The Sales Archaeologist

I love the show Shark Tank on ABC. Entrepreneurs enter and meet with these business celebrities in hopes of getting their idea or their existing business backed by one of these "sharks". They are looking for financial help but they are also hoping to gain valuable expertise from one of these tycoons so that they can grow their business bigger and do that faster than they could alone. They have to sell their idea and their business to them but they also have to have to sell themselves! Let’s also give credit to the BBC for their show Dragons Den which was after all was the first version of a show like this that I had seen.

Every entrepreneur should be watching this show – it will help them all get better in just one hour a week of watching TV. The Sharks even offer some great tips here on the shows website for business owners and entrepreneurs.

Sales people should watch the show as well – often the Sharks point out that the sales pitch was great or conversely that it was awful. I was reminded of the valuable lessons the show offers when I read this Great blog post by Carol Tice that discussed the idea of overselling and knowing when to stop.

Sales people after all - at least the best sales people usually possess an Entrepreneurial Spirit?

We also assess and help entrepreneurs and interestingly there are similarities in how they respond to getting our help and the way they often respond to the sharks or the dragons. They get defensive and they don’t think enough about the value they get from the help. They just cannot see the forest for the trees in many cases. When Mark Cuban offers to invest in your business but is hoping to get a larger cut of equity than planned they get upset. When we tell someone that they need to invest 4 or 5 thousand dollars to get better (and by the way they probably will make an additional 50 - 100 thousand that year because of the help) they get clouded and obsessed with the cost and not the value.

Interestingly all of the “sharks” or “dragons” on these shows are entrepreneurs themselves – they know what they are talking about. One of the big obstacles on the show is accepting the help and trusting the sharks.

When we assess an entrepreneur we are looking for certain criteria (a portion of which are listed below) – the facts tell us that in order to succeed they need to possess all or most of the following attributes.

• Strong Desire and Strong Commitment
• Persistent
• Recovers from Rejection
• Like to take Risks
• A Self Starter
• Works Independently (as opposed to needs a team)
• Is Motivated
• Will face obstacles (not avoid)
• Is Goal Oriented
• Comfortable With Commission Based Compensation

How would you rate yourself on these elements? If you are an entrepreneur how do you think you compare to the top entrepreneurs – the ones that really do well and eventually become sharks or dragons? No need to guess you could find out here with our Sales Achievement Grader or you could grade your entire sales force here