On a frigid New England morning, I pulled into a Dunkin' drive thru and noticed that there were only ten cars ahead of me and that meant that it shouldn't take more than five minutes to get through the fast-moving line.  Contrast that to the Starbucks drive thru.  There were five cars ahead of me and that could take from ten to fifteen minutes because of how long it takes to prepare beverages at Starbucks.  That ten to fifteen minutes is a freakin' dream come true compared to Panera Bread.  I don't know if you have Panera Bread where you are but I love the food at Panera.  However, if there was ever a restaurant chain that shouldn't have a drive thru window, Panera, at least the one in my town, fits the bill.  When I pull into the Panera line, I see that there are two cars ahead of me and I know for certain that it's going to take twenty minutes to get through their line.  At lunch time I order ahead using their app but on that cold New England morning I'm not getting out of the car so I'm going to live or die by the drive thru.  Yet despite the intolerable wait times and ridiculously bad customer service, I return time and time again.  All it takes is to reset my expectations so that I no longer get upset with the twenty-minute wait.

This all begs the question, is the sales force at your company more like the Dunkin', Starbucks, or Panera drive-thru?  Today's article will explain how to answer that question.

If your sales force meets or exceeds budget and the revenue flows through the pipeline easily and consistently, then you have a Dunkin'-like sales force.  It only seems to take a couple of people to make a Dunkin' line zip right along so your sales force is mean and lean and gets the job done.

If your sales force meets budget, but it takes a lot of hand-holding, pressure, accountability, hard work and additional reps to do it, you have a Starbucks-like sales force.  It seems to take at least four baristas to move a Starbucks line along but they make it happen.

If you have to lower your expectations, and the sales force still fails to meet budget, then you have a Panera-like sales force.  You don't have enough reps, those you do have under-perform, most projected closes are delayed, and your win rate is very low.  It seems that Panera has a single employee taking drive thru orders, making the food, packaging the order, collecting the money and handing over the order before miserably taking the next order.

The reality is that those three drive thru lines perfectly describe most sales forces.  

Do you remember the old ads for the car rental companies?  Hertz advertised that "We're number one."  Avis marketed that because they were number two, "We try harder."

I would say the same is true for the Starbucks-like sales force.  While Dunkin' is like the Apple sales force selling iPhones, with people waiting in line to place their orders, the Starbucks-like sales force tries harder.  They have to work for every order and since their products are more expensive, they must utilize the more difficult consultative approach, and sell value to generate revenue.

Consultative selling is more difficult because it depends on the two skills that most salespeople have not come close to mastering; listening and questioning.

As you can see below from ten of the twenty-one selling competencies that Objective Management Group (OMG) measures, only 15% of all salespeople have Consultative Selling as a strength.  Only the Closing competency has a smaller percentage of salespeople who are strong in the competency.  And this isn't from some small sample size.  This is data from the evaluations and assessments of 1,937,474

Let's drill down into a few of the ten attributes of the Consultative Seller competency.  We find that only:

• 27% of salespeople have listening skills as a strength
• 24% have Asks Enough Questions as a strength
• 41% have Asks Good Questions as a strength.

It's pretty ugly.

The Starbucks-like sales force has mastered the consultative approach but most sales forces have not.  What does it take to move from "have not" to "have mastered?"

Lots and lots of training and coaching on consultative selling in the context of a consultative sales process.  And you should have your sales force evaluated by an OMG-Certified sales expert to properly set expectations as to how long it will take, who can improve, how much improvement to expect, and how much more revenue you should expect.  And that's just on the Consultative competency.  You should want to know that about all twenty-one sales core competencies!

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There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.

In today's article, I'll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates.  Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.  

Those results were unusual because many of  the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies?  Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you'll quickly see the difference!

The screen shot below shows that we identified 21 major differentiators.

