Sales people fret and stew over hitting quota and a host of other items. As a manager they would come to me and ask what they should do? My advice was always the same. Stop worrying about your quota, performance plan, and what others think about you. Are you happy? Are you making the income desired? Are you hitting your goals? Are you in charge of your sales success?
If not… Why not?
In my past life I was a pre-sales engineer and the resident subject matter expert or SME before it was called that. I was one of those rare birds that could sell and build solutions. I could be “salesy” if needed or as technical as it gets. I also, as a left and right brainier, could ascertain some of the trending marketing directions easily to become instrumental in helping the sales team focus their efforts accordingly. This last part turned out to be more important, or at least as important, as understanding how the product actually worked.
I have offered products that would literally save customers 1000’s of dollars monthly to have them still say no. Why do they have sales objections on something so obvious?
I have no doubt there will be plenty of sales managers and sales trainers that will take issue with this article. But my experience has taught me that sales role playing is not a great way to train. Not even close.
