Some of my long-term problems had such simple solutions. If only I had thought of the obvious solutions first.  For example:

For decades, I could not drive for much longer than two to two and a half hours before my eyes would get so heavy that I risked falling asleep at the wheel.  Day or night, year after year, all of our trips were based on how far I might have to drive.  And then I discovered the solution.  Sunglasses.  Yup, with prescription sunglasses, my driving fatigue became a thing of the past and I can drive for hours and hours without getting sleepy.

For months, I had a bright red rash that would continue to reappear under my arms.  While a prescription ointment would help it disappear after about a week, it would continue to reappear.  And then I discovered the solution.  Anti-perspirant.  Yup, all I had to do was to switch from a deodorant to an anti-perspirant and voila, no more rash, ever.

For the last six months I had an acute eczema breakout in, on and behind my ears.  It was really bad, and included burning and itching and flaking.   I used 2 different prescriptions, Neosporin, Eczema creams, honey, balms, coconut oil and anything I could find.  Nothing worked.  Then I tried Aquaphor Advanced Healing Ointment and in three days it was cleared.

Are you getting the picture.  Nothing worked and then sunglasses, anti-perspirant and Aquaphor.  Simple, easy, fast, and powerful.

There are simple, easy, fast and powerful solutions for sales problems too.  See my examples below.

Not enough new meetings?  There four possible reasons and fairly obvious solutions:

1. Salespeople aren't prospecting as required because they have call reluctance.  Hire hunters.  Hoping for change isn't a viable strategy.
2. Salespeople aren't prospecting as required because sales managers are not holding them accountable.  Hold your Sales Managers accountable for holding their salespeople accountable to agreed upon KPIs.  Make it a condition of continued employment.
3. Salespeople are prospecting but their messaging is awful. Have an expert change or tweak the messaging for prospecting calls.
4. Salespeople are prospecting, have good call messaging, but they sound awful or are not being well received.  They won't improve unless you have them trained on cold-call delivery.

Opportunities getting stuck in the pipeline?  There are five possible reasons and some obvious solutions:

1. Salespeople are not reaching decision makers.  Opportunities are 341% more likely to get stuck if your salespeople aren't talking with decision makers.  Get them trained on how to reach decision makers.
2. Lack of urgency.  Salespeople are not uncovering compelling reasons to buy, preventing them from reaching decision makers, getting money approved, and moving the opportunity forward.  Get your salespeople trained on how to take a consultative approach and get your sales managers trained on how to coach up your salespeople.
3. Not being the value.  If prospects don't perceive they are receiving value from a salesperson, they have no reason to move forward with the salesperson.  This isn't talking about value, explaining the value proposition or adding value to your solutions, this is the salesperson being the value.  Get your salespeople trained on how to be the value.  
4. Salespeople are not following an optimized, staged, milestone-centric, customer-focused sales process.  Have this process created and get the sales team trained on how to execute it.
5. Not thoroughly qualifying their opportunities, causing inappropriate quotes, proposals and presentations.  Get your salespeople trained on how to thoroughly qualify and hold your sales managers accountable for holding salespeople accountable to justify every proposal or quote. 

Salespeople are under-performing and not hitting quota. There are an unlimited number of possible reasons, from poor selection, to ineffective or non-existent on boarding, to low Sales DNA, to skill gaps, to lack of motivation, lack of direction, lack of support, lack of training, lack of or ineffective coaching, and on and on and on.  Here are a couple of obvious solutions:

1. Have the sales team evaluated and get the data so that you know for sure if your under-performers can be trained and/or coached up or if what you see is what you will continue to get.  If they are part of your past but not part of your future, replace them today.  If they are part of your future, get them sales training.  You'll also need to learn whether their performance or lack thereof, is self-inflicted or enabled by ineffective sales management.  Learn more here.
2. Give them an ultimatum but consider the length of the sales cycle.  So many companies give salespeople 30 - 60 days to turn things around but if you have an 8 month sales cycle then you either need to give them 8-12 months, or tie the improvement to KPIs that are within reach of 30-60 days.
   