Their three tops are far better and stronger salespeople than the tops in the previous analysis.  Even their bottoms are stronger than the tops and bottoms of the previous analysis.  But the differentiations are very clear.  Consider:

• Desire for Success in Sales (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >87.  The normal cutoff is 60 so even the three bottoms scored well in Desire but the tops had even more Desire.
• Motivation for Success in Sales (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >74.  The normal cutoff is 50 so as with Desire, even the bottoms had good scores.
• Sales Percentile is the overall score.  Greater than 79 means that their tops are stronger than 79% of the sales population.  And if that's what it takes to succeed in this particular role at this particular company, then the sales candidates that OMG will recommend to them must be in the top 20%.
• Figure-it-Out-Factor or FIOF is a roll-up of 10 findings that predict whether or not a salesperson will ramp-up more quickly than a typical candidate.  Those who are succeeding at this company have FIOF scores of greater than 66.
• The Sales DNA Competencies are the overall score for 6 of the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  These are the combination of strengths that support the execution of sales process, sales strategy, sales tactics and sales methodology.  The tops have tremendous Sales DNA Scores of >81 while the bottoms have Sales DNA more consistent with weak salespeople.
• Supportive Sales Beliefs (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >86. You could say that everything begins with beliefs!  Their top salespeople have scores for beliefs that are only a few points better than their bottoms so a score of 86 or better is an important differentiator.
• Supportive Buy Cycle (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >70.   There is  a huge difference in how the tops score compared with the bottoms for this competency!
• Comfortable Discussing Money (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >82. 
• Handles Rejection (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies and one of the six that make up Sales DNA) >77. 
• Hunting (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >92.  These are really good  scores so it  should come as no surprise that their tops are filling the pipeline!
• Consultative Seller (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >49.  This is the second lowest cutoff score of all  the  differentiators we identified. The company overall is still selling transactionally and this is an area for improvement.
• Qualifying (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >59.  This is another significant differentiator between  their  tops and bottoms.
• Presentation Approach (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >81.
• Closing (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >33.  Did you see the scores for the bottoms?
• Sales Process (one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies) >77. Another  huge differentiation.  It's included twice in this analysis to give it twice the weight because it's that important.
• Compatibility with their Selling  Environment >71
• Maintains Full Pipeline (part of the Hunter competency)
• Self-Starter
• Decision Maker (part of the Buy Cycle Competency)

Like I always say, these are different for every role at every company selling into every market.  No two analyses are the same and these analyses become the second layer of customization for our sales candidate assessments.  That's what makes them so accurate and predictive.

For brand new users, our top/bottom analyses also serve as proof of concept.  We're able to prove that we can clearly differentiate between their tops and bottoms to give them confidence that our award-winning sales candidate assessments will work for them.

Where can you get your hands on our sales candidate assessments?  Click here.

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This will be the 18th consecutive year that we attend the Boston Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker, and while it is the same performance every single year, it is a wonderful family tradition and we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Traditions are important.  They ground us, give us a sense of stability and purpose, and provide something that we can look forward to.  Rituals are like traditions in that they serve the same purpose, but occur much more frequently.  Selling, is filled with rituals, from the sales process we always follow, to those specific questions we always ask to those specific talking points, comparisons, and stories we always share.  Why?  They work!

So it is with that sense of tradition that for the 10th consecutive year, I republish my Nutcracker article which is always the most popular article each December.

The Top 3  Lessons  from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

If you attend a Nutcracker performance or simply listen to some of the suite during the holiday season, one of the selections you'll hear is the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy".  Perhaps you can't match the music to the title, but I'm sure if you listen to the first 30 seconds of this version, you'll recognize the melody regardless of your religion or ethnicity.

Even though you've surely heard it before, can you identify the four primary musical instruments at the beginning of the selection?

In this version, you're hearing the glass harmonica, while most orchestral versions and performances feature the celesta, oboe, bassoon and flutes.  Can you hear them?

Just as the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" sounds familiar to you, your salespeople find familiarity in the sounds, questions, comments and discussions on their sales calls.  As much as you may not be able to distinguish the specific instruments creating those sounds in "Dance...", your salespeople may not be able to distinguish the credible comments and questions from the noise on their sales calls.

During a first sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, "This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this."  And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, "We'll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we've made."  And still a third might say, "In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline."

Lesson #1 (based on Objective Management Group's data) - Of every 100 salespeople:

• 70 rush back to the office to begin work on the proposal and tell their bosses that their large opportunity is very promising because all 3 prospects in the meeting were very interested;
• 19 leave the call and make 2 entries in their journals - "propose" and "follow-up" - and they'll do both eventually;
• 11 are still at the meeting, asking more questions.

