Sales People Drive Your Business

Most of you who follow this blog are sales people. I caution you: I'm about to rant about the lack of respect for what you do every day gets recognized within your company! It's easy for me to forget since most of the people who hire me as a sales consulatant understand the critical role sales people play within their organization. I was fascintated to meet with a new client who has been asked to drive sales within her organization in her spare time. She's an accountant and her boss is a CFO. She's has been given a marketing plan complete with a SWOT analysis; she's also been given revenue goals. Now "Mary" is phenomenal with clients; she simply knows her financial business inside and out and understand the onepercenters principle of always doing what's right for the client. She describes herself as the "implementer." She has absolutely NO motivation for cold calling and generating new clients. Her work day is full at this moment. We all know she might be able to tighten her time management skills to save 20 minutes in her day. Will that be enough to generate new business? Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Sales is a skill set and a process. It isn't something you can do in your "spare" time. Successful people who follow the steps close maybe 20 percent of their business. How can you ask someone who hasn't been trained in the sales process and has NO motivation to be trained in the sales process to generate revenue? It simply doesn't make sense!