24Aug/104

Should Sales Managers Focus on Top Performers or Low Performers?

It's a question we hear a lot:

Should I spend my time with top performing salespeople or bottom performers?

Aren't you better off investing your time with responsive salespeople? After all, a good coach brings value to great players and sub-par ones. The same is true in sales management. However, if the salesperson you're coaching won't heed your advice, it's a waste of everyone's time. Right?

Responsive salespeople are...

  • Humble enough to take criticism,
  • Smart enough to solicit it, and
  • Willing enough to act on it.
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19Aug/102

Handling Rejection

Salespeople face rejection daily. And handling it appropriately is a critical sales lesson. Here are two, very different tales about handling rejection:

The Wrong Way
to Handle Rejection

Just like any business, we are regularly approached by people looking for jobs. And, because we believe managers should always be on the lookout for talent, if we come across a resume that catches our attention, we'll dig deeper. We are, after all, in the business of helping sales-driven organizations identify, select, and develop top salespeople!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we arranged a quick phone call with a gentleman who had reached out to us about a job as a facilitator of our sales training programs. I sat in on the call.

It began badly (he was late) and proceeded poorly (put simply, he just wasn't a fit for our clients). We told him we'd be in touch.

We discussed it internally to make sure we were all "on the same page" and determined that, based on the phone call, it didn't make sense for us to proceed with him. So, we sent him an e-mail letting him know we didn't think he'd be a fit and, as a result, we didn't need to move forward.

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16Aug/102

The Most Critical Characteristic for Success in Any Endeavor

According to our research, regardless of what you do, Personal Accountability is the most critical personal skill you can exhibit.

Personal Accountability, by our definition, is...

The willingness to take responsibility for one's own actions.

A person who's able to take the blame for mistakes (and the credit for wins) is far more effective at any job than someone who's not. There are a lot of common sense reasons for this:

  • Personally accountable people are more fun to be around because they're not busy casting blame elsewhere.
  • Personally accountable people are better team-players because others trust them.
  • Personally accountable people have more experience because they try things and learn from them.
  • Personally accountable people receive more opportunity because others seek them out.
  • Personally accountable people climb the corporate ladder faster because they're not hiding.
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13Aug/100

The Fine Line Between Confidence and Arrogance

There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Here's what I mean...

  • Confidence is the feeling or belief that someone can rely on you.
  • Arrogance is having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

Here are some differences between the two.

  1. Arrogance is exaggerated, meaning it's "larger" than reality. Confidence is a suitable dose of reality.
  2. Confidence is given to you, over time, by others. Arrogance, on the other hand, is something you give off.
  3. Arrogance can be masked for a short time as confidence.
  4. Perhaps most importantly: Confidence is good. Arrogance is bad.
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3Aug/100

The Ugly Truth About Sales

It's a Numbers Game

The ugly truth about sales is that it is, always has been, and always will be a “numbers game.” The more people a salesperson sees (or talks to), the more revenue. Period.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of new, different, and exciting sales tactics promising ammo to salespeople who want to avoid this troubling truth.

Sales is a ratio: Leads to Sales.

  • The more leads, the more sales.
  • The fewer leads, the fewer sales.

Even if you have bad leads, the more of them you have, the more sales you'll eventually make. Sure, it'll be harder, but the ratio still works.

Whether out of fear or laziness, there are some salespeople who refuse to move beyond excuses in order to get in front of more qualified prospects.

We teach that a qualified prospect has five, key characteristics. And the salespeople who fill their funnels with qualified prospects make more sales.

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