I love this clip from “Back to School”! Not only is it funny, but is also very instructive. Academics all over the country are trying to add their two cents in the discussion about the course of action we should take with our economy. Business professionals that were trained by these people have infiltrated corporations all over the world. Let’s take a look at what these “elites” have given us.

1. Credit default swaps- it was the Ivy League trained brain trust that came up with this gambling approach to our markets.  Boy has that worked out well!

1. Keynesian economics- developed by King’s College graduate John Keynesian, this theory basically says that the private sector cannot be trusted and therefore the government should spend our way to prosperity. The wonderfully unsuccessful stimulus package was developed, in part, by fellow Ivy League economist Paul Krugman and is based in Keynesian theory. Politics aside, I think we can all agree that this thinking has failed miserably.

1. Community Reinvestment Act- a well meaning program designed to encourage investment in urban areas as a way to fight “urban flight”. 30 years later, Ivy League economists, lawyers, and politicians, used this legislation to justify lending practices that lead to the housing bubble.

1. GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA- thought to be a man made caused phenomenon, it is now widely understood to be a manipulation of climate data. Driven by governments and PhD’s to reallocate wealth, this hysteria is predicated on the “hockey stick” chart showing an alarming increase in global temperatures. One problem,  even the leader of this movement Phil Jones, head of the British Climate Research Unit, says that the data is not only wrong but that we haven’t been in a warming trend for 15 years. Never mind the facts; the academic brain trust forges ahead with a plan to handicap American business predicated on the threat to our climate.

These are just a few examples of the world of academics hurting business everyday. Now apply that to your own organization. The “smartest one in the room” theory is completely subjective. If the smartest one in the room gained their knowledge in the context of theory and conjecture then they are not the smartest one in the room. As Thornton Mellon so gracefully shows us, business is done in the trenches, not in the classroom. This applies to sales more than any other area of business. Finance issues deal with regulation, capital flow dynamics, and a series of complex and concrete realities that require the ability to recall and employ very specific maneuvers. An MBA may be a better candidate for this position. Sales however, require a completely different skill set conducive to adapting to dynamics that change in real time and without notice. Interpersonal dynamics play a much larger role here. Therefore, hiring a person that has a natural aptitude for this situation is much more important than their academic prowess. Seriously, when was the last time that a sales rep required the ability to solve a linear equation? Which skill is more important to a VP of Sales; understanding the operational flow or understanding the market needs and buying triggers? The ability to drive numbers remains in the office of the VP of Sales while the ability to schedule implementation should remain with operations! Operational control of sales is like having a sales rep handle the accounting. Both scenarios will set you up for failure!

At the end of the day, smart companies hire skill sets and talent levels not pedigree and academic prowess.  Job seekers beware, companies that hire based on academic credentials will hamper your ability to employ your natural skill set. There is nothing worse than working for a VP that has no earthly idea of what it takes to close deals and is clueless when it comes to the demands and desires of your prospects. The board room should read the bored room in a lot of cases. Most sales meetings are a direct result of an academic needing to be clued in on what is going on. Good sales meetings should focus on market realities, objections, sales plans, and support issues. Anything else is a colossal waste of time!

        

Truer words were never spoken! Through the entire sales process, you will never sit in front of a stock symbol or a tax ID. It is always the people that represent a company that drive and make decisions based on a myriad of factors. Sometimes it is all based on ROI and sometimes it is based on specific functionality. More often than not, buying decisions are based on the rep they are dealing with and the feeling of confidence that a rep can convey. The myriad of factors that drive these buying decisions are what we should focus on if the goal is to maximize closing percentages. While smart sales tactics can get you in the door, “tactics” will not get the sale closed. Relationships, similarly, are not enough for a decision maker to move forward with a large purchase. Remember that when representatives on any level decide to spend or recommend the spending of money, they put their name and reputation on the line.  Their best friend could not convince them to buy something that will not be of benefit to their organization. The facts are simple; relationships get you in the door, using smart sales tactics will get you to the right person, and intelligent selling will close the deal.

Smart reps understand that selling is a very situational dynamic. The closing techniques that worked last year will probably not work this year. The only closing technique that works all of the time is often overlooked; knowing what matters to the target. If you are selling security software and get a meeting with the CEO, you must know why they think they need security software. Technical jargon will not get the deal done!!! It is imperative that you understand what they think matters. Having a better mouse trap is useless if you don’t know that they have a problem with mice. A perfect example is the evolution of technology. While a software rep may know that the current software being used is vulnerable to hacks, the prospect may not care or agree. Therefore, in order to sell them, you must understand why they were willing to sit down with you in the first place! I am not talking about “needs based selling” or any other walking cliché! Needs based selling identifies a need and attempts to use it to drive a sale. What if the prospect is unaware of the need you identify? What if the need you identify is based on a technical need that your prospect does not understand? What if your prospect is aware of the need, understands the need, but does not care about that particular need? What if your prospect took a meeting with you simply because they are ticked off at their current rep? Have you ever walked out of a meeting wondering why your prospect could not understand their need for your service or product? If it happens a lot, you need to find a new profession. You can’t blame the economy and the unwillingness to “spend the money” forever! Smart selling is not something that can be taught. It requires an understanding of situational dynamics and the natural ability to drive a conversation towards revealing a specific buying trigger.

