accountability

I have written many articles based on the insights of our son, most when he was between the ages of 3-7.  Each article has profound lessons and they’re fun to read. Readers have enjoyed these particular articles so much, and found the lessons to be so good, that I compiled this series called Salespeople are Like Children.  As you might expect, some of these articles are my all-time favorites too.

You’ve installed the latest and greatest application to track, monitor and review your pipeline. You’ve provided them with training to assist them in adding new opportunities to the pipeline. You’ve let the sales force know that they must add new opportunities to the pipeline now. There are individual goals and quotas that support the team’s goals and quotas and it’s now or never.

Inside CRM published its comparison guide to Sales Force Automation and did not even include Landslide among the 12 applications it compared.  Goes to show how little the software engineers, writers and editors know about selling.  Traditional CRM is difficult for salespeople to embrace!

Most sales forces have a person – a maverick – like Manny; a top producer who marches to the beat of his own drummer.  We have a different set of rules for these producers and as long as they’re not causing difficulties for anyone else we tend to tolerate what they do and don’t do.  They don’t attend all the meetings, aren’t held to the same standards, regularly give us a load of crap and we tolerate it as long as they continue to produce.

These aren’t generally discussed, written about or analyzed, but they are there, getting in the way, sometimes for months at a time.  Most of your salespeople aren’t very effective dealing with them.  At the least they interfere with business and at their worst they dominate your salespeople’s lives. I’m talking about distractions.

Rick Roberge had an interesting post about the BNI group, including his own cost justification and the kind of salespeople who do and should belong.

When sales at your company have stalled, what do you do?