Your Salespeople Can’t Even Do That?

Yesterday, when meeting with a new client, he expressed his frustration over salespeople having difficulty with voice mail.  That’s the simple complaint. It’s really much more.  First the voice mail part: it’s not getting calls returned, not getting through, not reaching decision makers. The bigger concern is that the issue is just now surfacing even though the salespeople have been with the company for months now.  The biggest concern is that the VP/Sales Manager should have known about and solved this problem the first week it was an issue – months ago – right after the salespeople began with the company.

Wow you say?

This is more typical than you can imagine.  Salespeople, struggling with sales 101 type issues, don’t let anyone know for fear that they would be perceived as inept, which, it turns out they are.  And sales managers, not effective enough at coaching and accountability to determine where the bottle necks are and not skilled enough on strategy or tactics to fix them.

This is the real world of 14 million US salespeople and sales managers.

What are some of the fundamental issues your salespeople are having?

As you begin making your list – actually giving it purposeful mental recognition –  you will realize just how unacceptable these issues are.  But what will you do about it?