I was “blessed” with the opportunity last year to look for a job. It seems like in the tech industry it’s a matter of when and not if. So the process began. Update the LinkedIn profile, check. Update my resumes and cover letters, check. Start networking and bugging everyone, double check. And low and behold invites for interviews started to happen. Good times, or was it?
After receiving the results of my sons reading and writing tests I was introduced to the term “chunking”. Upon researching this term I found that there is psychology chunking, writing chunking, computing chunking, extended smtp chunking, computational linguistics chunking, division chunking, music chunking and I am sure many others. Who knew, right? After reading through these descriptions, however, I had an epiphany! Why not Sales Chunking?
I really get frustrated over this. They get hired… great looking, educated, and all the potential in the world. Then they start in with the “what’s in it for me” attitude. Everything is about them. There’s no “big picture”. Very little appreciation for others in general and definitely not what anyone has done for them. They critique, critique, critique, and really don’t add any new ideas. Entitlement. I’m not a self-centered sales manager but they make me want to be. Let me give you an example.
One of our existing accounts was moving to a new location and wanted advice and quotes on upgrades and/or new products. Nice. In an effort to build the right solution I asked one of our technicians to be on a call to clarify the client’s needs/usage. On the call the technician instantly starts telling them what they need. Not asking… but telling them what they need. No sales strategy or care for my previous conversations or budgets discussed. In fact, most of the products this technician was selling were way over what I had thought they could afford and would have never proposed. I am now very uncomfortable with the conversation and am starting to wish I hadn’t invited the technician. What happened next was such a surprise however. The customer agrees with the technician and asks to get a contract sent over. What?
