The Boston Marathon and your Sales People
Posted by Frank Belzer on Mon, Apr 20, 2009 @ 05:58 AM
Today is the day of the Boston Marathon. Since I live so close to the route my daughter and I have made a pretty regular event out of going to watch the runners as they jog by. We are about 1/2 way along the route and every year we see many of the same things and today I was thinking about how these trends related to sales and sales people.
The first runners that come through are the pro's. These are the people that simply travel from one Marathon to another. There is no doubt they are going to finish and the question is simply one of what position will they place or will they break a record? They have been eating the right foods and know the route well. They anticipate the difficult spots and know when things are easy they will turn it up. They are the professional experts.
Then there are the amateurs. These folks have made a personal commitment to accomplish this and have been working on it for several months. They have been slowly increasing the number of miles they run every week and have probably been able to get up to 15 or 20 and those last few today will be a real test. Often they are running to raise money for a cause! They might have ran the Marathon before and finished but they are certainly not going to break any records - for them although not a professional the event is about personal accomplishment and pride.
The last group are the people that are just in it for fun! They will probably walk most of the way, some will wear silly clothes and many have not practiced at all. Their diet hasn't changed to account for the stress of the event and they will be talking to the spectators and fooling around - in fact the finish line is the furthest thing from their mind. For them the marathon is a social event of sorts.
Were you able to identify any similarities to your sales people from these descriptions. Do you have pro's? Do you have dedicated and personally responsible people that take pride in what they do? Or is your sales force made up of a guy wearing a gorilla mask and another with a bunch of balloons tied to his back? Do you know they are going to finish the job or is every deal a nail biting exercise in hope?