   

There isn't a single scenario going on with your sales team that we haven't seen, addressed, and solved in the past 37 years.  It doesn't matter how small or large your team is, what industry you are in, which markets you sell to, what your price points are, how long you've been in business, how well-known you are, or what your challenges are.  Some companies make the mistake of accepting and being resigned to these challenges, preventing them from getting solutions.  These are the steps you must take to solve your problems:

1. Acknowledge the problems 
2. Choose to take action
3. Get outside expertise
4. Pull the trigger

Image created by AI from 123RF

So there will be Major League Baseball in 2022.  Suddenly the bitching and moaning about the owners has stopped and everyone is just happy that baseball is back.

Speaking of baseball and bringing sales into the discussion, let's talk about coaching.  First the baseball.

When my son was home for winter break, I asked him to rank all of his baseball coaches, an exercise that he found quite interesting.  Starting with Little League, through travel teams, all-star teams, tournament teams, High School teams and finally College, he has had 18 coaches not including me.

He played 4 years for his #1 ranked coach.  For the first two years he was afraid of this coach and for a very good reason.  The coach screamed at him, embarrassed him, and made an example out of him every chance he had.  At the very same time the coach pushed him, challenged him and brought out the best in him.  From the coach's perspective, he knew Michael could take it, saw his potential, and knew he could play even better than he did.  Some of Michael's best games and clutch performances were played under this coach.  The coach didn't scream at everyone.  Other players who disappointed the coach were simply ignored. He didn't want to waste his time screaming at them because he knew it wouldn't change anything and the players would repeat their mistakes.

I was not surprised over the coaches that Michael ranked 14-18.  They weren't very good at coaching, didn't add much value, and their teams didn't win anything. 

The nicest coach Michael ever played for, the one who we, as parents liked the most, and the one Michael loved the most, didn't make the top 5.  They loved each other but didn't win anything together and the coach didn't bring out the best in Michael.  He was simply way too chill.

So let's pivot back to sales.

The biggest difference between great sales managers and crappy sales managers is how effectively they coach up their salespeople to make them better.  There are two parts to this:

The first part is tactical - How to coach effectively, when to coach, what to coach on, how frequently to coach, and what good sounds like.  It can all be taught but it relies so, so heavily on listening skills.

The second part is Sales Management DNA -  How comfortable sales managers are when it comes to confronting, pushing back, challenging, being truthful, and providing constructive criticism.  It relies heavily on not allowing their fear of upsetting or losing salespeople to get in the way, preventing them from providing great coaching.

We can draw a comparison between Michael's #1 ranked coach and a great sales manager.  Pretend that coach #1 is everything described above except for the screaming and  embarrassing.  If I rewrote the description, it would say: the coach pushed him, challenged him and brought out the best in him.  From the coach's perspective, he knew Michael could take it, saw his potential, and knew he could play even better than he did.  Some of Michael's best games and clutch performances were played under this coach. 

Isn't that what we want our sales managers to accomplish?

Sales Managers:  Stop worrying about whether salespeople like you, and make sure they respect your coaching, trust your intentions, and truly want to improve. Bring out the best in them.  Show them what good sounds like through role-play.  If you do that, your relationship with them will be first rate.

The key is role-playing - the only possible way to demonstrate what good truly sounds like.  Most sales managers don't know how to do this effectively or don't include role-playing in their coaching. If you want to improve your ability to role-play, Kurlan & Associates has a self-directed online course that includes more than 40 unscripted role-plays extracted from live coaching and training conversations.  They cover nearly every scenario, include a layer of realtime coaching during the role plays and ARE EXACTLY WHAT GOOD SOUNDS LIKE.  If you want examples that you can model on how to coach salespeople through role-play, it doesn't get any better than this.  It's just $795 and you get access to the ever-expanding library for a year!  You can see the course topics here.  Have questions? Feel free to email me.  I respond to my emails!

