The faulty focus in sales

Since my focus is primarily on the sales and sales management, let's take a look at what happens in most companies in that realm. The training program for salespeople when they join a company is typically a three-part training program. It goes like this. Here are your cards, here's your territory, and good luck, baby, go for it.

We throw them out to the wolves. We don't train them well. We don't have them practicing. We might do some product training, but we don't leverage off of a game plan. We don't have a script.

When most companies hire salespeople, they are eager to get them out calling on customers and bringing in business. The sooner the better, and the more the better. Both of those assumptions are wrong.

First of all, it’s not true that the more people we call on, the better it will be. What we have found is the top producers call on fewer people yet write more business. The key is they call on the right people. Too many salespeople call on too many people who don't deserve a call.

In most companies, the Pareto principle exists, and that's the 80/20 rule. That's 80 percent of the business is coming from 20 percent of the customers. In most businesses, 80 percent of the business is being generated by 20 percent of the salespeople. The other people are just flooding the marketplace. They're inept because they haven't been trained, they haven't practiced, and they haven't taken the time. Companies are in such a hurry that they just throw them out into the field. As a result, they're killing prospects all over the place. Occasionally, they stumble into a transaction or a deal. They bring it back. Half of the information that they got is incorrect, and it stalls the operation side.

There's this urgency from the management and leadership that says, "Hey, if we get more people in here and get them out into the field, the quicker the better, all our problems will be solved. We will just be engulfed in sales and profits." Then they find out that that's not the case.

Four to six months later, this is what I hear: "Well, we're not doing a very good job of hiring people because we hired this guy five months ago, and he's just not producing." Well, he's not producing because you've got him practicing on real customers instead of practicing inside. You're not even teaching him the systems and the processes that bring success to your best salespeople.

Excerpt from Hyper Sales Growth