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Your Sales Team Fear Factor.

We were also asked to be judges in the Central Mass Sales Awards contest. This morning, I personally reviewed several dozen applications, some of which were very worthy of consideration. Yet I repeatedly saw some of the same patterns in the nomination applications as I see when Objective Management Group evaluates sales forces.

This weekend we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY and I was struck by a few things:

1) Why don’t we have a Hall of Fame for Salespeople? I know that companies provide awards for their own salespeople but is that limited recognition enough for those who are motivated most by recognition?

I’ve seen plenty of salespeople who sell smart without maximum effort and they get mediocre results. I’ve seen plenty of salespeople who put forth the maximum effort without selling smart and still perform quite well. So the clear advantage goes to the salesperson who puts forth maximum effort supported by maximum smart.

Explain why so many companies have so many salespeople like George.  And why do so few companies have so few salespeople like Charlie?  If we know which one possesses true sales best practices, then why aren’t we hiring and developing more Charlies?

Tonight, Jon Lester, of the Boston Red Sox, pitched a no-hitter. It was the first no-hitter by a Red Sox left-handed pitcher in more than 30 years. It was the second no-hitter by a young, promising Red Sox pitcher in eight months. I attempted to find the probability of pitching a no-hitter but all I could find was a scientifc formula that one would have to understand in order to get the answer. So I took another route, estimating that there are approximately 3820 games played per season and, maybe 1 or 2 no-hitters per year. So that would make the odds of hurling one about 1 in 1900 or a mere .05% chance.

One of the things I pay attention to is the day each year that leaves appear on the trees. In Central Massachusetts, where I live, it usually occurs right around May 11. This year, thanks to some unusually prolonged warm weather, the buds have popped, the fruit trees have flowered and there are leaves appearing on the trees. They’re not full-size yet but will be in a matter of days. May 11 came early.

When a company, vendor, provider, salesperson, sales manager or business leader exceeds your expectations, you will tell somebody, try to get them excited and create buzz. 

If you follow baseball you probably heard that Curt Schilling’s new contract for next year includes $2 million for meeting weight incentives.  For $2 million even I could be motivated to lose 20 pounds! And therein lies the deeper message.