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The lettering above the dials of our LG washing machine (pictured above when new) have worn off.  I went online believing I could get a replacement decal and while LG does not provide replacements,  they will replace the entire front panel for $125.  While I was researching this stupid, preventable issue, I found that many LG owners have the same problem.  You see, the letters come right off if you are stupid enough to drape a stained baseball uniform (or any stained clothing) over the front of the washer and spray it with a stain remover like Shout.  How can the product managers for this machine be so bad?

They're not the only professionals who are quite bad at what they do.  Sales Managers underperform at a mind boggling level.  Let me show you the degree to which most sales managers are unqualified.

Let's begin our story with sales management candidates - those candidates looking for a sales management gig.  Objective Management Group's (OMG) recommendation rate for sales management candidates is only 14.8% with another 14.1% on the fringes leaving 71% of all candidates not recommended!  More than two out of three candidates for sales management roles don't qualify!

The next question is why not?

One third of all candidates are knocked out for having low scores in Will to Manage Sales.  This group of five sales management competencies includes Desire for Sales Management Success, Commitment to achieving greater sales management success, Outlook, Responsibility and Motivation.

42% of all candidates are knocked out for having Sales Management DNA scores that are too low.  Sales Management DNA consists of five competencies which together are a combination of strengths that support a sales manager's ability to coach to and enforce sales process, sales strategies, sales tactics, sales methodology, sales pipeline and CRM compliance.  When the score dips below a certain point, those competencies become weaknesses.

16% of all candidates are knocked out for scoring too low on the Sales Coaching competency and another 61% are on the fringes.  That's another way of saying that only 23% of all candidates have the Sales Coaching competency as a strength and when sales managers are supposed to be spending half of their time on coaching, that's seriously useless.

Ugh.

There are a couple of different ways to look at this.  Companies that are serious about building strong sales cultures and following best practices use OMG's sales management candidate assessments and say, "No big deal.  That's why we use OMG to assess sales and sales management candidates!"  Companies that don't use OMG probably don't even notice because the candidates are probably no worse than most of the sales managers already working there.

That brings us to the bigger problem.  Six out of every seven sales managers SUCK!

What does that mean for you?

Most sales managers don't coach enough, don't coach consistently, don't coach the right way, don't impact their salespeople's opportunities, don't grow their salespeople, don't inspire their salespeople, don't hold their salespeople accountable, suck at recruiting new salespeople, spend too much time on personal sales and compiling reports, and not nearly enough time developing the talent on their teams.  More on this topic.

I spoke with the two senior-most executives of a national company who admitted that they've been trying to build a sales organization for ten years.  They said they "don't know what they don't know."  That doesn't actually differentiate them from most executives.  What does differentiate them is that they admitted it!  Unfortunately, admitting that they don't know what they don't know doesn't solve anything.  They must also be willing to follow advice, follow through and stick with it and that's easier said than done. Building a sales culture that rocks means starting with the right sales manager in place.  Always.

The challenge is to understand the importance of having the right sales managers.  If you run a company with a small sales team, you're lying to yourself if you think that you can manage salespeople in your spare time.  Just. Not. True.  If you run a larger company with a larger sales team, you're lying to yourself if you think that as long as you hire the right sales talent any sales manager will do.  Right up until the good salespeople quit.  If you have multiple sales teams, with more layers between the C Suite and the salespeople, sales managers receive less scrutiny, are more independent, and play an even more important role in executing the company's strategy.  You're lying to yourself if you think that having any sales manager with industry experience will get the job done.

Sales Managers are the LG washing machines of the sales profession and the people they report to are the enablers that allow that inferior product to exist.

Time to towel off.

Quid pro quo is all the rage.  The news networks are pointing to and from quid pro quo and arguing whether it was or wasn't implied.  Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you're on, you've probably heard it plenty more than you need to. 

Could there be a sales coaching lesson here?

Last week, before I wrote the article about salespeople losing their way, I was in Chicago for a follow up training event with a team of Sales Managers.  It was immediately obvious to me that the group who received the most coaching from me was way ahead of the other sales managers in the room. 

