Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Our son turned 4 this spring. The boy in this smart, handsome, athletic, caring, baseball fanatic (are you surprised?) child is emerging right now. He called 911 last week. He hit in the batting cages. He had a hole in one at mini-golf. He got out of bed to watch the Red Sox game so I wouldn't have to watch it alone. He grew about 6 inches yesterday. I could go on and on. But the toddler still lingers. A temper tantrum, a mess that doesn't get picked up, an uneaten meal, a David Ortiz Red Sox shirt covered in chocolate ice cream.
Salespeople are like this too. Emerging Superstar, Lingering Underachiever. While they bring in some business and get closer to hitting their monthly numbers, they drive you crazy with their mistakes, poor reads, ineffective questions, lack of new opportunities, blown closes, put-offs accepted, long sell cycles, discounting, ineffective follow up and overall general ineffectiveness.
I posted to this Blog back in December with an article called
Salespeople are Just Like Children. Would you like to know why your salespeople have these issues? Why they don't become stronger more quickly? Why they don't change? Whether there's hope? How much they can improve? What it will take? Have your sales force
evaluated for all the answers. You deserve to have a sales force that overachieves.
(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.