Sales is not about magic and mythology. In our experience, numerous sales myths and misperceptions have come to be regarded as fact when they couldn't be further from the truth. In his blog, MBA4Sales, Terry describes how he became a top performing sales person and a sales leader by disproving the myth that successful sales people have to be sales personalities (meaning a type of people person with an aggressive and persistent communications style -- think used-car salesman) who accomplishes objectives by reading the customer and smoothly closing the deal with a smile and a slap on the back.
The point is that 99% of today's modern, successful sales people are made, not born, and successful sales teams are not managed based on upon mythology. The best sales managers and their teams work hard to accomplish their revenue targets. What is not a myth is that the devil is in the details. The details we're talking about are the things that sales people and managers dislike or disregard, like inputting customer information into CRM, or properly preparing for customer discussions by doing role playing before an important sales call.
Sales managers and executives will adamantly tell you that they understand this need and that they are committed to doing these things. Yet, in client after client, we find that 80% of them don't address the details. Ironically, about 80% of sales teams also don't make their numbers. The 20% that do can answer the questions in this book by explaining what they are doing to address the details that is why they are succeeding. If you don't do these things because you are too busy selling, you have already set yourself up to fail.
This book is designed to stimulate your thinking about the operational things sales teams must do to be successful. People often overlook these items, not understanding why they need to do them. To use a heath care analogy, the questions in this book will either provide you with aspirin or with vitamins. People who practice preventative medicine are statistically much healthier and live longer lives than those who wait until they are really sick to get medical care. If you are currently not making your numbers (aspirin), this book can help you understand what you need to do to begin to make them.
If you are trying to greatly accelerate your team's productivity (vitamins), answering these questions will help you identify how to achieve greater sales scale and velocity. If you can answer all the questions in detail about how you do each of these things today, congratulations! You are probably already a top sales performer or sales manager.
If you can honestly answer the questions herein and describe what and how you manage the details, then you will be on your way to having a repeatable successful sales process. As you go through these questions, we hope you consider the details you are overlooking, and begin to think through how addressing them will help you to be a better sales manager or sales team member.
Avoid the selling magic and mythology and make sales success a reality!
Terry Walsh has over 30 years of experience across business development, sales operations, and executive management. He currently leads the Sales Organization & Operations practice for Acorn Growth Partners, a boutique management consultancy focused on helping middle market business enterprises attain market traction and profitable revenue growth.
Terry works with clients to transform their sales process and selling practices, learn and implement sales methodologies, and effectively utilize CRM systems. Prior to joining Acorn, Terry worked as a senior executive in sales roles for leading companies including Culligan International, Cendant Corporation, Whitman-Hart/marchFIRST, Digital Equipment Corporation, and others.
After many years doing work for and consulting with companies that asked him to help rebuild their sales processes, Terry believes that the real challenge for most firms is to rid themselves of the widely held myths and misperceptions about sales management and operations. Over the past decade, he has developed new approaches to the creation, organization, and management of successful sales teams, addressing best practices in sales management, operations, revenue strategy and sales transformation.
Terry shares his thought leadership at his website, www[dot]MBA4Sales[[dot]com.
Terry received a BBA in Business from the University of Iowa with majors in Management and Management Information Systems.