At the end of the day, selling is a process more than a set of tactics. The natural inclination of most sales management teams is to drive the “latest” popular tactics and teachings that come from the terminally unskilled. It is always the terminally unskilled that create these clichéd tactics and try to brand them and market them. There is no specific tactic that works across the board. It does not exist! The sales dynamic is driven by those people that posses a natural business acumen and interpersonal savvy.  While there are cases of people that posses this “raw talent” that need formal training as it relates to specific sales dynamics, there is no such thing as the ability to take people that lack these skills and “train” them to success. It is not only a waste of time; it is also detrimental to both the personal goals of the rep and the sales goals of the company attempting this training. The harsh reality is that it is better for everyone involved to dismiss those without talent and continue to recruit those that posses a very specific skill set.

This is the reason that we talk a great deal about education VS talent. An age old corporate tradition is to put an academic in charge of building a sales staff. Then allow them to hire candidates that mirror his/her background. Most of these people could not spot a hunter if we were wearing camouflage, a bright orange vest, and had a rifle in our hands. The cycle continues to play itself out. Numbers go up and then come back down. Competitors grow at an 11% clip while you grow at a 4% rate. Growth relies heavily on the revenue production side of a business and it makes sense that companies hire reps that are wired to generate revenue.

        

The number one failure that can be found in most companies is the diligence applied to doing their homework. Sales rep expectations are high, as they should be, but support is low. I’m not referring to Post-it notes and cell phones. Instead, I am referring to the basic market analysis that can make or break a sales team. Companies pride themselves on demographics they have acquired and they may even have a good feel for the make up of the decision makers in their industry. Things like age and income are of great help to reps that are dumb, but supporting a sales team means much more than that. A rep can get a grip on the basic demos of the CEOs in about eight minutes on their own. Real support comes in the form of profiling every layer of the sales process. For example, most reps start with the person that answers the phone. Even those of us that use top down selling must get through a gatekeeper at some point. Let’s walk through a typical sale.

First, we must understand the person that answers the phone. Some might say that I am overly analytical, but my reps will tell you that the receptionist can be an ally instead of an obstacle. If you want the dirt you talk to them and having them in your corner is a huge advantage. Don’t believe me? Have you ever made dozens of follow up calls only to find out you are being dodged? Not my sales staff. The receptionist will almost always tell us when our calls are avoided and usually why. If there is a competitor, we know. If the budget is short, we know. If the person we have been dealing with is in hot water, we know. Understanding the receptionist is wildly important because they can save you time and money. 99 percent of companies do little or no homework on this group of people! I sat in a waiting area waiting for the VP of Sales for a company about four months ago. My sales rep had made a friend out of the receptionist and as we sat there, it showed. Just before we went into our meeting she whispered something to my rep. We were shown into a conference room where we were to wait another 15 minutes for this guy to show his face. My rep leaned over and told me that Darlene (their receptionist) told him that the entire point of this meeting was for this guy to snag a few free ideas from us and that he had no money in his budget to hire us. Apparently, he had bragged to the entire office that he had the ability to get free information from firms like ours and that is why he had never hired a consulting firm before! The same rep 6 weeks later was told by another receptionist as we waited, that we were going to see more of her because she overheard the management team discussing how they were going to pay for our services. Both pieces of information drastically changed the tone of those meetings. So what did we know that our competitors didn’t? We knew that the majority of receptionists in this market were long time employees or they were older women that were not working for the money. In both cases, a large percentage of them had raised kids and playing the “I’m new and could use your help” card would work.  Without giving away our methods completely, I will just say that it is incredibly helpful to sales reps that you arm them with “actionable intelligence”. Profiling all of these layers that sales people must deal with can put them in a power position over their competitors. It just makes sense. Think about your industry. If you need to contact consumers at work, wouldn’t it be helpful to understand these kinds of dynamics? For those of you in B2B sales, how many people do you deal with to make a sale? Think about office managers, HR departments, gate keepers, department heads, operational staff, sales staffs, middle level management, custodial/maintenance staff,  executives, IT staff, and on and on. The different levels you deal with in a company can have a bigger impact on your success than the ultimate decision maker. After all, you have to get to the track before you can race!

