ZenRecruit Sales Coaching And Performance Reviews Case Solution

1. What should Kagwa seek to accomplish in her conversations with Erin Premo and Fred Sung? What goals should Kagwa have for each discussion? What changed in understanding, attitude, or behaviors should Kagwa be seeking in each case?

While having conversations with the two salespeople who did not meet their quota, Kaggwa should first do a root cause analysis and find out the real reasons for their performance. It is best that Kaggwa appear to be empathic, having a listening ear to their problems rather than be reprimanding (Young, Richard, Moukarzel, Steelman & Gentry, 2017). The goals for the conversation with Erin Premo could include firstly figuring out why the initial zeal of Premo had worn off, secondly, they could establish on how Premo could be more independent as Kaggwa could not be there all the time. Also, a coaching system using mentorship could be established for Premo, in this way she would not feel lost and could resort to her mentor for guidance and coaching whenever required and at the same time, it would not eat up Kaggwa’s time. For Fred Sung, Kaggwa could possibly discuss his issues and how they were impacting his work. She could set up organizational counselling, for all employees, so that they could vent out when needed and prevent it from affecting their jobs (Aliyev & Tunc, 2015).

2. Consider the process of acquiring and keeping customers at ZenRecruit. What are the important sales tasks in this venture? In what stage of the sales funnel do Premo and Sung need to improve? What kind of coaching, training, or other activity might help each rep to improve? What else could Kagwa do to diagnose each rep’s strength and weaknesses?

When examining the sales process for ZenRecruit, it is seen that follow up at each step, from prospective leads to convert into customers, is integral. The first follow up is one that tries to lure the prospective customer, this is when a demo is requested on the website, salespeople are to contact the prospect within a few minutes, if the call is not attended, they are to follow up via email. Likewise, follow-ups for detailed discussions and then an invitation to the demonstration are pertinent to the whole process. For Premo, the main problem lied in active lead sourcing through online platforms such as LinkedIn; she mainly relied on leads that came to her through content and paid marketing. Another issue was that of follow-ups, she needed to make strong follow-ups to close the deals. For Sung, his main issue lied at the negotiation stage, where he closed deals on discounts, to improve his performance, Sung needs to focus on the product attributes to sell the product rather than price reductions (Roberge, 2016).

3. Review the case data about the sales force. If Kagwa had 30 hours of time to coach her salespeople in July, how should she divide that time across each rep in her sales organization? What factors drove your decisions on time to allocations?

When analyzing the sales data, it can be seen that Erin and Fred come out to be the weakest players. They are the lowest MRR and MRR/Customer, and also score low on other variables such as discovery calls, trials, customers etc. It is also seen that they have a decreasing trend in MRR and MRR/Customer during the six months’ period for both of these salespeople.