Our son, who is now six, doesn’t know the the full extent of what I do for a living. Rather than tell him that I’m a sales force development expert and explain the many facets of that, he knows that I have meetings (talk with people on the phone and in my office), that I do work (stuff on the computer), that I’m the boss of my office (12 people report up to me) and that I sometimes conduct training (show salespeople how to sell). I haven’t attempted to explain evaluating, compensation, incentives, metrics, recruiting, leadership development, executive coaching, consulting, strategies, systems or processes.

I posted this article earlier in the week before Manny Complainez was traded to the LA Dodgers. Mike Carroll posted this article earlier today.  The King of Self-Centeredness was granted his wish and sent off, leaving his teammates relieved, happy, and excited about their team’s future.

One of the attendees asked how she could change the compensation for her highly paid, salaried producers, in order to provide the incentive to sell more.

If that’s all it takes, getting salespeople to sell more would be easy! 

Your Sales Team Fear Factor.

You learned the three R’s when you were in grade school but selling in today’s economy is about two R’s – resistance and recession – and they are related.  While resistance is always lurking in the background, the recession brings it to the forefront and your salespeople must be able to sell – despite it – and therein lies the problem.

Last week we brought our six-year old son to the batting cages where, for the first time, he hit against little league pitching.  Big deal?  You bet.  Up until last week, he was clobbering whiffle balls with whiffle bats from about twenty feet away.  At the cage, he was wearing a batting helmet, swinging a heavy metal bat, and seeing baseballs thrown at 35 MPH from 45 feet away.  It was a huge difference.