The Advantage that Focused Salespeople Have

  • October 17, 2011
  • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
  • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

I have seen this so many times!

Show me a focused salesperson – one who isn’t aware of what else is taking place in the office this very moment because he is so focused on getting his sales work completed; one who won’t stop to take a break until she makes all of the required calls; one who won’t go to sleep at night until all of the appropriate follow ups, responses,  CRM updates, paperwork and details have been finished – and I’ll show you a good salesperson.

Salespeople like these are usually more successful, regardless of how effectively they may have developed their skills.  When they all possess strong Desire and Commitment for success in sales, they are likely to be equally intent on making sure they execute their sales process as intended.

Salespeople who are easily distracted can become distracted within the actual sales process, navigating by the look of the scenery rather than following the map.  Distractible salespeople also tend to find themselves working on other, less important activities while falling behind on the business development side of sales – the stuff you are paying them to do and expecting them to accomplish.

So what can you do if you have salespeople who are more distracted than focused?

  1. Manage them much more closely
  2. Replace them
  3. Make sure their priorities for each day are the correct priorities
  4. Develop more appropriate daily KPI’s for those salespeople
  5. Make focus a condition for continued employment
  6. Call them out when they get distracted
  7. Remove distractions
  8. Provide an assistant so they have fewer distractions
And if you have focused salespeople who are not as successful as they should be, there are issues with either their skills, will, DNA or sales process.