Lesson #2:

• Prospects' voices are like musical instruments.  Each instrument in "Dance..." has a specific role in the performance.  If the wrong instrument or notes are played or they're played at the wrong time, the entire selection is ruined.  Prospects' comments in the scenario above have different meanings depending on their business titles and their roles in the buying process.
• If "please send us a proposal", "we're interested" or "very productive" are spoken from an Executive - the CEO, President or VP of something - it has a far different meaning than if the comment were to come from a buyer in Procurement.
• When any of those 3 comments are spoken by a user - an engineer for example - rather than a buyer or an Executive, the comments may be far more genuine, but carry much less authority.

Lesson #3:

• Sometimes it's more fun to listen to a song, symphony or simple melody and to figure out how and why the composer or arranger selected the particular instruments to play the particular parts of the selection.
• Your salespeople must apply that wonder and analysis to their sales calls.  The prospect may be the composer (started the initiative), arranger (selected the vendors to talk with), director (charged with the initiative and conducting the process) or musician (following directions of the conductor).  It's the salesperson's job to figure out who they're dealing with, what role they play, what influence they'll have and how to get the various players aligned on the compelling reasons to buy and your ideal solution.

Homework Assignment - Return to Lesson #1 and answer 2 questions:

1. Which of the 3 sales outcomes do your salespeople typically find themselves doing?
2. Which additional questions do those 11 salespeople stay to ask?

Leave your comments on the LinkedIn discussion thread.

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If you are a regular reader, you might recall this great article on Selling to a CEO.  In that article, I also mentioned some of the expanded Sales Competencies that Objective Management Group (OMG) now measures.  Before April, Relationship Building and Mastery of Social Selling were findings in our evaluations, but now, they are full blown competencies with complete sets of attributes.

I had a theory about salespeople, but didn't have the data to prove it out.  I believed that social selling was a godsend to those in sales who were not great at relationship building - that by utilizing applications like LinkedIn and Twitter, they could reach out to new people, but with the benefit of hiding behind the glass screen. Do you think I was right?  Or wrong?

 Actually, I couldn't have been more wrong!

We took nearly 5,000 rows of data from the past 2 weeks and looked at those two competencies and compared the results.  In the 1st graph, you'll see that the overwhelming majority of salespeople are poor at both, or to put it in my vocabulary, they suck at both!  Just 5% were good at both, 11% excelled at social selling and 16% excelled at relationship building.  

So I wondered if the data might be skewed based on demographics.  For instance, would the data show that salespeople with more than 10 years in sales are less effective at social selling and better at relationship building?  We filtered the data and removed everyone who had fewer than 10 years of sales experience, leaving us with around 1,850 veteran salespeople.  The graph looked nearly identical to the first graph but the veteran group at 33% was much better at relationship building, 11% - the same as the entire population - had mastered social selling and 8% achieved high scores in both.

So I wondered what would happen if we looked at the people who were new to sales. This time, we filtered the data and removed everyone who had more than 5 years of sales experience, leaving us with around 2,000 newer salespeople.  This graph also looked quite similar, but there were a few small differences.  Just 2% of the newer salespeople were good at both competencies.  33% were good at relationship building, and surprisingly only 9% had mastered social selling - an even smaller percentage than the veteran group!

 My theory?  Out the window.  Not even close!  Instead we made two even better discoveries from this exercise:  

1. The majority of salespeople, who aren't very good at relationship building, will be equally poor at social selling.
2. Although you and I are selling socially, most salespeople - 89% are not effective at social selling! 

Are you surprised by any of these discoveries?  What are your thoughts?

I’m reading Basketball legend Bill Walton’s autobiography, Back from the Dead.  There are great stories and lessons, but the one I want to discuss here is about legendary UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden.

Bill talked about the basketball team’s practices and how they were so well scripted, incredibly challenging and the most fun. He called them symphonies! The practices were so powerful that the games, even against the best competition, were always much easier than practice.  The games were so easy that the players did not need to remember plays or even think.  All they had to do was execute.  The team’s system of running the fast break was so well ingrained that executing was easy. This led to an 88-game winning streak!

Translating this story to selling, I need to point out that most salespeople not only hate to practice (read role-playing), but don’t believe it is necessary.  Remember, as much as the basketball team practiced, it was only their own part that they were practicing.  They didn’t have the other team’s playbook and didn’t even prepare for the other team.  They simply practiced every possible scenario that could come up so that they were completely prepared - for anything.  In sales, how many salespeople are so thoroughly prepared that it wouldn’t matter what their prospect said, did, or asked and even the competition would be irrelevant?

