Web-Enabled Laziness

You ask any CEO, and they’ll tell you the vast majority of reps are lazy.  There are all sorts of historical reasons for this.  I, for my part, know that most reps are indeed lazy.  They tend by their very nature to seek out short-cuts, follow the quickest paths and only really do something involved when they absolutely have no alternative.

One example with this is with call planning and preparation.  Now, let’s accept mitigating circumstances can exist, such as a lack of tools in place to speed up such processes, yet so few reps do a good job on this it’s scary.

Another one is with prospecting.  I just came across an instance where someone wished to target the customers of another company.  The two vendors sold different wares, yet can enjoy success in similar target markets.  One young buck rep was charged with creating a list of prospects.  Simple, you’d think.  Get on the web and away you go, untold riches to plunder.

Yet the list generated had what their boss thought was too few names.  Surely a better yield should be visible.  And it should.  For the young buck had only looked in one place for ‘leads’; the Customer section of the other firm’s website.

Unbelievable.  Apparently double the number of companies existed elsewhere around their site.  I suggest a public lashing.