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The Emerging Boy, The Lingering Toddler - Salespeople are Still Like Children

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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.

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Thu, Jul 13, 2006 @ 10:39 PM

COMMENTS

Re: [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'm sure you're a decent salesperson yourself, but I'm equally sure that you have many flaws and that you kick yourself every time you lapse into one of the mistakes listed above. Don't kid yourself: Sales is still mostly about a) the product, b) personality and charisma, and c) timing. I still like your perspective and ideas on assessments, but I'd put its value much lower in the overall scheme.

posted on Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 11:03 AM by Anonymous


This is a great example of how your salespeople really don't understand what it takes to sell. The last era in which a salesperson could expect to succeed using only product knowledge, personality, charisma and timing was when Disco Music was popular.

This reader probably doesn't sell anything particularly complex or expensive. The sale is probably more transactional in nature and he probably learned from some old-school salespeople who succeed selling this way.

Product knowledge, personality and timing are important. But they take back seats to good, tough, timely questions and effective listening skills.

posted on Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 11:03 AM by <a href='http://www.blogger.com/profile/8573008' rel='nofollow'>Dave Kurlan</a>


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