Understanding the Sales Force

A large well-known technology company has a group of sales engineers that were recently evaluated.  When we ran the analysis on the data, it was clear that most of the 60 sales engineers preferred to be on the engineering side and not the sales side.  They lack the desire to be successful salespeople, they don’t enjoy selling, they aren’t money motivated and they aren’t committed.  So before we can even worry about what they have or don’t have in the way of selling skills, these findings tell us that they can’t be developed, have no incentive to change and shouldn’t be in sales.

I suspect that most parents with young kids have kitchen tables with wooden tops, not the glass tabletop that we have. Our six-year old son and his friends manage to get more of a mess on the underside of the tabletop than on the top side.  So, if the parents with wooden tabletops don’t see the mess, does that mean it isn’t there?

There is a good tip for creating an opening phone statement here on the Inside Sales Blog.

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?

Not too long ago, our only option for making a presentation, holding a meeting or conducting a seminar was to get in our car, hop on a plane, show up and shake hands.  Then came web applications like WebEx which, in many cases, allowed us to present without leaving our desks.  Pretty cool.

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.

First, make sure you read this post from several days ago.

The ultimate accomplishment for your salespeople is to have a base of clients and customers that are so happy that they generate enough introductions to grow revenue without having to look for new business.  “Look” includes, but is not limited, to cold calling, following up on leads and referrals (no introduction), networking events, leads groups, social network sites, blogging, newsletters, speaking, golfing and more.

1) Do you get wrapped up like this salesperson did or can you clearly see these problems when they are presented? 2) Can you get your salespeople to stop and regroup? 3) Can you present them with the proper action so they have a chance to avoid a trap like this? 4) can you make sure they get a lesson learned from their adventures? 5) can you make the lesson profound enough so that they don’t repeat it?