Article: Develop the Talents of Your Sales Team

Think About the Members of Your Sales Team…
Stop for a moment - in your mind’s eye get a mental picture of each person on your sales team - think about their performance levels – and think about your bottom line$$

Now ask yourself, how many of those sales reps are helping me meet monthly targets?

Do a few strong performers stand out regularly? Aren’t they the people who consistently produce results? You must often ask yourself, Why doesn’t the entire sales team deliver at that high level?

The book, How to Hire & Develop Your Next Top Performer (Greenberg, Weinstein, Sweeny), takes a thorough look at the enigma of sales citing the oft-proven 80/20 rule. Surveys show that with most companies, 80 percent of sales come from 20 percent of the sales reps. Does that closely match your own organization’s situation? Why the 80/20 spread?

• 55 percent of the people we hire should not be in sales at all
• 25 percent have what it takes to succeed in sales, but areselling the wrong product or service
• The remaining 20 percent are those producing your results

That’s the 80/20 rule in action with sales. So how do people who can’t sell get hired and why do people who can sell find themselves trying to sell the wrong product or service? According to a USA Today article, 63 percent of all hiring decisions are made in the first 4.3 minutes of the interview. A second study shows that over 70 percent of these decisions prove to be poor hiring choices. The number one reason these hiring mistakes are made is the “gut feeling” approach to hiring – you feel good about the candidate, you hire the candidate.Lou Adler wrote in Hire with Your Head (1998) that, “First impressions based on emotions, biases, chemistry, personality and stereotyping cause more hiring mistakes than any other single factor”.

Dr. Herbert Greenberg has identified four more reasons poor hiring decisions are made:

• Hiring people who remind us of ourselves
• Stealing a competitor’s employees in the belief that they have a better hiring system
• Hiring based on experience when sometimes 10 years of experience may be one year’s bad experience repeated ten times
• Hiring based on education when education is a poor predictor of on-the-job success

To begin at the beginning and make better hiring decisions in the first place, Behavioral Interviewing, an online course, will help you improve the process and the decision. Learn more about it.

Greenberg’s book further explores the mysteries of why we persist in these traditional approaches to hiring, but our purpose today is to consider how you best develop the talent you have.

Your Goal: Go beyond the 20 percent of steady sales generators by equipping reps with the “right stuff”. And the right stuff includes:

• Preparing for each sales meeting in advance to create and maintain interest with top executives
• Utilizing a professional “interview process” to move the sales cycle forward
• Properly making feature/benefit messages during presentations
• Dealing with all levels of resistance and reluctance by helping prospects see issues from a new perspective
• Using an arsenal of techniques for gaining commitment from a prospect/customer to advance the sale
• Practicing sharp negotiation skills
• Building stronger relationships with people at key accounts
• Effectively dealing with all types of people
• Effectively using time management techniques to maximize productivity
• Practicing territory and account management techniques
• Keeping competition out of existing accounts so you can grow your business

If your sales team was adept in each of these areas, your results might not rest in the hands of 20 percent of your population. Learn how to develop the “right stuff” with sales reps – learn, practice and apply the techniques that make people successful in this competitive field.

Join us for a series of webinars – 90 minute learning sessions packed with useful and proven approaches to selling. Read below for more information on this series.

Our thanks to Vicki Wilson, Willow Creek Consulting, Coeur d’Alene ID, for her contribution to the 80/20 information above

Upcoming Events: Sales Skills Webinars


This is a series of online learning sessions to develop proficiency in the critical skills of the selling process

Value to your organization:Learn and practice proven methods of accessing clients, building relationships, handling difficult issues, juggling the priorities, retaining a customer base and more – the essentials to boosting sales performance
Audience: sales managers and sales reps

Link here to review the content of each webinar or to register

1. Creating Interest at the Executive Level

2. Client Focused Sales Interviews

3. Client Focused Presentations & Proposals

4. Overcoming Objections

5. Commitment to Action/Closing

6. Win-Win Negotiations

7. Dealing with Difficult People

8. Building Strong Relationships

9. Time & Priority Management

10. Territory & Account Management

11. Proving Your Value