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Sales are Up and Mediocrity is Up as well

  
  
  

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

Thanks to Mike Shannon for sending me these notes.

Retail sales for February, excluding auto, were up for clothing, electronics, furniture and gasoline.  Overall, excluding auto, sales were up nearly 1%.  That's better than it sounds out there.

But mediocrity is up too.  If it isn't bad enough that salespeople still get acknowledged, rewarded and thanked for failing to exceed 100%, we have news that airlines improved their on time performance rates in January - up to 77%.  Shouldn't we all be excited about that?  And this is skewed somewhat by the #1,3 and 5 performers, probably not the airlines you are flying for business (Hawaiin, Express Jet and Pinnacle).  So after #2, Southwest, at 83.3%, the best of the majors is United at 79%.

When are we going to make it clear to the airlines, our salespeople, and anyone else who doesn't perform that we simply aren't going to take it anymore?

(c) Copyright 2009 Dave Kurlan



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Posted by Dave Kurlan on Fri, Mar 13, 2009 @ 10:38 AM

COMMENTS

To answer your question, WHEN. 
 
When we the people, when the government who is bailing out the banks, GM, AIG, Citi-Corp, etc. along with the smaller company CEO's, Presidents etc. decide that those who have run it into the groud, who cannot perform and exceed that performance must go. 
 
Why bailout companies only to have them run by the same people who ran them down? Why then should smaller companies keep non producers on board? With unemployment where it is, I'm qite sure there are plenty of people out there who will and can do a better job at running the companies, selling the products and out performing the present people in place. 
 
We must have change in the leadership of business, we must make sure that the leadership holds their people accountable and we the people must be loud and clear to our government that they too must hold the companies/business' getting bailout accountable. You want our tax dollars to help you survive, then change management from top to bottom and make sure the right people are in place to do the job. We know what we got with those in place now.

posted on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 11:09 AM by Ed Kleinman


@Ed 
 
 
 
Amen!

posted on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 11:12 AM by Dave Kurlan


By definition a leader would hold people accountable, set expectations, and make sure from the top down that goals are set and achieved. What we have done is settle for mediocrity when it comes to our leadership. A true leader holds himself, his staff, and his business accountable. It is a sad state when we are having and expecting the government to fix our free market problems. What we need are true leaders who believe in civic responsibility and have the ability to make the tough decisions no matter how unpopular they may be but happens to be the decision for the common good. Leaders must without exception believe that they can hold themselves, their people and their business accountable for their actions. 
 
LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT THE WAY! YES WE CAN DECIEDE AS LEADERS TO NOT SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY!...

posted on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 11:41 AM by Penny


Let’s take a look at mediocrity.  
 
 
 
The sales person says I did my very best and was unable to achieve higher levels of performance. But I really tried. It wasn’t my fault. Look around. The economy is in bad shape, no one is buying, and everyone is waiting to see what will happen. The manger buys in and says, “I know “. 
 
 
 
The real issue is that the sales person believes that he or she really did their best. What the sales person missed was that they were really capable of more but stopped. They thought they did their best but were really capable of higher levels of performance. 
 
 
 
The manager did not recognize that true potential of the sales person and bought into the illusion that they did their best. 
 
 
 
The salesperson disempowered himself or herself and the manager buys into the illusion. 
 
 
 
The result is mediocrity 
 

posted on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 10:09 PM by Al Turrisi


Apparently never Dave as seen by the useless talent we continue to elect to represent us in Congress. Our decision to do nothing and settle for mediocrity just cost two generations after us their legacy.

posted on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 7:06 AM by trish bertuzzi


Ah, yes…mediocrity! Shouldn't we be pleased, as mediocrity is, for many, improvement! As one of my clients said, "We want to soft pedal the talk about A-Players. We might not be able to live up to that tag." Reflecting on the idea that we would accept "I tried as hard as I could." anyplace is probably a reflection of the general ability to set targets, measure, monitor and redirect activity. With this opportunity, let's create (instead of hope) a plan! Someone, please, decide the destination; create a realistic plan, with milestones (not pork) and a transparent view of what's actually going on; work that plan for a specific time; evaluate the progress; reset, if necessary (fix or remove the facilitators of the plan and get new ones); and keep moving forward! It's almost guaranteed that this will transcend mediocrity! Of course, who's gonna' hold the 'them' accountable. We, in our society, have difficulty holding holding ourselves accountable! 
 

posted on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 10:30 AM by Rush Burkhardt


We all better watch out with this particular trend of mediocrity...I've noticed that it is trickling down to the younger generations, and when they come of age and are in the business world, I can only imagine the state of affairs we will be in due to slack standards. Something to clearly be concerned about. 
 
www.salesjournal.com 
 

posted on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 12:53 PM by Avril Shelton


All young biz types will be slackers...[funny stuff Avril] Spring time in TampaBay ..kinda clouds the brain with pollen!

posted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 4:28 PM by Chubby Davis


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