Coaching works.  And the coaching they were providing was working too. I heard so many examples of how they were coaching their salespeople up!  Coaching them to lower resistance, ask better questions, slow down, follow the process, actively listen to their prospects, summarize effectively and hold their salespeople accountable for change.

At the heart of a coaching conversation where a sales manager is coaching a salesperson is a role-play with a lesson learned. In conversations where the coaching is effective, there will be two lessons: While a skill gap is often uncovered and addressed, a sales DNA weakness - the primary reason the salesperson wasn't able to execute a strategy or tactic - should be uncovered as well.

After the lesson learned, an action plan should emerge, so that the salesperson can execute the tactic or strategy, without being held back by the weakness, move the opportunity forward and close the business.

In other words, an effective coaching conversation has an implied quid pro quo.  I'll help you get better and in return, you'll bring me, our team and the company the business you were coached to close. Don't you love quid pro quo's?

You too can master the art of sales coaching.  This is the last chance to participate in 2019.  Our final public Sales Leadership Intensive of the year takes place November 13-14 in Jersey City and as of this writing there are only 2 seats left.

Learn more at here and register here to get a $100 discount.

Image copyright iStock Photos

Image Copyright iStock Photos

Have you ever watched a news program where they presented poll results, like the number of people in favor of legalizing marijuana?  The poll shows popular opinion, but not the facts, logic, or impact on arrests, the economy, traffic accidents, unemployment, addiction, death rates, etc.  There is a huge difference between people's often uninformed opinions, versus what the facts might suggest.  That's the problem with the statistics I'm going to share in this article.  The stats show what sales managers are doing but those managers are largely uninformed. They don't know what's good for them, haven't been asked or held accountable to doing it differently, and aren't in any way shape or form following best practices.  John Pattison, Objective Management Group's COO, mined some data on salespeople who report to sales managers.  I was appalled by what I saw.  Check this out!

I reviewed data from 17,000 salespeople who reported to 4,000 managers in companies across more than 100 industries and here are some of the most interesting findings (see how 500,000 salespeople score in 21 Sales Core Competencies here):

Tracking, Reporting and Pipeline:

• Margins are the metric tracked most frequently. 65% of sales managers track that because they need that metric to calculate commissions!
• 3% of sales managers don't track or report on anything
• Only 6% of sales managers track cost per sales call
• Of the 5 pipeline metrics that could be tracked, an average of only 32% of sales managers track 1 or more of them
• Only 33% of sales managers track closing percentage
• Only 41% track average order size

I have news for you.  If you don't track closing percentage or average order size, you can't identify the number of opportunities that are required to be added to the first stage of the pipeline each month!

Coaching Environment

The data shows that it's more important that sales managers believe their salespeople trust their intentions, and have strong relationships with their salespeople than what the reality might be.  When sales managers believe there is mutual trust and a strong relationship, it is 300% more likely that their salespeople will be strong or elite.  That's because sales managers with these beliefs coach more frequently, coach longer, and coach more effectively.  See this article for the data that shows that how sales managers who coach frequently and effectively see a 27% increase in revenue.

If you want to become super effective at coaching salespeople, register to attend my Sales Leadership Intensive on March 19-20.  If you want to attend, use DKSLIMAY17 at checkout to receive a $100 discount.  Seating is extremely limited (only 20 seats remaining). If you're like the hundreds of other sales leaders that have attended this event over the past 8 years, you'll quickly recognize that it's the finest training you've ever received.

Speaking of sales leadership and coaching, order Keith Rosen's terrific new book, Sales Leadership, from Amazon.com.  You won't be disappointed.

I always enjoy reading articles that expose things I don't know about topics I enjoy, like 7 Unsung Built-in Gems in Mac OS X. I had the opportunity to provide that kind of training to a dozen or so sales leaders on some of the less obvious findings and relationships in Objective Management Group's (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessments and how to use them. We also discussed which of the 21 Sales Core Competencies that we measure were pertinent to their different sales roles and why.  One of the regional sales managers asked, "What are the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Sales Managers Make When Recruiting Salespeople?"

