Well, it's really happened now.

I was following a discussion in the Hubspot VAR Group on LinkedIn, where the question posed to the group was whether or not the first sales hire should be a sales or a marketing person.

Hubspot's VAR's are all marketing agencies specializing in inbound marketing.  There were some terrific comments, but one particular comment stopped me dead in my clicks and scrolls.  The comment was from a well-respected Hubspot executive who said, "Do not hire a salesperson."  It's a polarizing comment for a number of reasons:

1. I'm speaking at their international INBOUND14 Conference next month (if you want to attend, you can use this discount code: GOINB14) and my topic is, "Interviewing for the Inbound Sales Role"!  Should I back out?  Do you think anyone will show up to hear me?
2. This comment, as well as articles and comments like this, are the source of exactly the kind of confusion that I spoke about in this cover story for Top Sales World Magazine last week.
3. And it's exactly the kind of confusion that I spoke about with Selling Power Publisher, Gerhard Gschwandtner, in the video below, recorded at last month's Sales 2.0 conference in Boston.

Once again, it's imperative for everyone to understand that there are many scenarios where salespeople cannot be replaced by inbound marketing!  If you or your company are involved in any of the following 10 scenarios, you absolutely must have salespeople:

1. Complex Sale 
2. Big Ticket Sale
3. Long Sales Cycle
4. You are the Underdog.
5. You Have a New Technology.
6. You are Not the Market Leader.
7. You are Not the Low Price Leader.
8. You are Not the Recognized Major Brand.
9. It is Not an Existing Expense for Most Customers.
10. Your Product or Service is Not an Easy-to-Sell, Affordable Subscription.

So, it should be quite obvious why an inbound marketer, following up on an inbound lead, cannot possibly run the sophisticated sales cycle that would be required to successfully sell and close a prospect or group of prospects in the 10 scenarios listed above.

How do you feel about this topic?  Please weigh in below, regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

Before we discuss how to improve sales training, a quick promo for the latest and greatest taking place over at the ever-improving Top Sales World.  The June issue of Top Sales Magazine has been published and you can download it here.

• Among all of the important articles this month is mine on The Top 5 Reasons Salespeople Fail to Meet Quota and the Common Link to All 5 Reasons.
• Jonathan Farrington interviews Jill Konrath on her new book, Agile Selling.
• In the June issue are the Top Sales Article and Top Blog Article for May.
• They announce who are the Top 50 Sales Influencers of 2014.
• They introduce a brand new eLibrary!
• Finally, they have redesigned their website and it's better than ever!  See it here.

Cooperstown

For the last 6 years, I have been coaching and/or managing youth baseball teams and personally coaching our son since he could stand.  Monday, my wife and I had the pleasure of watching him during a baseball practice for a 12-and-under team that will be competing in Cooperstown later this summer.  It's a really big deal and it's a very talented team.

It's not just about the talent.

The coach of this team provided some very good, advanced coaching to this group of very coachable, extremely talented kids and he ran some terrific, fast-paced drills.

By comparison, the always likeable kids on a typical regular season team have skills ranging from limited to all-star caliber and everything in between.  On the regular season team, most practice time is devoted to baseball basics while not moving any faster than the speed of the average player.  

Which players and on which teams do you think show the most improvement?

If you guessed the best players, you would be half correct.  The best players, getting the advanced instruction on the travel teams, improve the most.  Those same kids, on their regular season team, learn almost nothing new and aren't challenged or pushed.  Practice, and sometimes even the games, can be so boring for them that they don't play their very best.

Translation from Baseball to Selling

If we translate all of that baseball to selling, the only two things that change are the activity and the age of the people being coached and trained.

In order for your best salespeople to improve, they need to be part of a group that won't hold them back, allowing for more advanced, faster-paced skills training.  They can be coached up very quickly if they get the right training and coaching at a pace that challenges them!

The Talent Warp

It is extremely difficult for some executives to understand this next point.  Some refuse to acknowledge that it's even possible. YOUR top salespeople, when compared with the rest of the sales population outside your industry, might only be B or C Players.  It's just not that unusual to discover that the top salespeople in some companies aren't at the top because of their skills, but because of their accounts, their assigned territory, their expertise or tenure in the industry.  It's important to note that studies show you will get the best bang for your buck when you train your B's!

