Tweet

What would your "top salespeople" do if...

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Many times those who you think are your "top salespeople" would be weak if you placed them into different circumstances. Sometimes the only way to recognize their weaknesses is through an assessment. How would your "top performers" react if some of these things happened to them?

What would your "top salespeople" do if...

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

Most companies have people who are considered top performers who, under different circumstances, would be considered extremely weak salespeople. While these salespeople do appear to be weak when weassessthem, it's much more difficult for management to recognize how weak they are when they lead the company in revenue. Notice how I didn't say "sales"? That's right, they happen to manage more revenue than anyone else, but that has less to do with selling than it does account management...

So how would your "top performers" do if:

You took away their existing accounts?

They had to overcome strong resistance to your brand?

They had to compete against 5 competitors for each account/deal?

You put them into a new territory and they had to build it from scratch?

Their customer contacts all retired or quit?

They had to make cold calls?

Your company had higher prices, a lesser brand, or a new, unproven technology?

They had fewer resources on which to rely?

You raised their quota by 30%?

They didn't have established relationships with their customers?

They were only allowed to close business with new customers?

In my experience, if I had to choose between a very successful account manager type who did not have to overcome any of the previously mentioned challenges, and someone who was struggling to perform but had to overcome most or all of the same challenges, my money would be on salesperson #2!

Related Articles
  How Many Salespeople Shouldn't Be in Sales
  The CEO Who Needed to Hire Salespeople
  Manage Your Salespeople by Working Smart, More Stack Rankings
  Everyone has a plan. Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success. One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND
  Your Salespeople Can't Even Do That?
  New Metrics for the Sales Force - Unusual Thoughts for Unusual Times
  Happy Ears or an Empty Pipeline?
  The Pros and Cons of Hiring Green Salespeople
  Stress-Free Selling® - Close Three Times Faster
  Right Salespeople in the Right Roles and the Right Seats
  Salesperson Wimp-Out: Cutting the Price
  The Sales Force with Over Achievers Who Don't
  What Have Your Salespeople Been Listening To?
  Half of All Sales Managers Should Consider...
  More Than Half of All Sales Managers Should Consider...
  Manage Salespeople One at a Time
  Why Salespeople Have Trouble Closing
  How to Ramp-Up New Salespeople in 90 Days
  Beating The 80/20 Rule
  Who You Call On is a Conceptual Thing

Article Tags: sales, sales management, sales people



Related Forum Posts
Salesperson compensation - Hi Stephen - how are you planning on compensating salespeople who sign up with you?
New Guy Here - Automobile Industry - Hi Everyone, My name is Ray and I work as a sales trainer in the automobile industry. I have just completed a new training curriculum for automobile salespeople in the industry. It is called The Baby Steps of Selling Automobiles. I am beginning my marketing efforts through press releases and seminar formats. I joined the community due to my continued desire to work independently creating my own happiness and growth. Thank you for having me and I look forward to more correspondence in the future.
Re: Quote of the Day - "There are people out there that want to - [quote="GT Bulmer":11d5h7gq]Experienced salespeople have told us for many decades that if we want to increase our success rate, we have to increase our failure rate: the more "no's" we get, the greater number of "yes's" we can expect to get in return.[/quote:11d5h7gq] Never heard it put quite that way, but it is true. It it take 20 calls for 1 sale then 40 calls should bring 2; If a 100 for 1 sale, then 200 for 2, better keep the calls short and get started
Re: Best conversion vehicle for sales - VIA OFFLINE - [quote="bennyboy7":2y05o0eo]Beast conversion for sales via offline promotion...[/quote:2y05o0eo] Speaking for myself, I'll ignore newspaper reviews, throw away sales letters/faxes, get angry with cold callers and door-to-door salespeople, and be skeptical of the biased opinions at sales presentations, and trade shows/free seminars. On the other hand, when it comes to trying a new food product or restaurant, I'm easily lured by TV/radio and billboard ads. Word-of-mouth/3rd party referrals/reviews are what typically influence my buying decisions.
Re: The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - [quote="mbrand2222":faacrz9l]David, I think it depends on if the product IS you or closely related to you......like if you were a motivational speaker. In this case I think you would have to be really careful about your character. I think you would need to be a positive role model in every sense. Actually, I think it's important to be that way no matter if you are the product or if you have a product completely unrelated to you personally, other than the fact that you own it and are branding it. I just think it's always important to have you best foot forward. I think it means a lot to the people you are trying to sell to. They build trust in you when you are a GOOD person in every way. If you weren't, I'm sure there will always be the people who find out about "what you did" and won't want to give you their business. I hope that makes sense.[/quote:faacrz9l] You make a good point here Mary. Generally I think that people are happier to buy things from people that they know, rather than a faceless company. Most successful salespeople are people who market themselves first. MichelleJ


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to choose your executive coach -1

Providing Feedback

Induction – your first management job

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.