Business executives and sales managers frequently complain about
"80/20" performance on their sales teams, where approximately 80
percent of sales are produced by approximately 20 percent of
salespeople. Why do salespeople perform so differently? What is
it about top sales performers that enables them to achieve such
vastly superior results?
Certainly there are some sales skills that anyone can learn. For
example, it is easy to learn how to ask reflective questions.
These questions begin with the words "who", "what", "when",
"where", "why" and "how", and tend to encourage more detailed
answers than questions that can be answered with a "yes" or "no".
You can learn how to ask reflective questions by participating in
a simple role play. In this role play, every time you ask me a
"yes/no" question, I'll answer "No". Getting stonewalled with a
bunch of "no's" will break you of the yes/no questioning habit
pretty quickly!
Other sales skills are tougher to learn. A good example is
teaching salespeople how to ask questions and "follow the thread"
in the answers. To explain this concept, let's use another role
play. If you ask me a reflective question, I'll respond with
answers that contain some "pain points". If you recognize the
pain points and drill down into them by asking additional
questions, I'll eventually agree to engage in a sales cycle.
Do you know what my experience has been with the "follow the
thread" role play? Some salespeople learn this skill easily.
Others struggle, but they eventually master it. However, some
just never get it, no matter how hard they try!
Why can some salespeople learn this critical skill, but others
can't?
Reason #1
In their book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham
and Donald Clifton report that great managers and average
managers have different expectations for their employees.
According to Buckingham and Clifton, average managers assume that
"each person can learn to be competent in almost anything", while
great managers assume that "each person's talents are ENDURING
and UNIQUE".
Most sales books and training programs seem to take the "average
manager" point of view. In other words, they seem to assume that
ANYONE can learn how to sell. Their unspoken promise is that all
you have to do is invest enough time, effort, and money to learn
the skills they teach. If you make the investments, you will
learn the skills and succeed in sales.
Unfortunately, there are countless examples of sales books and
training courses not producing the desired improvement in sales
performance. Think about some salespeople you know personally.
How many of them are struggling to make their quotas? Why are
they struggling?
* Is it the state of the economy? (If other salespeople on
the same sales team are making their numbers, blaming the
economy won't earn much sympathy.)
* Is it because they don't work hard enough?
* Is it because they don't have enough product knowledge?
* Do they need to work harder on their selling skills?
* Do they need more coaching from their manager?
What if the "great manager" point of view is correct? What if
everyone CANNOT become proficient in sales? What if success in
sales requires a UNIQUE set of talents?
Reason #2
Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney report this
very conclusion in their book, How to Hire and Develop Your Next
Top Performer. After correlating hundreds of thousands of
assessments that were performed over several decades with actual
sales performance measurements, they reached these startling
conclusions:
* "55% of the people earning their living in sales should be
doing something else"; and
* "Another 20% to 25% have what it takes to sell, but they
should be selling something else"
Wow! Those are some sobering statistics! They indicate that MORE
THAN HALF of all salespeople are NEVER going to make it in sales.
Another quarter have some chance of accomplishing sales success,
but only if they find the right job selling the right kind of
product or service.
How can you identify whether salespeople have the talents
required to succeed in YOUR company's sales job? That question
will be answered in Part 2 of this article.
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