Why Do Celebrities Do Drugs and Why Do Rookie Sales People Need Hugs?

When you have a great sales attitude you don’t need drugs or hugs.

Why Do Celebrities Do Drugs and Why Do Rookie Sales People Need Hugs? (I first wrote this on 2/1/10 when a celebrity overdosed and died. Today, 2/2/14, another celebrity overdosed and died. What’s up with February deaths? This blog post is on a sales and marketing website, but it applies to all of us, in anything we do. Please take this message to heart to not only sell better, but to live better.)

Because they have a poor self-image, low self-esteem and poor sales attitude.

I won’t get into why I think celebrities have such poor self-images (but I do have my opinions I’d be glad to share over an adult beverage if you’re ever in SoCal) but I will share my ideas on why sales people in general, and new sales people in particular, have such low self-esteem.

One word: Confusion.

In 100% of the companies that bring me in to work with them their sales management skills are 180 degrees out of whack! The typical yo-yo sales environment suffering from low morale, high turnover, eroding margins, excessive cancellations and change orders and customer complaints are managing RESULTS instead of PERFORMANCE!

What does that mean?

Without a gun you and I cannot control what our prospects do. We cannot MAKE THEM reach for the checkbook and open it up to us. But we can control whether or not we called them and set an appointment with them and asked pertinent, relevant, thought-provoking questions of them that showed our expertise and competence.

But every company I’ve ever worked at as an employee or consulted with manages based on results instead of performance. (In a way I’m glad because this means they need me. If they were doing it right I’d be out of a job!) This leads to “hockey stick” sales that all come at the end of the month or quarter at lower margins and higher stress.

What companies should do is manage performance and pay on results. When that new sales person shows up they should be told something along the lines of:

• Your monthly sales target is $12,000 or $3,000 per week.

• The average sale is $1,000 so you need to get three new clients a week.

• The average closing ratio is 33%, which means you need 3 appointments to make a sale, which means you need to go on 9 appointments a week.

• One out of every 4 appointments you make will cancel so you need to make 4 appointments to get 3, which means you need to set 12 appointments a week.

• To get one appointment you must speak to 5 decision makers and follow this exact script, which means you must speak to 60 decision makers a week.

• To reach 5 decision makers you must speak to 15 gatekeepers and follow this exact script.

• To reach 15 gatekeepers you must make 35 calls a day and follow this exact script, and/or…

• Go to three networking events a week and introduce yourself in this exact manner, and/or…

• Give two talks a week on this topic to this audience with this exact call to action, and/or…

• Mail 50 pieces of mail a week to these exact businesses with this exact call to action, and/or…

You get the point and you know it doesn’t happen this way.

Most of the time the hiring manager will say something like, “You’re a big boy. You’ve been in this game long enough. You know what to do. Heck, when I started we didn’t even have cell phones or computers. Now go sell something!” and they go back into their office with their “open door policy” because your all “family.”

This is the beginning of the end for that sales rep and they just started! They are thoroughly confused and dejected because they see others making sales at the company but nothing has been codified so they’re not sure how to start, what to say and more importantly, what questions to ask. Instead, they are given some nice brochures, they are briefed on all of the patents they have and the number of employees and how the founder started the company in her garage and they are told to go make sales. W. Edwards Deming is rolling over in his grave.

How well do you know your own numbers?

What kind of example are you setting for your sales staff?

Are you the bottleneck to your own success?

Can your 5-figure strategies get you to 6 or 7+ figure results?

Would you like a new perspective from someone that has made all of the mistakes and also won all of the awards in retail sales, business to business sales, business to government sales, business to consumer sales and the all important human being to human being sales?

The first call is free and I guarantee you will learn something during our 30 minutes together that can put an extra $1,000 in your pocket within 60 days. But you have to let me know you’re out there first.

Wishing you all the success you have the guts to grab.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Throw down some graffiti below along with your thoughts, comments, experiences and suggestions.