While that question is quite easy to answer, most companies, including their recruiters, HR professionals, sales leaders and executives are guilty of some or all of the following 5 mistakes:

1. Their job posting fails.  Most sales job postings all read the same.  Great job, great company, great opportunity, great benefits, blah, blah, blah.  And even if you are using the most accurate and predictive sales candidate assessment on the planet, it won't help at all if your job posting lures the wrong candidates into the pool.  Describe the candidate along with the experiences you hope they had and the capabilities they must have to succeed in your role.
2. They wait too long to assess their candidates.  If you wait to assess until after you have interviewed, you won't embrace the findings and recommendation on the assessment unless they support how you feel about the candidate.  If you already fell in love with the candidate and the assessment says "Not Recommended" and you ignore the recommendation it will lead to a hiring mistake.  Assess every candidate immediately after you receive their online application or resume and then you won't  accidentally ignore a candidate whose resume suggests a bad fit but whose assessment scores suggest a very capable salesperson for the role.
3. They don't properly on board.  They say, "We're using the best assessment and the salesperson was recommended so she should know what to do."  Wrong.  Every new salesperson deserves proper on boarding so that you can prepare them for success instead of setting them up for failure.
4. They don't thoroughly interview the candidate.  It doesn't have to be a long interview but it needs to be thorough.  You need to dig deep behind every resume claim to separate fact from fiction.  Here are the top 5 examples of claims that sound great but actually turn out to be bogus when you learn about the all important context (in parentheses) for the claim:
   1. Top salesperson  (out of 2)
   2. President's Club (for all salespeople who hit 75% of quota)
   3. Grew annual sales in territory by 200% (from $40,000 to $120,000)
   4. Doubled size of the territory in the first year (closed one big deal that was in the pipeline when he arrived)
   5. Uses words like developed, initiated, led, created, or built in reference to sales programs (did not actually sell anything).
5. They don't set expectations, coach to those expectations and hold the salesperson accountable for achieving those expectations in the first 90 days.

These five mistakes are easy to correct and then companies will experience far greater success and consistency with their new sales hires.  In most cases, the only thing preventing companies from making these changes is the self-limiting belief that "we've always done it this way."

Image Copyright Eerik

You've heard it all before - but not quite this way.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is CRM.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a powerful Inbound initiative.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a customized sales process.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is lots of leads.  Really?

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is targeted marketing.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a custom scorecard.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is outsourced calling.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is an in-house BDR team.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a custom sales playbook.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a sales force evaluation.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is ongoing sales training.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is sales coaching.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a consultative approach.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is the right messaging.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a daily huddle.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a weekly pipeline review.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a full pipeline.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a goal-oriented sales force.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a sales selection tool.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a sales recruiting process.

Of course there are more; many more.

The problem is one of grammar.  All of the articles you read, videos you watch and audios you listen to suggest that there is a key to sales success.  Period.  But if you change the period to a comma, you'll quickly see that all of these things are crucial to success in sales.

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What are your thoughts about Atlantis?  Intrigued by the lost continent, I have read a lot about it over the years, including the book, Atlantis Beneath the Ice, which revealed where Atlantis is actually located.  Cool!  On a recent vacation I managed to read 5 books and 3 of them were from an Atlantis-themed trilogy.  This particular series was pure science fiction but there is no fiction whatsoever when we explore the connection between successful book and movie series and effective sales coaching.  They share the very same premise and it is actually quite simple to grasp.

There are many book series and movie franchises that go well beyond a 3-volume Trilogy.  Does James Bond 007 ring a bell?  There have been 26 of those so far!

They key to any successful series is not only the popularity of the first installment, but how badly that first story leaves you wanting more.  The first book not not only has to be really good, but you must feel disappointed that it came to an end!

That's the sign of great sales coaching too.  Today's coaching session must be so good that the salesperson does not want it to end.  Not only that, but the salesperson can't wait to come back for more coaching.  Now, be honest with yourself for a moment.  Assuming that you regularly and consistently coach all of your salespeople, is your coaching so powerful that your salespeople can't wait for another session with you?  It should be.