"The only difference between successful salespeople and the other 77% is that the successful salespeople actually do the
very things they don't like doing." 

Here is a great movie clip from Hitch that demonstrates how difficult it is to role-play.

Albert Gray, an insurance company executive in the 1950's, said something that is still as true today as it was nearly 70 years ago.  He said, “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”  If he said it today, it might have sounded like, "The only difference between successful salespeople and the other 77% is that the successful salespeople actually do the things they don't like doing." 

See Dan Caramanico's comment below about practice where he writes, "Lots of teams practice but the difference lies in the adage that it is not practice that makes perfect. It's perfect practice that makes perfect. Half hearted practice or practicing the wrong things is no help at all."

And I'm reminded of this message from when I participated in Dave Pelz' Short Game School.  "Practice makes permanent!"

Finally, Bill Talerico wrote an article about John Wooden and translated yet one more great basketball lesson here.

Two experiences this weekend support something I have been teaching for more than 30 years.  

Saturday, I walked up to the deli counter and asked the young woman for a quarter pound of imported provolone.  She responded, "We don't have impourded, but we have some from Italy."  I said that would be fine. Then she grumbled to a co-worker that this guy wanted "impourded" provolone and he explained that the Italian provolone was imported.  Then she held up the slices and said, "It's only 5 slices - that won't go very far!"  I explained that it was perfect for a sandwich.

I was able to laugh that one off - it was actually funny - but I didn't think the second one was very funny.

The AAU 13U baseball team was ahead 4-1 when the assistant coach approached us. Our son had just finished pitching his fourth strong inning so we expected to hear, "He's pitching a great game!", but instead he whined that our son needed to develop better command of his curve ball (that I wouldn't let him throw prior to this year because we were trying to protect his arm).  

I nicely reminded the coach that our son had tried out for the team as a catcher, not a pitcher, and that the coaches liked his arm so much they told him he would pitch - a lot.  

The assistant coach growled, "If he doesn't want to pitch, I'll take him off the mound right now!!!"  

Huh?  If he doesn't want to pitch? He loves to pitch! Where did that sarcastic comment come from?  And why was he so nasty about it?

Neither of these two individuals intended to be nasty, or even mean-spirited, but both of them communicated their replies in such a way that they came out quite nasty.

The deli lady could have said, "Will provolone from Italy be acceptable?"

And the coach could have said, "I'm going to help Michael with the command of the curveball he's been working on."

You can say almost anything, to anyone, at any time, without offending them, if you say it nicely, softly, kindly, and sincerely.  You can't get away with saying anything, ever, even when your intentions are good, if you sound arrogant, abrasive, offensive, snarly, defensive, loud or combative.

Whether you are trying to convince a prospect, customer or salesperson, make sure you emphasize the how over the what and your message has a much better chance of being accepted in the spirit you intended.

Read more about how you can stop worrying about the words you use.

As I scrolled the list of concerts coming to Boston this year, two things struck me.  Most of the bands that are touring were popular when I was young (don't young pop artists tour too?) and the members of those bands are getting really old!  There's something depressing about seeing 70-year-olds on the stage recreating their hit songs from decades ago.  But it is concert season and salespeople tend to drag out their own old and inappropriate beliefs about selling in the summer.

For one, they work much less.  I understand the need for a summer vacation, but why is the summer any different from when they take their winter vacation?  They return from their winter vacation and work really hard, but for some reason, before and after the summer vacation, they hardly work.  That's lazy!

Two, they believe that their prospects aren't working during the summer and they either slack off on the prospecting, or give up way too early in their attempts to reach their prospects.  Why wouldn't their prospects be working?

Three, they believe that their prospects don't work on Fridays or Mondays.  Sure - if they are on vacations that week, but the rest of the time?  They're working!

The only businesses that shut down for summer are snow plowing companies and they don't really shut down - they simply return to their core business of landscaping and construction.  Salespeople can't shut it down either.  Bare down.  Work harder.  Get laser-focused.  Be more tenacious.  If you know that your competitors are letting up, it's your opportunity to differentiate, be there when they aren't, call when they can't, schedule more meetings and close more business.

I work harder in the summer.  With our son's baseball taking up so much time, I must get more done in fewer hours.  You can too.

