Episode #176: Cut the Excuses Baby

“I would be able to sell a lot more except for all the extraneous, external factors over which I have zero control”. Actually, you have never heard this line of argument before from a salesperson. This is because this statement is an honest appraisal of what they see as the problem, but they don’t express it that way. This comes from not having sufficient self-awareness to realize this is what they are actually saying, by way of excuse, for not being more successful in sales. Instead they bitch about the boss, the market, industry changes, currency movements, the sales materials, the pricing and everything else but their pathetic sales ability.

There are excellent training courses both classroom and on-line, for becoming better at sales. Bookstores and on-line retailers have a cornucopia of books on how to become a more successful salesperson. The internet is clogged with free information about selling. YouTube is brimming with sales modules, lessons, examples of what to do as a professional. Sales gurus tour the globe sprinkling pixie dust on the faithful to transform them into sales powerhouses. Yet, salespeople are constantly whining about all the reasons holding them back over which they have absolutely no control.

Are they accessing all the good information available to become better? No. They are not bothering, because they don’t see any correlation between their lack of an internal motivation to study to become better and their non-realization of sales success. They are too busy looking outward for the problems holding them back to see that the issues are all internal. Why is that?

People wind up in sales by accident. The turnover of salespeople is very high because it is a metrics based game. The numbers tell against you when you are failing and in short order you disappear. Fresh bodies are then brought into the meat grinder. If they enter in a rising market, they may last for a while but then when times get tough, they are let go and replaced by the next squad and so it continues.

The companies invest nothing, preferring the law of the jungle to sort out who stays and who goes. The salespeople thrash around trying to find ways to stay afloat, without ever taking a professional stance to the job because they don’t see themselves as having a career in sales. For them, this is a necessary bridging job between work they want to do. The ineptitude continues and at scale, through generations of salespeople.

This is salespeople swimming in a fog engulfed lake. They are swimming hard but have no idea what they are supposed to be doing or where they are supposed to be going.

Time for this to end. Salespeople have more than enough resources to self-educate themselves about the finer points of sales. Here is how complicated this is: learn how to ask the client questions about what they need; listen carefully to the answers; tell them you either have a relevant solution or that you don’t; if you do, provide explanations that justify the trade off between the value you bring and the price you charge; supply it and follow up.

This is what they do instead: tell the client all the details about the product or service without having any clue as to whether this is what they need or not; if they don’t have what the buyer needs, then try to force the square peg into the round hole and give them what you have any way, even if it doesn’t really fit; burn that client and move on to the next buyer. All the while, continue to whine about the boss, the market, industry changes, currency movements, the sales materials, the pricing and everything else but their lack of sales ability. They repeat this pattern until they get fired.

Instead, let’s take responsibility for the results. Let’s study, apply the knowledge, keep studying, keep applying, without pause. There has never been a better time to be in sales, because there is so much rich education material available about how to become a true professional. No more excuses baby, get to it.