It's Never All Or Nothing

I’m a huge advocate of spreading good news.  Many sales teams get bogged down in mires of negativity, argument and insubordination.  Surely a better place to be is where everyone is aligned to similar initiatives, and focus on joined-up accomplishment.

Lamentably, this is rarely the case.  One guy (a prospect) I spoke to first thing this morning was moaning his charges were not compliant on anything.  From filling out their weekly sales reports, to pitching the latest whizz-bang product, they pretty much mulled along as they pleased.

Changing such a culture is a real toughie, but it can be done.  Even when the most non-compliant are the top performers.  One key is to do what an American crowd I once worked with called “closing the excuse department”.  I often hear managers say something like “you can’t force anyone to do something…”

Well, actually, you can.  What ‘negotiation’ can you deploy to get your point across?  One customer of mine recently refused to pay commission unless certain info was logged at lead discovery time.  Waiting until the order came in was too late.  A beaut.

At another customer, we’ve been trying to help them sell more of a superb, game-changing offering.  Many are struggling, yet we’ve just exposed that of the 50-odd team, 3 have added more than €600k of new opportunities to their funnel for it.  And it’s in part because they’ve engaged in the tool to help them do so.  What are the other guys up to, and how can they justify not getting on board?  Close that excuse department!