When it comes to your less effective salespeople, it's important to understand that not all of them CAN be coached up and most of them have hidden weaknesses that cause difficulties becoming comfortable with what they're learning. That makes it nearly impossible for them to apply it in the field unless they are also getting extremely effective coaching from their sales managers.  They struggle to change.  That's why some of your underachievers shouldn't be trained at all.  Some of them just shouldn't be selling!

More on Baseball and Sales

If you like articles that use the baseball playing or baseball coaching analogies, then you may enjoy some of my other articles about baseball and selling:

Are You Any Good at Evaluating Sales Talent?

Improve Sales Effectiveness at the Salesperson's Hall of Fame

When it Comes to Compensation, Sales is Not Like Baseball

Baseball's Huge Impact on Sales Performance 

Sales Lessons from Baseball's 2013 World Series 

World Series, Superbowl and the Sales Force: The Rallying Cry 

Winning and Losing is Contagious 

Sales Coaching Lessons from the Baseball Files 

Making it Easy for Salespeople to Succeed 

I read several books while on a recent vacation and one of them, Edgy Conversations, by Dan Waldschmidt, was in a class of its own.  Once you commit to the first page of his new book, you won't be able to put it down.  I know Dan and we talked about his book last month.  He told me that it took him FOUR YEARS to collect the 1,000 stories that he decided to share - stories about how ordinary people achieved extraordinary success and how you can too.  I highly recommend his book.  You can learn more about it here.  You can order it from Amazon.com beginning on Wednesday, April 2.  I'm sure Dan would like you to order it only on Wednesday. :)

I'm in the middle of another page-turner, this one called The Man Who Killed Kennedy - The Case Against LBJ.  It's difficult to put a positive spin on this amazing, insightful book, about one of the biggest assholes the USA has ever known, but I can take two unintentional sales-related lessons from the book:  

1. Who you know, how well you know them, how well-connected they are, and your ability to leverage those connections are an intangible that trumps all strengths, skills and strategies.  In this case, the connections were mob bosses, FBI directors, oil magnates, politicians and the underworld, but they were very real and strong connections.
2. Effective coaching will lead to all of the desired outcomes.  In this case, coaching was used for evil purposes, but it was coaching nonetheless.

Let's discuss coaching.  It has been well-documented that effective coaching will positively impact sales. My own data shows sales managers, who consistently and effectively coach their salespeople, grow revenue by an average of 26% annually.  However, according to Objective Management Group's data from evaluating more than 100,000 sales managers, just 18% are capable of the effective part of the equation and even fewer are willing to invest 50% of their time on coaching.  That's a huge problem!

So what to do?

Your salespeople MUST be coached.  You and/or your sales managers MUST devote the time and learn to effectively coach the salespeople.  However, most sales managers have an ego that's larger than their actual sales management competency.  For many of them, their ego screams, "I don't need any help.  I know how to do this.  I don't need anyone telling me to do it differently.  I'm probably better at it than they are."

We coach sales managers like that all the time and the first session can be challenging.  However, when we get beyond that first session and they learn how much there is that they didn't know, how much better they can be, and how much more of an impact that they can have on each and every salesperson and each and every deal, things change rather quickly.

Are you providing effective sales coaching?  Here's an easy test to determine for yourself.  We know that when the coaching is really effective and impactful, the following things occur:

• Salespeople can't wait to come back for more.  Are your salespeople begging for your coaching?
• Your coaching leads directly to positive changes in behavior.  Do your salespeople change after each coaching session?
• Your coaching has a direct impact on a salesperson's ability to close a deal on their own.  Do your coaching sessions lead directly to closed business?
• Your sales force becomes exponentially better.  Is that happening?

I would like to blog about the transition of a sales manager, where the individual grows from a supervisor of salespeople, to a master sales coach.  This transformation requires and allows for unlimited coaching (usually 2x weekly) from me for one year.  To facilitate this, I will make a coaching slot available for half the normal fee to the first two companies to respond (one slot per company).

Speaking of coaching, the April Issue of Top Sales Magazine is available for download today.  It may be the best issue ever and it includes some terrific articles including one by me.  You don't want to miss "The Biggest Sales Skill Gap of All" because the information in that article is crucial for the master sales coach.

Enjoy.

The latest interview between Jonathan Farrington, CEO of TopSalesWorld, and me is available here.