Sales leaders that coach effectively, impact deals and increase revenue by 28%.  What would a 28% increase in sales mean for you?

It makes sense that great coaching has a great impact, but only 8% of all sales leaders are able to coach effecitvely.  And only 28% of all sales managers spend 50% or more of their time coaching which tells us two more things:

1. 72%, or most sales managers do not spend enough time coaching
2. Assuming that the 8% who are effective are equally distributed between the 28% group and the 72% group, only 2.25% of all sales leaders spend enough time and are really good at it.

Yikes!

One might think that the lack of time invested in coaching is the easiest to fix but for sales managers who also maintain territories and accounts, it's not that simple.  However, that doesn't mean it can't be done.  Hire a salesperson to take those accounts and get busy doing what sales managers are supposed to do!  Coach.

As for the nuances of effective coaching, the 10 keys to success are the ability to:

1. Develop a coaching culture - without that the coaching won't work.
2. Coach your salespeople every day - it's the repetition that makes the difference.
3. Debrief as often as you pre-call strategize.
4. Identify where in the sales process the opportunity went off the rails
5. Identify whether skills, Sales DNA or both that were at fault
6. Effectively role play how the call or meeting should have progressed and teach at the same time.  
7. Effectively role play how an upcoming call or meeting needs to sound
8. Reach impactful lessons learned from each coaching session
9. Impact deals without being on those calls
10. Help your salespeople become stronger and more effective with each passing day

"Without question, the single, most difficult skill for sales leaders to master, is the ability to play the salesperson's role, while selling to a prospect of any title, at any point in the sales process, for any kind of opportunity, with any level of resistance and against any and all competition."

Why is it so difficult?  Because your lousy salespeople get into lousy scenarios - ones which you, a good salesperson, consistently managed to avoid because you were, well, good!  Your salespeople find themselves in those situations every day, those are the scenarios for which they will play the prospect, and you must demonstrate two things through role play.  

1. How to avoid those scenarios
2. How to turn around those scenarios

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Ryan changed jobs and companies this week when he started in his new role as Business Development Manager.  When I congratulated him on his new job he wrote back the following:

"You were 110% on the money back when I became a first time sales manager. You told Stuart and me that my biggest challenge would be in not being able to understand why the hell sales reps working for me just didn't do what I did when I was selling, and what I asked them to do, since I always did what was asked of me when I was a field rep for Stu. Totally on the money, that drove me crazy every day."

We talk a lot about the mistake so many companies make when they take their best salespeople and make them sales managers.  While it's not always a mistake, the most commonly discussed reasons include:

• Inability to replace that salesperson's significant revenue
• Lack of sales management skills
• Lack of recruiting skills
• Lack of coaching skills
• Lack of skills around accountability
• The new sales manager might not be able to get salespeople to sell the same way
• Things that made this person successful as a salesperson might not be duplicable
• Resistance to move away from selling and reluctance to allow salespeople to make their own mistakes

In addition to those 8 reasons, Ryan's note highlights the single most frustrating chain of events to impact new sales managers.

New sales managers have a tremendous sense of optimism when they embark on the next chapter of their careers.  They believe that their sales success is duplicable and all they have to do is show their salespeople what they do and their salespeople will be able to do it.

Nothing could be further from the reality of the situation.

For starters, the former sales managers might be successful more because of their intangibles than having mastered 21 Sales Core Competencies.  

Their salespeople could have weaknesses in their Sales DNA that would prevent them from doing what their new sales managers can do.  When Sales DNA fails to support effective selling, Sales Managers can show and tell until they are blue in the face and their salespeople still won't be able to replicate their words and actions.

Their salespeople could be deficient in their Will to Sell, their tactical selling competencies or their understanding of business and finance.  There are many possible factors that cause 77% of all salespeople to suck and most sales managers, lacking effective coaching and training skills, are simply not equipped to overcome them.  At some point in their first year, the reality of their situation becomes more obvious and they default to the only solution they know for increasing sales.  Themselves.

