Having a great plan isn’t enough. The problem is that we all have an Achilles' Heel.  Frank Belzer’s post, “5 Ways to Restore Your Sales MOJO for 2013!”, offers great tactical advice and provides an outline for a sales plan.

I’m a good planner, but consistent focus and discipline can be a challenge.  Like many of you, I suspect, I alternate between firing on all cylinders and a semi-stalled engine.  When I’m on my game, I’m very focused.  For me, 2013 is about keeping my sales mojo and paying more attention to my Achilles' heel.

As a teenager, I loved science fiction.  I was a Star Trek fan, read many books by Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut.  My favorite though was J. R. R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  Tolkien’s Trilogy, preceded by The Hobbit, was his life’s work.  He literally created the languages and developed ' of history for his stories.

While his works are based on the classic “good vs. evil” metaphor, they're also about struggle, adversity and the human condition.  Bilbo (The Hobbit) goes on an adventure which challenges his complete being.  In The Lord of the Rings, his oldest cousin, Frodo, is tasked with the unthinkable - saving the world from evil.  Despite the overwhelming odds against these lovable Hobbits, they somehow found the will to continue and thrive, driven by a purpose for which neither asked nor knew they possessed.

Salespeople face enormous challenges, including rejection, disingenuous prospects, loyalty, politics, unaligned self-interest and even themselves.  What is your Achilles' heel?  Can you identify and describe it?  Are you doing anything about it?

I believe the biggest challenge which salespeople face is looking at them in the mirror each day.  Whether it’s the challenge of Commitment, Desire, Outlook, Rationalization, Willingness to Change, Open-Mindedness, Humility or Tenacity, we need to honestly identify and work on them each day.  We'll make mistakes, but continuing to put one foot in front of the other is the essence of what Star Trek's Captain Kirk referred to as the "human condition".

My challenge for you is to identify your sales force's Achilles' heel, put a plan together to address it and stoke the fire each day.

Cost of Sales is a critical KPI, particularly when you operate on thin margins.  Influencing factors include attrition, training, travel, equipment, compensation, recruiting and administrative costs.  Some of these are generally fixed while others can vary widely.

If 100% of your salespeople consistently make their quota or budget at the desired margin, much of the concern about Cost of Sales would evaporate.

So why worry about it? I was speaking with an SVP of a brand-name company with thousands of salespeople.  He told me that most all of their sales teams have only a few (2-3) salespeople achieving quota while the rest consistently struggle.  Let's take a look at a typical sales team of 8 people.

The net gap in margin, $210,000 in this example, replicated 6 times to account for the 5 similarly performing teams in the organization, has a direct impact of $1,260,000 on the Cost of Sales.  You don’t need to be a financial wiz to see that even a small drop in margin has a significant effect on profitability.

My experience is that when salespeople consistently do the things which they don’t want to do (healthy behaviors), good things happen.  Highly-effective people do the hardest and least desirable things first, assuring greater productivity.

In this light, the SVP’s comments illustrate both a huge problem and an amazing opportunity.  Yet most senior executives assume the 80/20 rule will be true, but simply leads to more unacceptable behaviors and outcomes.

Consider what would happen if your financial people were able to account for only 92% of your money or if operations shipped only 92% of your product.  It’s virtually certain that things would change quickly.

Let's put aside the impact on profit and look only at the salespeople.  Self-limiting thinking impacts everything.  For example:

• I can’t help a prospect who's happy with their current supplier.
• The economy is hurting our business.
• It’s OK if I miss my quota as long as I come close.
• I’m not an executive.
• I wish that I didn’t have to deal with being rejected.
• People are under pressure to buy the lowest priced products.

These thoughts influence bravery, execution, adherence to sales process, motivation, outlook and most importantly whether the salesperson can execute the call strategy.

What are your salespeople thinking when management isn’t looking?  Is sales management skilled enough to address this challenge?  What don’t you know about your sales force that’s costing you 8% or more of your margin dollars?  Are you accepting the 80/20 rule, the one which says that 80% of your sales organization is underperforming?

Quantum physics has shown that matter vibrates at a specific and measurable frequency.  Of course, this includes human beings.  What’s really interesting is that frequency changes based on our emotional state and we attract energy vibrating at similar frequency.

This law of nature, like gravity or cause and effect, is termed The Law of Attraction.  It means that our emotional state attracts people and circumstances consistent with what we are feeling. 

Think about salespeople who are on a roll.  Success fosters the opportunity for more success.  When they get in a slump, it's very hard for them to get back on track.  Whether you want to believe it or not, this dynamic affects us in every aspect of our lives, whether we are in sales or not.  It also greatly contributes to our happiness.

When a salesperson is in a slump, the following thoughts could manifest: 

• Business is hard right now.
• I can't seem to get anything closed.
• If I don't fix this soon, I'll be in trouble.
• This isn't fun anymore.
• I must be doing something wrong.

