Understanding the Sales Force

Last night, as I’ve done a couple of times before, I had the opportunity to speak to the sales class at Clark University. The class was significantly larger than the one from last semester so the professor, Ron Ranauro, CEO of Genome Quest, is clearly succeeding, creating a buzz about the program.

Today, Seth Godin’s post, Would We Miss You?, got me thinking about one of the very important qualities possessed by great salespeople but one of the few characteristics that we can’t measure in an assessment.  Are your salespeople memorable?

More than a year ago I posted this article about how United Airlines was selling their customers on not choosing their airline by the way they handled people.  They weren’t doing it on purpose, it was just poor training.  Today, at the US Airways check-in line at Laguardia, the experience wasn’t just poor training, it was downright shocking!  Here’s what happened. 

On April 24, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) will hold an all day consortium on sales excellence.  The event, to be held at the Philadelphia office of Deloitte Consulting, should be a great day for attendees.  I will speak on the Keys to Recruiting STARS.  You can learn more about the event and you can register here.

I received an email today that describes How to Sing and Play the Blues. It was very funny but unfortunately, I don’t know who wrote it so I can’t give proper credit.  I forwarded it to a few music lovers and musicians and one of them, Ken Stark, Owner of Stark & Associates, a St. Louis sales development firm, replied back in less than five minutes with his original lyrics to “Too Much Pretendin’ Blues”. Next time your salespeople are singin’ the blues, have them sing this instead!

Unless you’ve been living in a cave you’ve probably heard all about The Secret by now.  If you’re a driven person who has been among the living there is a really good chance that you’ve either watched the movie, read the book or visited their web site. I am asked often about The Secret, whether I believe in it and if it actually works so in today’s post.

When a company, vendor, provider, salesperson, sales manager or business leader exceeds your expectations, you will tell somebody, try to get them excited and create buzz. 

Max said that Garnett, Pierce and Allen are hungrier veterans because they haven’t won anything yet, unlike some of their counterparts in the NBA.  He said that their hunger, more than their talent, is the big differentiator that is making the Celtics the team to beat this year.