Some people choose selling as a career and others have the role of selling thrust upon them. Yet, although sales skills can be learned, let’s face it: not everyone is cut out to sell.
One way for management to address a high failure rate is to incorporate it into their hiring strategies. That keeps warm bodies coming in the door but is costly and fundamentally wrong-headed.
If the only consequence of such a systemic failure was the cost of recruiting and training new hires, that would be bad enough. But there’s much more at stake for a company – the cost of a damaged reputation, lost customers, low morale, and lower revenues can be incalculable. Is this your strategy?
This isn’t a sustainable model for building a successful sales organization. If a company isn’t hiring the right people in the first place, there’s no amount of sales training, spiffs, or sales contests that can turn it around. The good new is that it’s possible to stop the revolving door – just put the right people in the job.
A case study by Objective Management Group demonstrates how one company turned around an 86% failure rate and doubled their revenue in the 12 months that followed their sales force evaluation. That’s a remarkable achievement.
Bottom Line: It not enough to have feet on the street. You need to align the capabilities, motivation, and potential of each salesperson and sales manager to your sales strategy to achieve sales growth. Download the case study here to learn how one company achieved dramatic growth.