Understanding the Sales Force

Last week I posted an article that linked to two additional articles I wrote for EcSELL Institute and Top Sales World. [Speaking of Top Sales World, they just published a page showing all of the greats (I’m honored to be included) that have been inducted into their Sales & Marketing Hall of Fame in the past 3 years.] Apparently there were issues with those links from last week because I got dozens of emails letting me know that you couldn’t get to those two articles. I will share the article I wrote for EcSell below.

Today is your lucky day! I have secured the webinar audio from which that coaching session took place. The trimmed audio containing the moment in question runs about 5 minutes but it is so worth the listen.

You know all about reverse engineering, right? The Chinese do…that’s how they’ve copied all of the products that others have created and sold them into the mass market, gray and black markets too.

Have you ever noticed that when you choose the Express Checkout it always seems to have either the slowest register clerk, or there’s an old lady paying who has already taken 10 minutes to find her wallet?

Today I worked with a group of salespeople from different companies and when I asked how many of them followed a formal sales process only 2 people raised their hands. That’s even worse than Objective Management Group’s statistics about sales process. The statistics show that 91% of the more than 500,000 salespeople assessed to date did not have/follow a structured sales process. And the two who did raise their hand? They claimed that their process was 20 steps! Who can remember that?

When a salesperson fails to land a deal, sale or order which they expected, projected, forecasted and pre-banked, nine times out of ten, you can lay the blame on one of the following ten conditions:

It’s amazing what Harvard Business Review will print on their pages when it comes to the subject of sales. This post marks the 6th time that I have strongly felt the need to question an article appearing on their pages. The November 2013 issue featured an article titled Dismantling the Sales Machine.

This morning I placed a bagel in the oven, turned on the oven light, and experienced an epipheny. This is one exercise you’ll want to try at home – really.

Before an inside or outside expert can help you develop your sales force, there are at least 25 milestones that must take place or the initiative will probably fail. Development has much less to do with content, curriculum, and methodology than it does with the person, or people who will do the developing. I am not saying that content, curriculum and methodology are unimportant! They are very important. I am saying that much like everything else you do, the people have more impact on the success or failure of the initiative than the tools being used.