wrong person. The death spiral accelerates…