I don't know whether I've gotten behind or my articles are having children, but here are some more of my new, fresh articles that have been posted on other sites:

This short interview with me about sales enablement has appeared on multiple sites this week.  One of my favorite clients, Tom See, Sr. VP of Sales at Universal Studios Hollywood, emailed me this morning to let me know that he was alerted to it from his Disruptive Leader feed.  I like being disruptive, but this interview hardly qualifies!

I was one of "70 Top Sales Pros Who Revealed Their Most Impactful Sales Advice."  This was a pretty cool piece!

The latest issue of Top Sales Magazine is available for download.  My article on page 18 was named Top Sales Article of the week.

The Selling Power Blog featured this article of mine on How to Stop Using Price as a Selling Crutch.

My best-selling book, Baseline Selling, was named a Best Summer Read for 2015.

The Sales Mastery Summit posted this video interview on Constructing a Predictive Sales Pipeline / Process and Sales Process

I'll be hosting my annual Sales Leadership Intensive - absolutely our top event of the year - on August 27-28 in the Boston area.  Check it out and join us for the finest training available on mastering the art of sales coaching.

Get busy - get more done - Succeed.

I don't know too many people who saw the award-winning movie Whiplash.  This past winter, Tom Schaff, an OMG Partner in St. Louis, recommended it and thought that I would love it.  As luck would have it, we were living in an igloo this past February, when temperatures never rose above freezing (for 6 weeks), we had nearly 10 feet of snow on the ground, and our home was encased in ice.  That was a great time to be watching movies!  I did love Whiplash and there were so many great scenes that I could have written about. I never did get around to writing about it, but no problem.  Chris Collias, a friend, loyal reader, and longtime client going back to the 1980's, sent me an email with his suggestion for an article.  Here it is.  Chris said that the main character, the incredible drummer, Andrew, is a metaphor for a salesperson. Fletcher, the brutal and narcisistic music professor, could be viewed as an extremely difficult customer or prospect.   

In the movie, the more impossible that Fletcher made it for Andrew, the harder Andrew worked.  The louder Fletcher yelled, the quicker Andrew put his head down and tried harder.  The more manipulative Fletcher became, the more tireless Andrew was.  Andrew is the epitomy of commitment - doing whatever it takes to succeed.  It wasn't conditional commitment; it was unconditional commitment. No-matter-what.

Chris noted that many salespeople aren’t committed to their profession.  They don’t put in the 1,000 hours that it takes to achieve mastery so when they encounter a prospect similar to Fletcher (who actually threw a cymbal at Andrew's head), they don’t react by working harder or facing their weaknesses. Instead, they rationalize, make excuses, or move on to another company (or band). 

Chris said, "Andrew was able to overcome his nemesis by working hard, planting his feet, and calling his tormentor's bluff by delivering his best.  Some prospects, especially in purchasing, can be real bastards.  However, instead of becoming emotional, timid, defensive or sarcastic, you should view them as providing an opportunity for learning. Face them head on, remain calm, and consider that you might be the only salesperson who ever got this far with this particular difficult prospect."

Well stated, Chris!

In many cases, difficult prospects are actually easier to sell because there isn't a whole lot of competition.  Most salespeople give up or lose the prospect's respect before they get remotely close to doing any business with them.

It is important to be aware of potential weaknesses though.  For example, if you have need for approval - the need to be liked - it may be very difficult for you to navigate a situation like this without worrying about what the prospect will think or say or do.  Get over it.  

If you have difficulty recovering from rejection, you may be very uncomfortable putting yourself in a situation where a prospect like this could reject you.  You have nothing to lose!

If you lack self-confidence, it might be scary to jump in and deal with a prospect like this.  Push yourself and do it anyway.

As Chris says, difficult prospects will make you stronger and that will make it even easier for you to deal with prospects who are normal.

It was a beautiful spring day and while I was walking to lunch yesterday, I was thinking about my slugglish metabolism.  When I was young, I never stopped walking, running and bicycling and I probably burned more calories than I consumed.  I was only 115 pounds when I graduated from high school!  I'll turn 60 later this year, and other than the baseball coaching I do, and using the golf cart the few times I play golf each year, I am as close to inactive as possible. The common belief is that the metabolism slows with age, but yesterday it hit me: we slow (Okay, I slow) with age, so it's no wonder our (my) metabolism slows down!   There are also some common beliefs in sales that aren't necessarily true, beliefs which, if we (it's only fair - if you) fix them, change everything.  Consider these:

1. Belief: Demos are excellent milestones and lead to revenue. 
   Reality:  Demos make you feel good, add unqualified opportunities to the pipeline, which are the real reason for inaccurate forecasts.
   
