Discover a Supportive Performance Management Approach, Which Helps Your People Reach Their Potential
With Justin Baty, Auckland Cars Regional Manager at Turners Auto Retail
Show Notes
Justin Baty is the Auckland Cars Regional Manager at Turners Auto Retail.
With 9 years’ experience in the business, he’s seen firsthand how the company’s supportive performance management process is highly effective at getting people back on-track and reaching their full potential.
Today, he shares what it is.
You'll Learn:
The details of the Performance Improvement Plan which Turners puts people on to support them to reach their potential, which you can swipe and deploy (02:31).
How managers structure their catch-ups, to ensure their team stay on track (02:55).
How team members can get daily coaching, in real-time (04:11).
The stunning success rate of the Performance Improvement Plans (05:18).
Just how quickly individual performance turns around with this approach, and how it motivates the rest of the team as well (06:21).
How this approach can be applied across the entirety of your business, including management (08:25).
Transcript
Blair Stevenson (00:00)
Welcome to the Secrets to Contact Center Success podcast, connecting you with the latest and greatest tips from the best and the brightest minds in the industry.
I am Blair Stevenson, and I'm the founder of BravaTrak. Our Sales Leadership System enables contact centres to increase revenue and achieve their sales growth targets. Today, I'm very fortunate to be joined by Justin Baty, who is the Auckland Regional Manager at Turners Cars
And Justin is here to talk about an effective performance management process they put in place, to support poor performing sales consultants.
So Justin, welcome along. Great to have you.
Justin Baty (00:35)
Hey mate, how's things.
Blair Stevenson (00:35)
Very well, thank you. So just as a starting point, just tell us a bit about your background and your experience.
Justin Baty (00:42)
I've been with Turners for nine years now. I've been fortunate enough to have various management positions within the business. I started out with our damaged vehicle division back in 2012. Moved from there onto our North Shore branch, and took over the reins as the Branch Manager there.
Then within a couple of years, had the opportunity to take on our supersite, for those that may remember. Back in Penrose, when we had the supersite, I was the Sales Manager there, and then an opportunity came up when my manager was promoted for me to go into the Branch Manager role, which is what I've always wanted, to to run that branch.
And then more recently, we've moved out of that supersite and I've taken on the Auckland region. So looking after five of our key retail sites.
Blair Stevenson (01:37)
Fantastic. What's the situation you commonly face when you need to performance manage a sales consultant?
Justin Baty (01:45)
I'd say the most common would be low performance from a sales perspective. So numbers, at the end of the day. That's the sort of key KPI that I suppose everyone in the industry looks at and makes us tick. And that's probably what I see the most common with low performing sales people.
Blair Stevenson (02:05)
So there's a consistent pattern of not hitting their numbers.
Justin Baty (02:09)
Correct. And we probably see within a team of sort of four to six sales people, there's generally one person that's consistently down in that lower number and not achieving their full potential.
Blair Stevenson (02:23)
Right. I think that's a really nice way to think about it. They're not achieving their full potential. So with that in mind, what's the approach that you take?
Justin Baty (02:31)
At Turners, the approach we take is quite unique, and we work with what we call performance management. So, a Performance management Improvement Plan. A PIP. And they generally last four to six weeks, something that we put in place with staff members to help them realize their potential.
Blair Stevenson (02:52)
Okay. So just talk us through how that works.
Justin Baty (02:55)
Within the sales team, the Sales Manager will have regular catch-ups with the team on a team basis.
They'll also meet with the staff on a one-to-one basis, to go over their sales numbers, any issues they may be having, et cetera. And there we generally identify where performance improvement could be put in place. So during those one-on-ones, a manager would discuss with the staff member over a course of a couple of weeks of what we can be doing.
Now, if that doesn't seem to get the traction that we need, next we will discuss with the staff member one-on-one, "Hey, look, we're going to look at putting in place a PIP, a Performance Improvement Plan." And that will generally go over the four to six weeks. So that the staff members, they're not blindsided. They're aware of it from the get go.
They're already meeting with the managers on a weekly basis. So they know where they're at with their numbers, and then it's not a surprise to them when we look at doing that. And quite often, they're happy with that being put in place. They want to be at the top. They want to achieve the top numbers. So it works really well.
Blair Stevenson (04:01)
Cool. So you talked about what's happening on a weekly basis, which is those one-on-one meetings and so on. How does that then translate into daily activity?