We discussed why only 17% of all sales managers are effective at coaching and the conversation was very enlightening.

It only takes 15 minutes to listen to the entire Podcast and you won't be disappointed.

So why aren't more sales managers effective at coaching salespeople?  Here are my top 19 reasons and I left #20 open so that you could add your two-cents worth.

1. Ego - They know that they know everything.
2. Modeling - They did not report to a sales manager who was effective at coaching.
3. Skills - They have not been trained in the fine art and science of sales coaching.
4. DNA - They don't have the DNA to support effective sales coaching.
5. Trust - Salespeople don't trust their intentions.
6. Respect - Salespeople don't respect their talent.
7. Relationship - They don't have a strong enough relationship with their salespeople.
8. Time - They don't invest enough time in coaching.
9. Selling Skills - They never developed the kind of selling skills that would allow them to role-play all of the various scenarios that are bound to come up.
10. Resistance - Their salespeople are resistant to coaching.
11. Self-Centered - It's all about them, not their salespeople.
12. Misguided - They believe sales management is about closing deals for their salespeople.
13. Expectations - They didn't know that coaching is 50% of the sales manager's role.
14. Role Confusion - They spend too much time selling their own and the house accounts.
15. Ignorance - They don't know what they don't know.
16. Stink - Their company hasn't made this a requirement.
17. Motivation - They don't have the incentive (compensation) to justify the effort.
18. Tired - Coaching is too boring for them to do it consistently.
19. Priority - They have more important things to do.
20. Please contribute your own #20.

If you would like to master the art and science of sales coaching, join me on May 14-15 in Boston for our highly-acclaimed Sales Leadership Intensive.

The statistics are staggering.  In some sectors, fewer than 25% of all salespeople will make quota in 2012. Even best-in-class companies are lucky when fewer than 80% of their salespeople make quota.  Are you OK with it when your own salespeople fail to make quota?  There are a number of possible reasons for this widespread mediocrity and failure and, depending on the company, some or all of them may apply.

Sales Management is a common reason and it transcends industries and sizes.  Jonathan Farrington, CEO of TopSalesWorld.com, completed a terrific interview with me for TopSalesManagementWorld.com and the resulting 10-minute audio clip does a great job explaining sales management's role in quota-failure.  

Salespeople just aren't very good!  Objective Management Group's statistics show that 74% of all salespeople suck.  Whether it's a result of poor selection, lack of training, ineffective coaching or lack of practice, the causes vary by company and salesperson.  This article by Jason Schwartz provides a great example of one of the many things that salespeople do wrong.

The Quotas themselves are often unrealistic and based not on a salesperson's capabilities, but rather on how much a territory or vertical should grow in the next 12 months, or on what a company needs from each salesperson.  

Sales Strategies can play a role in salespeople failing to make quota.  Positioning a company as a low-cost leader doesn't work if they don't have the best prices every single time.  And, positioning it as a value-added company can be a disaster if its salespeople aren't extremely skilled at selling value via a consultative sale.

For most companies, Sales Models, Methodologies and Processes are outdated and ineffective, causing salespeople to be inefficient and waste tremendous amounts of time with prospects who, in the end, don't buy, and with sales cycles that take much longer than they should.

We can add conditions like complacency, turnover, morale, compensation, product quality, support, reputation and more to the list, but we're out of space and time.  We can even add a reluctance to invest in outside resources like assessments, training, consulting and coaching.

I'll be helping sales leaders with most of the issues discussed in this article and much more at next month's Sales Leadership Intensive in Boston.  Email me if you are interested in attending.

It's rare when a company isn't using something for CRM, even if it's an old version of ACT.  In most companies, it's not whether they are using CRM, it's which CRM they have chosen to use and whether the CRM has actually been adopted.  The CRM application of choice is completely useless to management unless the entire sales force is using it as intended.

The management dashboard, metrics, charts, graphs, tables, pipeline, forecasts, reports and anything else you can coax from today's feature-rich CRM applications will not contain up-to-date and accurate information unless every salesperson is committed and held accountable to updating it - DAILY.  Some CRM applications make this easier than others.  Landslide is a good example of easy because they provide VIP support to salespeople who aren't at a computer or mobile device, or to those who are computer-challenged.