They turn their salespeople into bird dogs and whenever there is a decent opportunity that isn't a slam dunk, they show up or get on the phone and help their salespeople close the business.  While this does serve as a short-term solution, it's not a very good long term strategy. The sales manager takes all of the credit, the salespeople fail to improve, they feel demotivated and unimportant, and eventually leave.

There is no shortcut to sales management success.  Sales Managers must develop the necessary skills to coach effectively so that they impact deals that their salespeople close, impact profit, win rates, retention, morale and revenue.  If you or your sales managers need to develop this rare ability to coach up a sales team, won't you join me for my top-rated Sales Leadership Intensive?  I offer it only once each year and it's coming up on May 17-18 outside of Boston.  There is still time to plan your attendance,  and you'll leave the two days finally understanding and possessing the ability to impact a sales force.  Learn more here.  Use the discount code DK-Blog-Subscriber to receive a $100 discount off the price of a ticket.  We limit attendance to only 25 sales leaders so register early or, like we used to say at the end of each Red Sox baseball season, wait until next year!

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Day after day and call after call, I hear the frustration from sales managers and sales leaders who have at least one thing in common.  They know that their salespeople could and should be doing better.

For almost ten years and regardless of how the US economy has performed, reports continue to show that only 50-60% of reps are hitting quota.  That's nothing to be proud of and the sales leaders who call and email have come to the realization that try as they might, they have been unable to coach up half of their salespeople.

These are smart, talented, experienced sales leaders, who work for companies with excellent reputations, great products and wonderful customers.  So why does nearly every sales leader struggle with the problem of under performing salespeople?  The biggest problem is that there isn't one reason - there are many - and I'll share them with you now.

• Selection - When you hire the wrong salespeople, it becomes clear that the fit isn't very good.  The salespeople might be wonderful people, but when they are wrong for the role or lack the capabilities required to succeed in the role, failure is the norm and it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible to coach them up.
• On Boarding - Some companies lack a comprehensive on boarding program and instead of preparing new salespeople for success, the new salespeople are setup for failure.
• Messaging - I've seen the results from the sales force evaluations of more than companies and 1831506 salespeople. One thing I have observed in nearly every one of those companies is the utter lack of consistency in their messaging. Whether it's the value proposition, brand promise or elevator pitch, each salesperson tends to say something completely different from everyone else.  
• Sales DNA - Some salespeople are good relationship builders, have a solid set of skills, but lack the necessary Sales DNA - the set of strengths that support successful sales outcomes - to be effective.  It is very difficult for a sales leader to coach up a salesperson when the issue is Sales DNA.  If you have salespeople, and you have repeatedly had to coach them on the same issues, it's more than likely Sales DNA that is causing the problem, not a skill gap.
• Training - A lot of companies don't provide their salespeople with professional sales training and of the companies that do, it's important to know that a lot of the sales training that is out there isn't very good.  Why?  A lot of it is incomplete, outdated, focuses on the wrong things, and most of it ignores the issues of Sales DNA.  There are 21 Sales Core Competencies.  Sales Training must thoroughly cover all 21 of those competencies - in context - through role play - and more.
• Coaching - This is it.  The big differentiator.  The one thing that can make up for mediocrity.  You know that coaching now accounts for 50% of any sales leader's role.  The problem is that there is coaching, and there is coaching that has an impact.  How do you know if your coaching is having an impact?  Your salespeople will be begging you for your time.  Opportunities on which you coached your salespeople are getting closed - by them, not you.  They are getting stronger, better, more confident and meeting and exceeding their quotas.
• Sales Process - I've written about sales process 31 times because it's that important.  When salespeople don't have a proven, predictable sales process to follow they will fail much more often than they need to.  And the coaching must take place within the context of the sales process.

If coaching is the single most important sales leadership competency that will have the greatest impact, and you aren't having that impact on each of your salespeople, every single day, and in every coaching conversation, what can you do?

Dedicate yourself to becoming the best sales coach on the planet.  Period.  The challenge is in finding the right place to start.