Imagine how this thinking might affect them.  What happens to their mood and attitude?  Are they more or less likely to conjure up bravery and passion?  And how does this affect how prospects and clients perceive them?

Consider the impact of a CEO who may exude negative energy compared to another executive who radiates passion for success, commitment to excellence, personal improvement and enormous commitment to their employees’ well-being.  My belief is that the difference, between highly successful companies and underperforming ones, is determined by the nature and consistency of its employees’ energy.

Integrating this principal into your organization isn't easy.  Witness the effort and challenges of culture change resulting from mergers and acquisitions.  It can have a profound impact on your team, company and you.  Identifying the specific non-supportive beliefs, by which your sales force is affected, is critical to the coaching and development process.  For example, a salesperson who is uncomfortable talking about money will avoid this conversation despite the agreed-upon call strategy.  Of course it all starts with the individual.  We need to bring the right attitude, state of mind, passion and energy, which our companies and teams need.

My challenge to you is to implement the following for the next month and see what happens: 

• Focus and talk about positive things and avoid the negative.
• Give people your undivided attention.  Listen to them, not about what you’re thinking.
• Keep a gratitude journal and read it daily.
• Acknowledge people as human beings, not employees.

Last night, I had the pleasure of listening to Aaron Davis, a member of the 1994 Nebraska National Championship football team.  His enormously passionate message offered practical thoughts on sales leadership and our challenges.

It’s said that all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. Examples include: 

• Share everything.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt someone.
• When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder.

Aaron’s message, like the kindergarten lessons, was timeless and applies to every aspect of our lives from being a successful sales leader, parent, spouse, friend or employee.

• Find out what your “why” is and live it.
• Listen more than you speak.
• Discuss the elephant in the room.
• Make sure everyone understands and believes the purpose and intent.
• View change as an opportunity.

None of these ideas are new.  They have been passed down from generation to generation.  What’s important is how we live and manifest them in our daily lives.  As I thought about Aaron’s message, it struck me that sales leaders assume that if we properly communicate and reinforce these principals, our salespeople will integrate them into their selling habits.  While intellectually this is true, it doesn’t mean our team member will be able to do this without help.

For example, it’s intuitive that having clearly-defined personal goals will lead to better results.  Going to the gym, making the weekly date night a priority, calling your friends or relatives and being mindful of what we eat make sense.  In sales, Desire and Commitment are the two most important drives of performance - Commitment being paramount.  The real issue is why this is important to them.  This is the more difficult question to answer, one with which many sales leaders are woefully inconsistent and ill-equipped to help their people answer.

The biggest problems which we face are the non-supportive beliefs of our salespeople. As Aaron put it, championship teams don’t spend time thinking about why they might lose.

The good news is you can identify these non-supportive beliefs and the limiting weaknesses which influence the “why”.  The chart below comes from a top-performers vs. non-performers blog post which my colleague Dave Kurlan wrote.  It empirically identifies what sales leaders need to know to help their salespeople improve.

If you are committed to being a top-performing sales leader, you must coach your people on the real issues.  To do this, you need to know what they are.

In a recent article from Management Association, Mary Lynn Fayoumi talks about the importance of HR professionals having good sales skills.  She speaks about the necessity of “selling” great talent on coming to work for you. 

In a competitive marketplace, where specialized skills and experience are increasingly important, the ability of hiring managers to differentiate themselves and their company is critical.

If we surveyed HR professionals, asking them to define what a successful salesperson must do well, I suspect that articulating the company’s value proposition would rank very high.  The question is how?  The best salespeople help the client to discover that core business issues and unforeseen consequences make the value proposition important.

Salespeople often start off in the right direction, but then quickly find themselves in presentation mode.  The result is a loss of control and differentiation.  I believe that HR professionals suffer from the same problem.

My experience is that far too many HR executives underappreciate the science, art and difficulty of professional selling.  They can articulate the business case, cost and impact of underperforming salespeople.  They understand the opportunity cost of turnover, but they really don’t “get” salespeople and, in too many cases, underappreciate the difficulty of the sales job.  This probably isn’t surprising since most CEO’s have the same challenge because they’re from the finance, operations and/or technical side.  HR professionals also happen to spend a lot of time interacting with vendors who often don’t live up to expectations.

What makes salespeople different? 

• They are usually highly emotional and sometimes volatile people.
• They are not good at being introspective.
• Asking for help is typically a weakness.
• Compliance is not in their vocabulary.
• Most are fairly self-absorbed.
• They love teamwork when they are in control of the team.
• They should ask questions which make prospects uncomfortable.
• Details are not that important.
• The good ones fight when prospects say no.

What percentage of these traits do you think HR professionals possess?  More importantly, how many look for these attributes when hiring great employees and how does this affect the sales talent recruitment?