But today's article isn't about adoption.  It's about the companies that fear CRM or any other important sales tool that requires selection, installation, training and adoption.  When companies fear providing tools, they are unknowingly saying that they are OK with their sales force being at a disadvantage.  Their competitors are using it.  It's a very similar scenario to companies that don't provide sales training or won't use sales assessments for selection.  They are sending a message to their sales leaders and salespeople, but it isn't the right message.  They are afraid of rebellion.  They are worried that, "If we demand that our salespeople use these tools, they will become upset, stop performing and leave our company."  Now, would that be such a bad thing?  Do you really WANT salespeople that would become upset and leave if you introduced and required them to use tools to help them sell more effectively and efficiently?  Salespeople rebel when their time is being wasted, not when they are being supported appropriately!

Selling has changed; it has become much more difficult.  Prospects are more resistant; there is more competition.  Margins are shrinking; sales cycles are taking longer.  As a result, salespeople are working harder, longer hours, dealing with more rejection and disappointment, and have less to show for their efforts.  Tools are their salvation!  Tools help them navigate the more complicated environment in which they find themselves.  Today's tools are integrated.  They are must-haves.

My rant is done.  Would you like to contribute?  Please add your thoughts below.

Also, the February issue of Top Sales World News (I'm on the cover, but not sure why) is available for download.  Inside there's a link to a short interview with me on the topic of, "Are Salespeople Still Cold-Calling?  The Ugly Truth".

Sometimes perfection is good but sometimes there is a strange dark side.  First the good and then, in the fifth paragraph, I'll share the frightening dark side with you.

First the good: After months of planning and design, Jonathan Farrington, his design team and the Sales Council (I am one of the Sales Council members along with 23 others including Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson, Keith Rosen, and Tony Alessandra) have finally launched Top Sales World, a site with hopes of becoming the top web site for sales on the planet!  Stop by and let me know what you think.  Over the coming weeks and months you will find the best expertise, advice, videos, podcasts, articles and resources on sales and sales leadership. More good: Lee Salz has been working on his Sales Management Minute for quite some time and it too strives for perfection.  Visit him and let him know what you think.  And as my regular readers know, I've been working with my team at Objective Management Group for more than 20 years to perfect the Sales Force Evaluation, the Sales Candidate Assessment and the Leadership Team Evaluation and as always, we are THIS CLOSE to perfection.

That's the good side of perfection - you work hard, diligently and creatively to develop something and it comes out, well, almost perfect.

But as I mentioned earlier, there is a dark side to perfection and I'll share the gory details with you here.  You have salespeople who are perfectionists and while this is a good when it comes to attention to detail and getting things right, it's bad when it comes to selling. Bad things have names - usually Greek or Latin, so I named it Perfection Adversis - Perverse for short - when your salespeople can't, or more specifically, won't, do what they need to do until they're sure they can do it...perfectly.  As you know, it's simply not possible to consistently sell with a perfect approach.

Let's take prospecting for example.  You have some people who are prospecting monsters - no problem.  You have others with call reluctance - too many weaknesses to even think about using the phone to make cold calls and you understand their fears and have them in account management roles.  Still others must be directed to call and then held accountable. Finally, there are your perfectionists who, because they are unable to achieve cold calling perfection, don't even make the attempt.  These salespeople, in a hopeless search for perfection, are chronic procrastinators.

Is there hope?  Yes, of course. And all you have to do is....

Give them permission to do it badly!  Do it with them.  Help them fail!  Make sure they have fun with it.  Make it a game.  Give them points just for doing it.  In time, they'll strive to improve but they can't improve until they start and they can't start until you find a way to make it safe for them.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than what they're doing now!

Perhaps you've noticed that while driving past a Jiffy Lube during (slow times for them) your commute there may be a mechanic out front, holding a sign, offering a discount, hoping you'll pull in.  I don't know about you, but I am not particularly moved by a guy in a jump suit waving for me to stop.  But it made me wonder, does this work? 

This morning I stopped by the Jiffy Lube next to our offices and asked the manager about this practice.  I learned that this is a corporate initiative but it's up to the local store as to how they implement it.  I asked whether the guys who get people to pull in are compensated for their efforts and was told it is "part of their job".  I asked whether some were better at it than others and learned that the more animated and memorable folks who really put forth an effort, dance rather than wave, and have their heart into it significantly out perform their peers.  There's a surprise...

