Talerico Group building a high-performance sales team
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By Bill Talerico
Talerico Group
The best parenting advice I ever received was “you have to parent the child you have — not the one you want or the one you were.”
There is incredible wisdom in that advice. Too often I found myself reacting to something my son did at the age of six or seven and fast forwarding in my mind to the mistakes I made in college. I unfairly reacted to his rather small mistake in judgement out of the fear of future larger mistakes.
Given that parenting is the job that most closely resembles sales manager more than any other, this advice has great applicability to those individuals responsible for driving sales results in any organization. Think about how “managing the salespeople you have — not the ones you want or the one you were” could transform how you might lead your sales organization.
When I see sales leaders managing the team they want I see them holding people to much too high of a standard. I see them manage against the ideal of the perfect salesperson who is capable of perfectly executing sales process to accelerate sales cycles and close every deal.
The truth is only six percent (6%) of salespeople are elite!
Only six percent!
To be clear, only six percent of salespeople — not of the population in general — are elite in the field of sales.
A more frightening statistic is that seventy five percent (75%) of salespeople should not be in sales because they are so ineffective and unskilled.
Virtually every entrepreneur I have worked with has at one time stated “I didn’t need that kind of motivation when I was selling.” Or “they aren’t like I was when I was selling.”
These leaders are still managing the salesperson they were and think that they should see the same results from their sales team that they delivered.
I always like to remind them that if their salespeople were like them we would call them competition. Instead, we call them employees.
The truly great sales leaders we have had the pleasure of working with know that they must truly understand what motivates and drives those that they lead.
Once they engage each person as an individual they can achieve remarkable results by unleashing the unique abilities of their team. These are the leaders that are able to build a high-performing sales organization.
Paid for by Talerico Group.