Salespeople: Who Needs ‘Em?

You need them. Everyone needs them. When this current economic slump
finally ends, it will be because sales have improved. Sales
improvement doesn’t just happen. Sales must be made, and, we’re going
to rely on salespeople to make those sales.

However, there’s a tragedy happening in our country, perhaps in others
as well. Very few understand this demanding and highly skilled
profession called Professional Salesperson. What’s more, those few of
us who do seem to be talking on deaf ears.

At the academic level, selling is looked upon quite negatively.
Mention sales and the reactions are uniformly mixed, but almost always
negative.

Businesses need salespeople because customers need salespeople.
Salespeople helped cell phones reach critical mass. It took
salespeople to sell almost every new innovation known to man, from
computers to elevators to innovative software to the intermittent
windshield wiper on your car. In fact, without effective, committed
sales professionals, we might never have even heard of some of these
items.

Find great companies, such as IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, and study their
history. Sales is what made them great.

The mystery remains, why has one of the most mission-critical
departments in an organization, been so ignored, and even maligned, by
so many. Why are colleges not absolutely adamant about offering sales
courses and degrees in sales, and sales management?

Name a great company, and you’ll discover that a group of sales
professionals helped it achieve its stature. Certainly, there are
always other factors at play, but without successful sales effort, a
company dies. Someone has got to sell the idea.

How do we improve this situation? Well, it starts with you. Here are
five things you can do to begin to make your company great through its
sales effort:

1. Build a soft-skill as well as a hard-skill profile for your
specific sales position. Then, interview, test and hire only to that
standard. Take the personal bias and intuitive nonsense out of the
hiring process.

2. Build and train a customer-friendly sales process. It is truly the
only way to manage a sales team.

3. Train your sales team to use the process. No more Lone Rangers. You
wouldn’t tolerate that in any other department, and the most costly
place to accept it is in your sales department.

4. Establish Key Accountabilities. These are the specific, measurable,
and non-negotiable results the person must achieve to be part of the
team.

5. Coach like a pro. If you don’t know how, then learn how. Take a
course, read a book. Make certain that you understand the interlocking
relationship between yourself and your team. They’ll never be any
better than you are. And, one thing is for certain: If you’re growing,
they will be too.

Let’s quit ignoring the most critical part of our business. Sales is
the engine that drives your business and gives you the freedom to do
the things you need in every other area of the organization. When
sales suffer, the whole company suffers, often as a result of neglect
or a lack of understanding.