Salespeople who are more memorable and animated tend to be more successful too, but it goes further than that.  Flexible salespeople, who aren't wound so tight can adapt to their prospects and are more successful.  Some prospects just need to be right.  Some need to be told.  Some need to figure it out by themselves.  Some need to be in control.  Some need their questions answered.  Some need to be answering questions.  All need to feel they are being heard.  In baseball, this would be comparing the hard throwing one pitch thrower, to the craftier pitcher that mixes it up, changes speeds, and keeps hitters off balance.  Salespeople with several pitches rather than one will have more success.

Simply put, figure out what works and duplicate it!

Unless duplicating infringes on somebody's copyright.  I have long been frustrated by those on the web who take my articles and call them their own.  I've contacted them directly and demanded that they either take them down or site the source.

Well, one of my friends and colleagues has had it with plagiarism and is declaring war.  Jonathan Farrington, a prolific blogger and sales expert, wrote the following article and I include it here in its entirety.

When Plagiarism Is NOT Flattering

I would like to introduce you to Michael J. Roman - Michael who? Exactly. But after today, I suspect so many more people will be familiar with that name, as it flies around the "Blogosphere" and becomes the topic of much "Twittering"

Here is how Michael describes himself:

"Michael is a POLISHED BUSINESS EXECUTIVE with a proven history of success including nearly fifteen years of successful leadership experience.
Michael is highly skilled in effective, strategic management of sales, operations, administrative, and consulting professionals in addition to full operations and profit and loss (P&L) management....." Etc. etc.

You can read more here.

You may also be impressed by Michael's "core values" particularly this one:
"Integrity - The most important of all values. Michael's belief is that integrity is not optional, nor is it situational."

Michael posts to his site virtually every day, and the articles are of a very high quality -he goes to great lengths to protect "his" copyright:

"©Copyright 2010 Michael J. Roman. All rights reserved.
Except where specifically noted, no information within this blog may be copied, duplicated, stored in a retrieval system or reproduced in any form without the express written consent of Michael J. Roman. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact me at the following email address: michael@michaeljroman.com."

Nothing unusual about that? Well, yes actually. Why does someone go to such lengths to spell out their copyright statement, when they have total disregard for everyone else's?

You see, Michael doesn't actually write his own material - he steals it from other people. He just goes and copies it from other people's sites and claims it as his own.

On his first page alone, there are seven of my blog posts, and in total, I found twenty!

Sometimes he leaves the title and the text wholly intact, other times he changes it to suit himself, here is an example:

I posted "So, Just What Are The Essential Leadership Qualities?"
"I have been "leading" since I was eight years old - my first soccer captaincy - and I have been leading for most of my life."

He posts "What Are Essential Leadership Qualities" and changes the text to:
"I have been "leading" since I was twelve years old - being the lead drummer for my grammar school jazz band - and I have been leading for most of my life."

I am not the only "victim" - several of my colleagues and friends have also had their work pirated, and to say the least, they are not impressed.

On Thursday, I took the unusual step of adding an additional copyright notice to my post - I placed this at the foot -
"The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. © Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.
This article or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained."

But that did not deter him - he not only stole my post, he also stole my copyright notice and replaced my name with his!

If that were not enough, he has now re-published an article, which I first published on Ezine Articles on October 27th 2006 -
http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-The-Different-Influencing-Styles&id=340096
And claimed it as his own -
http://www.about-personal-growth.com/influencing.html

This week, I celebrated my 900th post on this blog. Each of those posts took time and effort to craft. Each of the 200 articles that I have written and published on various sites over the last four years has also required a huge investment of my time. Why have I bothered - after all, I know lots of people who write so much better than me?

You know the answer to that question.

So, what to do now? I am going to let nature take care of itself for a few days, and then I will be in contact with Michael. Or maybe he will do the decent thing and contact me first.

I would have willingly given him all of my work to re-publish, if he had asked - as long as he placed my bio underneath them, and not his own!

I will of course keep you fully updated as events unfold.
There is a chance that by the time you get to read this, he will have taken the site down, so you can download a PDF of the front page here.

Awesome article Jonathan.  I hope the many frauds like Michael are exposed for what they are and are prevented from conning unsuspecting readers,  clients and colleagues for good.