- December 12, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While in Church on Sunday, it hit me that while I’m still reading from the prayer book, the vast majority of the congregation knows the prayers and responses by rote. Why don’t I know the prayers and responses by rote? After being Jewish for the first 46 years of my life, I did not become Catholic until Easter of 2002. I have been learning the ropes for 22 years and the weekly repetition has not been enough for me to memorize the prayers as I could when I was younger.
It’s the same in sales.
The people who enter sales immediately after high school or college graduation learn sales from the ground up and are better trained and prepared for what they will encounter and what they must do in those situations. However, those who make career changes and transition to sales later in their career, don’t benefit from nearly as much sales training, receiving mostly product training instead. That forces them to rely on instincts, which are not based on sales experience or wisdom, and often guide them to do what makes them comfortable, as opposed to what makes them effective.
Let’s unpack some of that.
- Salespeople who entered sales as the result of a career change require a lot more training AND a lot more repetition, yet that’s not what most companies do. This is crucial because according to a poll I ran on LinkedIn, 86% of salespeople entered sales via a career change so that’s nearly everyone! That same poll revealed that 66% of those career changers received either zero on-boarding or they got product training only. A mere 10% received a week or more of classroom training, while 23% received both classroom and field training. Yikes! You can see the poll results here.
- It’s critical to understand the context for Comfortable versus Effective. Comfortable usually means easy, familiar, non-threatening, short-cuts, and fun. For most salespeople, effective is the complete opposite of comfortable, including, but not limited to following the sales process, listening and asking good, tough timely questions, creating urgency, thoroughly qualifying, pushing back, slowing down, not rushing to present and/or propose, and not being a facilitator. The huge delta between doing what’s comfortable and doing what it takes to be effective is the reason that those who arrived in sales via a career change require a lot more training. It’s their age that causes them to require more repetition.
- I’m in Church every Sunday but I still haven’t memorized any prayers other than the “Our Father” and I know that one because back in the 1960’s, when I was in public elementary school, we recited the “Our Father” immediately following the Pledge of Allegiance and singing one of the big three – either The Star Spangled Banner, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, or America the Beautiful. Back then, instead of pushing gender transition, my K-6 teachers all played the piano!
I’ve already mentioned church, prayer, the pledge of allegiance, and gender transition in this article. I could make it even more controversial if I also mention Jesus and Trump in the same article. Wouldn’t that be fun? I’d get another mother load of unsubscribes! I could up the ante even more if I mentioned myself in the same sentence as Jesus and Trump…
Relax. I’m not nearly as humble as Jesus and not nearly as narcissistic as Trump. Did you see that? I did it…
Jesus came to earth to spread the truth about God and they tried to kill him.
Trump is on the scene and attempting to expose the truth about government corruption and the lying media and they tried to kill him.
I’m here to spread the truth about selling and while I have not received any death threats, this article might do it!
Don’t miss Monday’s upcoming article with the Top Sales and Sales Leadership articles of 2024!
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