Btb Guest Author

Jonathan Farrington

The responsibility for ensuring that every member of the sales team is successful and performing at optimum levels lies entirely with management and below are the eight reasons why sales people fail. In fact, I usually ask just three very straightforward questions, in order to identify why a salesperson is underachieving i.e.,

• Are they visiting/talking to enough clients/prospects? In other words are they pro-active and are their activity levels high?

• Are they talking to the right people within those client/prospect organizations? Are they able to penetrate the formal DMU (Decision Making Unit) and get to the MAN?

• Are they saying/doing the right things? This really means – how strong are their selling skills?

However this list, whilst not exhaustive, remains extremely accurate and as I said earlier, management has total control over each of these, including the last one!

1. Wrong or no selection process - The wrong person for the position

2. Wrong or no training - Insufficiently developed

3. Wrong or no planning - Expected to do all of their own planning

4. Wrong or no supervision – Left without competent supervision

5. Wrong or no motivation - Not properly motivated to meet objectives

6. Wrong or no stimulation – Not stimulated by appropriate incentives

7. Wrong or no evaluation – Not regularly appraised against a set of agreed objectives

8. Wrong or no executive action – Not adequately supported by a competent manager

If you are a sales manager, consider your part in this equation. According to these criteria, do you feel your current team poised for success? Hopefully you can say yes! If not, this list will hopefully draw attention to how you can help your team exercise their potential. Your wallet will also thank you!

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels.  He has authored in excess of three hundred skills development programmes, designed a range of unique and innovative process tools and has been published extensively on a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and the customer imperative.  Jonathan’s first book, “Tougher At The Top” will be published early in 2009.  Visit his website @ www.jonathanfarrington.com

In the News

It was my great pleasure to have dinner with Dave Stein, while he was over here as part of his work with DIT’s and Enterprise Ireland’s International Selling Programme. I am a big fan of Dave’s work and an avid reader of his blog. In a recent post “Ireland Knows How To Support Growing Companies“, Dave compliments Enterprise Ireland on the support they provide for start-ups and high-potential Irish companies - saying that the rest of the world can learn from Ireland in this regard.

I have spoken about Dave Brock on here before. Dave is the founder and CEO of Partners in EXCELLENCE, a leading international business consulting company. In my opinion, he is one of the most clued in consultants you will come across. He recently started a blog, and the quality of his posts has been exceptional. It came as no surprise, when he was named “Blogger of the Week” over at www.socialmediatoday.com

Over at TSE

I joined the other Top Sales Experts team for an conference call last Tuesday, there are some really great initiatives planned for 09 - WATCH THIS SPACE

Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Jonathan Farrington wrote an excellent post, on why smaller companies are well positioned to do well in the year ahead. In it, Jonathan describes the factors that give a smaller company an edge including:

Not being weighted down by unnecessary bureaucracy

An ability to make decisions quickly

Being more capable of building stronger, sustainable relationships with customers

Jonathan goes on to talk about why 2009 will be the year of “Customer Focus” describing what is meant by the term, and why it creates competitive advantage.

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