Sales Takes Effort!

NOTE: This is a DEW View rant, you can stop reading this right about now…

I had a thought while running today — about lazy bizdev schmoes.  It really pisses me off that in 2009 (with a horrible economy) bad sales people still keep getting thrown the “benefit of the doubt”… 
As if another decade of their excuse-making is the answer to poor performance.  Enough already!  Put in the effort or find a new job!

Let’s put this into perspective.

Just a few questions for you.  Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10:

1. How do you rate your confidence that you could land big customers?  (1 is “low confidence”)
2. When dealing with prospects in the past, how often were your skills not “tough” enough to land the deal? (1 is “very often”)
3. How long were you able to maintain your sales success momentum after you penetrated your first account? (1 is only a few months…. not long enough)
4. During the sales process, how hard was it to maintain your skills and close the deal?  (1 is “pretty darn hard”)
5. When you attempt sales success, how satisfactory is your ongoing performance to you?  (1 is “I have a lot to work on)

How did you score?

Did you rate yourself a 25 (middle of the road), a 10 (needs some work), or a 47 (pretty much the guru of “All Things Salable”)?

Until Viagra came along, your only hope for having better sex was random herbs and crazy acupuncture.  Now you just take a little blue pill and life is bliss….

BUT it is not quite the same when you suck at sales.  Your floppy sale pitch and unimaginative “pick ups” can’t be solved that fast.  And let’s just say that when you get caught with your pants down, you look really pathetic.

The reality is that you can change this.  It requires the one thing you control — EFFORT…

So put in the effort to be better and stop telling me the 74,000 reasons why you “are at 102% of a half-ass quota”!

Good Day!