Justin Baty (04:11)
So a daily activity, the managers are generally positioned within the teams so that they're out on the floor and they're coaching the team on a daily basis as well. So it's not a case of sitting in an office - especially with our Sales Managers - sitting in an office and waiting for those weekly meetings to come around. So there's constant assistance through the week.
There's even involvement with other managers and other people within the business as well, coaching. So there may be a senior sales person that's pulled aside to buddy along and help. There’s listening in, so the Sales Manager will listen in to those conversations and give them immediate feedback straight after a sale or after a customer may leave, and give them that urgent feedback - that immediate feedback, I should say - whilst it's still fresh in their mind.
So it's really an ongoing process.
Blair Stevenson (05:02)
That's cool. Because I think often salespeople are held accountable for their numbers, but there's insufficient focus on their day-to-day activity and supporting that day-to-day activity. So I really like that approach. What's your success rate been like?
Justin Baty (05:18)
Really good. So from a PIP perspective, the whole idea of this is to stop going down the disciplinary process, both management staff, no one likes to do that. So it really is that intermediate step.
And look, we've had really great success. We'll have people that have been really good performing salespeople previously, and for whatever reason, they may slip back down. So we know they've got that in them. It's just a matter of us putting that in place.
And yeah, I'd say 95% of the time with the performance improvement plans we put in place, they would turn their performance around. If not, we get the odd staff member that turns around, probably put their hand up and go "Hey, look. It's just not me." Doing everything we can here, the business is trying to put in the time and the effort, and they'll put their hand up and say, "Hey, look. Maybe this isn't for me." And resign, effectively. But yeah, that would definitely be the exception.
Blair Stevenson (06:18)
So that's an incredibly supportive approach.
Justin Baty (06:21)
Absolutely. And Turners have been really good, I must admit. In previous roles, with different businesses, it is a little bit of a too hard basket when it comes to difficult ... no one wants to deal with confrontation or staffing. Sometimes they can just get ignored up to the point where, hopefully, they'll resign.
Turners have a really proactive approach to this. And it's something that's kind of pushed out nationally with all our managers. And everyone that gets involved, it's great. Because you see that turnaround from them sort of week two or week three, where they start to turn the tables, and they're starting to climb to the top. And the other sales people are like, "whoa, what's gone on here?"
So great for staff morale, the person themselves, but also the team seeing it, that one person is getting encouraged and lifting up their game. Really, really good approach by Turners.
Blair Stevenson (07:16)
Yeah. Because the last thing you want is to for the team to see that there's a poor performing person who isn't really contributing to the team, and they're being either allowed to get away with it, or the manager's not taking action. So that impacts not only the team, but also the manager's reputation.
Justin Baty (07:32)
Oh, absolutely. And that's probably a key thing. I found a lot over the years is other staff members can get quite frustrated, obviously not just sales, but they can get quite frustrated in terms of the perception that nothing's happening. And we as a team have to carry this person, that comes through, and sort of kicks the can down the road and doesn't really step up their game.
So when there are those meetings, regular meetings, and they can see the staff member improving, and see that management are taking it seriously. And that actually, rather than just kicking that person to the curb, we're actually trying to encourage them to get them up there, because the sales people that are at the top will be sitting there going, "What happens to me if I ever have a bad month? How will that manager, how will that business treat me?" So it's really good.
Blair Stevenson (08:18)
Yeah. Good point. Good point. So we talked a lot about sales consultants. Who else do you apply this process to in the business?
Justin Baty (08:25)
Look, it's so effective, we've put it across the board. So it's not specific to sales consultants, but I suppose that comes up a lot more often with the numbers and what we're obviously trying to achieve. But I've got examples of administration staff, operations staff, anywhere from not turning up on time.
So it's across quite a wide range of performance issues, even middle management. I've had managers over the years, that for whatever reason have struggled, and putting these Performance Improvement Plans in place really brings it home to them as to where you were at, where you are at the moment, and painting that picture to them as to where you could be, or you have been. And it's, like I've said before, it's really effective across the board.
Blair Stevenson (09:16)
Awesome. Fantastic. Justin, thank you for sharing, I really, appreciate it. For listeners, you'll find the link to the show notes in the episode description below.
And if you'd like to connect with Justin on LinkedIn, you'll also find the link to his LinkedIn profile in that description too.
And if you'd like to follow me on LinkedIn, you'll find a link to my profile there as well. Well, it's from us today. Have a productive week.