Understanding the Sales Force

When your compensation and incentive programs aren’t getting the job done, it’s time to look beyond the traditional motivational programs and get creative. There are a number of other ways to motivate salespeople and I’ll discuss three of them here.  I’d love to have you comment with your personal favorites.

In the May 12 edition, 19 accomplished people told Fortune Magazine about the best advice they ever got.  16 of those 19 were prominent business executives and no fewer than six of them cited something having to do with sales.

Your salespeople should be imitating David Copperfield on every single sales call.  At the end of calls, their prospects should be wondering what just happened to make them feel so good. 

One of my clients is recruiting and, despite plenty of quality candidates to choose from, had failed to hire anyone in a span of ten months, 1200 resumes and dozens of interviews. He loved 5 of the 20 final candidates but, for one reason or another, was unable to land them. The process was being conducted the right way, he was using the assessment at the right time, and the first live interview was conducted properly. In an attempt to rectify his problem, I identified two issues with his final interview.

The same phenomenon takes place with salespeople.  Not just new salespeople, but veteran salespeople too, who find themselves with new companies, industries, products or services, or calling into new markets.

Where do your best accounts come from?

A couple of days ago I posted this article on Kurlan’s Law of Sales Effectiveness.  It had my formula, E=AS for sales force effectivness. Later the same day, I wrote this article at my Baseline Selling web site, with the formula for Personal Sales Effectiveness.