   
2. Belief: The faster you go, the shorter your sales cycle.
   Reality: The faster you go, the more likely it is that your sales cycle will take longer and lead to a lost sale.
   
   
3. Belief: When a propsect doesn't return calls and emails, it's because they aren't interested.
   Reality: Today it takes 10-15 attempts to reach a prospect and when salespeople don't succeed in reaching their prospects, it's because they gave up too early.
   
   
4. Belief: You need lower prices to take business away from an incumbent and win new business.
   Reality: You need to differentiate, solve problems, be the value, and become irreplaceable.
   
   
5. Belief: You know your salespeople better than anyone.
   Reality: You know their results better than anyone.  Only a sales force evaluation can explain why they get the results they get, whether or not your underachievers can be saved, and what you can do to save them.
   
   
6. Belief: The 80/20 Rule applies to the sales force because 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salespeople.
   Reality: You can write and/or follow any rule you want.  I suggest that you adhere to my 100/0 rule, where 100% of your salespeople are overachievers.
   
   
7. Belief: There aren't any good sales candidates out there right now.
   Reality: The good sales candidates won't come to you right now, but if you know where to look, what to look for, how to get their attention and exercise patience, you will find good sales candidates.
   
   
8. Belief: Salespeople must be good closers.
   Reality: If salespeople can find and add opportunities to their pipeline, follow a milestone-centric sales process, sell consultatively and thoroughly qualify, then closing is simply a milestone, rather than an event and, in the end, an unnecessary skill set.
   
   
9. Belief: Sales Training is only necessary for new salespeople.
   Reality: Sales Training and coaching become more necessary as salespeople become more effective generating opportunities.  The top 6% - the elite salespeople - all have sales coaches, just like the top athletes do.  The bottom 74% of all salespeople?  They don't believe they need sales coaching!
   
   
10. Belief: Beliefs are simply opinions.
    Reality: Beliefs drive and support behavior.  Salespeople will always act and behave in a manner that is consistent with their beliefs, even when those beliefs do not support ideal sales outcomes. Self-Limiting sales beliefs do not support elite sales performance.  

Just because you think it, does not make it normal, correct, supportive or useful.  Challenge everything you believe to be true in sales and ask whether or not it really needs to be that way.  Could you change your results if you changed your beliefs, expectations and thinking?  

We saw Paul Blart - Mall Cop 2 and laughed a grand total of twice.  It was inept comedy, a horrible sequel and a terrible movie.  Despite that, it was a great example of resiliency as Blart is continually rejected, stopped, ridiculed and put-off, only to ignore those events, bear down and try even harder to accomplish his goals.  From that perspective, the movie, and Kevin James, succeed at demonstrating what it is like to be a salesperson.  Every other employee in a company is provided with a job description, a set of goals or expectations, training if necessary, and then left to do their job.  Nobody will stop them or make it difficult for them to complete their work, as long as they are capable.  Salespeople, on the other hand, must deal with prospects who won't answer their phones or emails, competitors who say bad things about them and their companies, as well as products and services that aren't always the best in quality, value, or the best choice.  Salespeople must demonstrate resiliency in order to succeed, yet one of the components of resiliency is sorely lacking in today's modern salespeople.

Only 34% of all salespeople have strong commitment for success in  sales - down considerably from 58% in 2007. Why?  One reason is that selling is more difficult than it was 10 years ago.  Another reason could be the rapid growth of inside sales teams where, unlike the traditional quota-carrying outside salesperson of years past, members of the inside sales team are often younger, less experienced, and not necessarily committed to a career of sales excellence.

Movies have been a great source of inspiration for me.  In addition to utilizing close to 100 different movie clips to demonstrate various selling and sales management lessons during training, a quick search revealed that I have relied on various movies to offer an analogy in more than a dozen Blog articles over the past 10 years.  Among them are lessons from:

We Bought a Zoo 
Dragnet 
Moneyball 
The Pursuit of Happyness 
The Lion King 
The Peaceful Warrior Movie 
Anti-Trust 
Gravity 
The Secret 
First Knight 
The Blind Side 
Coach Carter 

There are lessons everywhere.  All you have to do is look for them.