Several Million Reasons…
Anyone who knows me will know of my passion for sales and especially the art of selling and many entrepreneurs are good salespeople, including myself (I'm actually excellent)!!! Seriously, selling is the heart of any business and driving and motivating the sales force is key to success.
Selling is simply a transfer of belief and the process of belief starts with self belief. Each and every salesperson should be striving to be the best they can be - there is little point in joining or being part of, an industry where you can literally write your own paycheck, if you don't want to write the biggest! The success of any salesperson is firmly in his or her hands, poor performance is not an option and certainly NEVER missing your quota - you simply did not work hard enough. Hard, smart work is the only option.
With the above in mind, I totally support the concept of continual churn and that means cutting the bottom 10% of your sales force…continually! I know there are many people out there who are concerned with their employee churn rate, but in selling, it is a necessity. Think of any Military special forces unit - do you think they adapt and change their standards for those that simply cannot make it, do you think they will accept the bottom 10% and do you think they worry about churn. Standards are standards and in selling, they should be set high - there is a very powerful message in having a 'special forces' sales team - your customer is the winner - they get the best products and the best service, from a team that is committed to being the best. Think about it! "Feed the greedy not the needy", was a phrase I learned from a former employee of mine regarding your sales team and he was absolutely right. Take out the bottom 10% and feed the business to the top!
I started this post with a phrase and I will write it in whole - it is a phrase that should ring in the mind of every sales person and team out there:
'There are several million reasons for any failing…but not one single excuse'!
~Neil
Technorati Tags: selling, top 10%, entrepreneur, special forces, winning, excuses
October 19th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Neil,
Great post I was just discussing similar to this with our team last week. In the 70s Chrysler was in danger of going broke. Lee Iacocca came in and had no time to waste. First step, fire the bottom 10%, not of sales people but of the company. Lee then went on to fire the bottom 5% EVERY year overall in the company. The result was the company was not only saved but to such a degree from perceived oblivion that many people lobbied for Iacocca to run for president and apply the same logic to the government.
Fortunately for Lee, he was wise enough to stay out of politics, unfortunately for Chrysler they did not continue to follow Iacocca wisdom and now are once again on the edge.