Understanding the Sales Force

Companies hire sales managers all the time and while some of those decisions are good ones, a lot more of them are ill advised. Today I’ll share the biggest mistakes that companies make when hiring sales managers.

Our five-year old son was watching First Knight, now his favorite movie because of the many battles.  Last night he said, “You know what’s really weird?  When people are hit with one arrow they die, but when King Arthur gets hit with four arrows he doesn’t die until after the battle is over.  That doesn’t make any sense.”

If we’re wrong about the compelling reasons, we’ll be wrong about the solution to present.

If the title says “Customer Service” then service the customer.  Otherwise, the title ought to say “Buy Back Representative”, for all the customers they piss off who leave and go to another provider.

I finished my training at Golf School and found that a lot of it was transferrable to sales.

One Swing – the same swing – for all your shots.  This equates to one process – the same process – for all of your opportunities.  It doesn’t change, you don’t manipulate it, and it is much easier to remember with less to change.

I’ve been golfing for three years and I’m just like a lot of your salespeople because, according to my statistics, 74% of them suck too.