- February 25, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday I spoke with a CEO who asked for some help recruiting salespeople. It seems that the salespeople they had previously hired had failed. As I learned more about their business, a few things became obvious to me:
- They hadn’t yet figured out the best way to find and close business – they only closed 8 deals last year, up from 4 the year before.
- They lacked any formal sales systems or processes.
- They were closing only 1 of 30 opportunities.
- They were selling to people who didn’t want or need their service.
- They must sell the “why buy” rather than the “why us?”
The reality of their situation is that before they can recruit salespeople and expect them to succeed, they must first succeed themselves so that they can share their proven, time-tested, repeatable model with new salespeople. Today they are selling by the seat of their pants and they aren’t very good at it. You simply can’t bring new salespeople into an environment like that and expect them to succeed.
Do you want to hire some horses? Don’t take the horse before the cart.
