It makes me wonder, when did "sales" become a five letter word that can no longer show up on one's business card? Building high performance sales organizations is my specialty.
Much of my success is a result of a startling discovery made years ago — there is no proven correlation between personality and sales productivity. Sales is about behavior, and our proven sales system is built on the 21 behaviors that impact high performance sales — sales identity is one of the behaviors measured.
What is Sales Identity?
Sales identity measures a salesperson's pride in the sales profession. If a person views selling as noble, they are considered to have a strong sales identity.
The opposite is true. Those who view a sales position as something to be ashamed of are considered to have a weak sales identity.
Selling is noble; we all sell everyday whether we realize it or not. However, selling is often perceived negatively because of bad experiences. To some degree, society tends to cast a negative light on people in the sales profession.
Due to the strength of society's misguided views, some sales professionals feel shame and are compelled to hide their sales position and adopt deflected titles such as, "Business Development Officers" or "Procurement Specialists". Such behavior is proven to be costly. Read on.
Some people refuse to accept the notion of selling altogether, even though they are, in fact, trying to close a deal. Recently I was on a flight to a sales conference in Atlanta and I struck up a conversation with the gentleman next to me. Our idle chit chat led into a careers conversation.
He shared with me how he worked for a major home improvement company in charge of the distribution centers in four states in the South and Southwest.
After explaining my consulting background in sales and how I help sales teams and salespeople, he immediately responded with, "I could never be a salesperson!" We continued our conversation and he explained to me that he was preparing for a major presentation with the executive team of the company because he felt he needed an additional $3 million allocated to his budget for the following year.
He went on to demonstrate to me how the organization "would ultimately benefit from the additional spend with a better return on investment (ROI)."
As he was explaining this to me, I began to smile and chuckle. Initially, he probably thought I was being rude. Then I asked him, "So, you are trying to convince the executive team to give you an additional $3 million for your budget, correct?"
"Yes," he replied.
Then I added, "And you can support the benefits of doing so, correct?"
"Yes," he replied again.
"Are you sure you're not a salesperson?" He sat back in his chair and smiled, I could see the light bulb turn on. My point had dawned on him.
I eventually gave him some coaching on how to think more like a salesperson and improve his sales presentation.
Why Measure Sales Identity?
Measuring sales identity can ultimately save your organization a substantial amount of money in the long term. How? Organizations all over the globe are challenged to hire high performance salespeople; not doing so can be costly in terms of sales results, hiring, and training costs.
Recent studies show that the average cost of hiring a poor performing salesperson has swelled to over $100,000 per year. Think about it, how much are hiring mistakes costing you?
Research shows — salespeople with weak sales identity will under perform within six months of joining an organization and ultimately "self select" out of the sales profession within 18 to 24 months. In fact, we found people with weak sales identity prefer to apply for "sales" positions with deflected titles because they insinuate less sales accountability.
Unless detected, salespeople with weak sales identity will struggle and steal valuable resources from your organization via increased turnover, higher training costs and poor sales results.
3 Simple Steps to Protect Your Organization Going Forward
Step 1: Remove the Identity Crisis
A surefire way to jeopardize long term sales productivity is to have your organization struggle through a sales identity crisis. If the role is a sales role — title it as such.
Top performing salespeople absolutely love sales and prefer to be called — Sales Representatives. Having deflected titles attract weaker performers who will struggle to get out of the ranks of mediocrity in the long term.
Step 2: Monitor Your "Motivational" Costs with Sales Reps
If you find your sales organization spending more time on motivating sales reps within the 6- to 24-month window of being hired, you may have a sales identity issue. Depending upon the severity, there may be hope.
For more information on how to address the issue, request a free consultation by logging on to www.SalesIsSimple.com.
Step 3: Know What You're Hiring, Prior to Making the Offer
Hiring mistakes pertaining to sales positions can be costly! Learn the sales identity of your candidates along with 20 other relevant sales behaviors. Our system is over 90% accurate in predicting the sales performance of a candidate within six months of joining your organization — prior to hire. We have successfully defined the art and science to hiring high performance salespeople saving you energy, time and money.
For more information on the most effective method to select, manage, and develop salespeople, please visit www.SalesIsSimple.com.
About the Author
Rod McKinnis CEO and Founder of The McKinnis Consulting Group, is a highly sought after speaker and sales consultant, specializing in generating high performance sales results.
To learn more or to book Rod for your next sales event, visit www.SalesIsSimple.com.
