The Sales Archaeologist

When the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor it was by a new kind of weapon, one that would soon define the war in the Pacific: Carrier based Aircraft. The Japanese had perfected this by using small and light Aircraft that could take off - and more importantly - land on that short strip.

The US had to catch up and started producing more carriers, the challenge was that not every traditional land based plane could take off or land on a short landing strip that was mobile. The search began and it became clear that a special aeroplane was needed. It had to be lighter, had to have more thrust to get off the ground, had to well amoured had to be transportable and storable, still had to be well armed and able to keep up with the very agile zero's, it had to have a decent range and had to be capable of handling other tasks when needed; the requirements for Carrier based aircraft were entirely different.

Many companies struggle when they place non carrier aircaft so to speak - non sales people, marketing people or tech people - in a sales role. They simply are not made for the task. As a result they flounder and don't even get off the ground or they crash and burn when coming in to land. Just as the Navy had to "spec" out new requirements for these planes in WW2 - smart companies know very clearly what thir specs are - should include things like:

• Not too weighed down, light and agile - we call this having a negative record collection.
• Able to get off the ground quickly - we call this figure it out factor.
• They have enough range to accomplish the mission - we refer to this as sales longevity.
• They need to have plenty of armour and we would say the ability to handle rejection.
• Keeping up with the enemy might well describe the way they handle competitive situations.

There is much more to the science of selecting great sales people. You might enjoy reading this or to calculate what poor selection has been costing you go here .

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