(This article originally appeared on Dave Kurlan’s blog)
Your kids won’t eat their vegetables, your parents won’t listen to you, your suppliers won’t provide customer service excellence, the President (as of 10-22-2012) of the United States can’t get the economy going, your football team isn’t winning enough games and the majority of your salespeople are underperforming. You have no control over the football team or the economy, you may have given up on your kids and parents, you can switch suppliers, but what can you do about your salespeople?
- Identify Skill Gaps.
- Identify Neutralizing, Paralyzing Weaknesses.
- Make Tough Personnel Decisions.
- Raise Expectations.
- Eliminate Excuse-Making.
- Improve Accountability.
- Improve Your Sales Coaching.
- Hire Stronger Salespeople.
- Optimize the Sales Process and Pipeline.
- Provide Targeted, Results-Orientated Sales Training.
There are both right and wrong ways to accomplish these 10 steps and unfortunately, human nature often leads us down the wrong path. Why? We tend to choose that which is most comfortable for us rather than that which is best for the company. Talk about gaps! You can drive a truck through the gap between “most comfortable” versus “best for the company”.