Turning Around a Sales Team: How I Helped Xerox Boost Performance

When I started working with Xerox, they had a severe problem: their sales region was underperforming despite a booming economy in the area. The issue wasn’t the market—it was internal. Their sales team had a high turnover rate, and the leadership practices weren’t helping the situation—something needed to change.

The Problem: Sales Team Turnover and Leadership Gaps

I first noticed that the sales reps struggled with a long sales cycle. Their compensation plan wasn’t structured to support them during the cycle, leaving them without the cash flow to stay motivated between bonuses. Xerox also habitually promoted its top-performing salespeople into management positions, which wasn’t working. The skills that made them great at selling weren’t the same ones needed for leadership, and it showed.

The Solution: New Compensation and Leadership Strategy

To address the turnover, we restructured the compensation plan to give the sales reps a more consistent income. This gave them the financial stability to focus on the long sales cycle without feeling pressured to leave for quicker-paying opportunities.

Next, I tackled the leadership issue. We realized top-performing salespeople didn’t necessarily make great managers, so we changed the promotion strategy. Instead of moving the best salespeople out of the field and into management, we left them in roles where they could keep doing what they did best—selling. We began promoting individuals with the right management skills for leadership roles, like coaching and administrative capabilities, rather than just focusing on sales numbers.

The Results: From Bottom to Top

With those two key changes, Xerox saw a dramatic shift in performance. In just 18 months, the region went from being the lowest-performing to the number-one region in the country. We created a more stable and effective sales team by keeping the top sales reps in the field and placing the right people in leadership roles.

My Approach: Promoting the Right Leaders and Incentivizing Performance

At the heart of this transformation was a clear understanding that different roles require different skills. Great salespeople don’t always make great leaders; great leaders need a servant leadership mindset, not a drill sergeant approach. By focusing on aligning the right talent with the right roles and ensuring the sales team was financially supported throughout the sales cycle, we were able to turn the region around completely.

The results speak for themselves: better leadership, lower turnover, and a massive improvement in sales performance.