Baseline_Selling

You have to make sure your salespeople are prepared for those situations.  Do you coach them so that when the opportunity presents itself they’re able to capitalize on it?  That’s the essence of your role as their sales manager!

This week featured Major League Baseball’s All Star Game and Home Run Derby.  Maybe it’s just me but I noticed some similiarities between the Derby and Selling.  I wrote about them in my weekly Baseline Selling Tip.

A recent post on 800CEORead.com was titled ‘What is it About Baseball Books?’. It was a good article but, given the audience, Top Management Executives, I wondered how the author, Jack Covert could have omitted the two baseball books actually written for his audience. They are Jeff Angus’ fine management book, Management by Baseball, and my book, Baseline Selling.

If you read Baseline Selling then you’re familiar with my research and data. There is an elite 6%, a top 26% and then all other salespeople. That’s right, a bottom 74%. Don’t believe it?  Look at your own sales force and the requests for help that you get – that’s if you get asked for help. If the coaching you’re asked to provide is anything like the coaching I’m asked to do, it also falls into the top 26% and bottom 74% department.

Just six months after my book, Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball was published, Jeff Angus published his new book, Management by Baseball. The experts are saying that this book is a homerun too!

I’m watching the third baseball game of the young season. My team, the Red Sox, is trailing in the seventh inning. As Red Sox games go, this is boring, if not depressing. The most prolific offense of the last three years, the Sox hadn’t scored a single run. Similar to some sales calls, it began badly.

My research and statistics from evaluating 250,000 salespeople revealed that 74% of all salespeople are ineffective.