Let’s try something new to this blog. Those of you that are interested in seeing exactly what I am talking about, tell me what you sell. I will have my staff do a little homework using our methods and give you some inside information about your dynamic! Just leave me the product or service and a way to get back to you and you can report back whether or not this stuff works! Believe me when I tell you, the results will amaze you!

        

In this blog, we talk about real truths that relate to sales and marketing. It does not take a genius to understand these principals but it does take a certain amount of willingness to fight the PC police and the typical corporate culture. If you are in sales or hire sales reps, then you know exactly what I mean. Month after month we attend our sales meetings and hear how difficult “the market” is. We hear all the reasons that certain reps cannot meet their quota or how and why they are struggling. Meanwhile, many of us meet and exceed all of our sales goals. Usually, these goals are far beyond the quota because they relate to specific financial goals we have for ourselves. Those that struggle have already met their financial demands because the salary the job offered in the first placed took care of those concerns. The system is literally designed for failure. However unintentional this may be is irrelevant. Nothing makes me laugh more than to read a sales job posting that outlines educational requirements and builds in a heavy salary package. Let me ask you this; if education dictates success in sales, why offer a salary? Think about it. If your candidates are “well educated” and that tells you that they are more talented or better suited for sales, why do these candidates need salary? If the elites are better qualified, why do they need a guarantee? A B.S. simply means that they were able to tolerate academic dribble that has little relevance in business. The average length of employment for a professor is 20 years plus. That means that even those professors that came from the business world did so, on average, 20 years ago. Most came from the academic world and gained their knowledge of business from books and seminars. Ha! Just writing that makes me laugh!

The point

My point is not that college has no inherent value, or that professors are all worthless. Instead, I only aim to reveal what makes a good sales rep good; talent. If I went to “baseball college”, would that make me a good baseball player? I can recite for you the fundamentals that make up a perfect swing. That does not mean that I can hit a curve ball or even get a bat on a 95 mph fastball. Business operates the same way. Those with a degree are not necessarily bad and those that did not attend college are not necessarily good. That is the whole point. Companies lean on pedigree and education for qualifiers only when they have a management staff that cannot recruit or hire based on those qualities that make sales people successful. It becomes a crutch. When reps fail you will hear,” Gee, I don’t know what happened. He/She had a degree from…” There are many reps that sell at the highest level that were educated in our colleges and universities. Conversely, there are even more sales reps that did not go to college capable of selling at that same level. Socioeconomic backgrounds drive college graduation rates far more than talent. The baby-boomer generation went to college in a time that admission was difficult and often told the story of kids that worked hard in high school. Now, most colleges will accept you with a 2.0 or higher. Not quite the impressive accomplishment admissions once were. Sales is a game and the good players bring to the table an aptitude and skill set conducive to winning that game. You cannot teach aptitude nor can education give someone a natural skill set. Qualifying or disqualifying candidates based on such arbitrary criteria only serves to ensure that your company stays behind the recruiting curve. Ask yourself this question: would you prefer mediocre talent with pedigree or reps with high levels of talent without the pedigree? In other words, would you rather hire less productive reps that have impressive backgrounds or reps that simply perform quarter after quarter? If you want reps that think of performance in terms of sports cars and big houses instead of meeting quota, look for talent and let the chips fall where they may.

What this all means

Sales recruiters simply gather candidates based on your criteria and are paid to meet those criteria. Conversational recruiting remains the most effective way to acquire new talent. We come across genuine talent everyday. The difference between organizations that build strong sales teams and those that cannot is the ability to spot that talent. Some of the strongest sales reps that I have recruited for my company and my clients have come from places like AT&T wireless stores, Best Buy, bartenders, and other low key places that you would not expect to find people capable of closing million dollar deals. These places all have one thing in common; people. Watching people interact with other people instead of looking down at them for the perceived lack of accomplishments, acts as a window into how they will interact with your clients. Any CEOs buy a cell phone, a new TV, or a drink? How about HR directors or Doctors? What about office managers or Sales executives? Gathering resumes does not offer this kind of insight. Interviewing only tests a person’s ability to mirror your concerns and reflect what they think you are looking for. If you want a great interview, watch people in action! That is the only way to determine a person’s natural skill set and aptitude for interacting with other people. There is nothing more rewarding than extrapolating somebody with the exact skills you are looking for and watching them succeed in an environment they have not been in before!

The bottom line

Choose the people you want when you are looking for new members of your country club. Choose people that mirror you if you want a group of people to follow you around agreeing with you. If you want tenacious, skilled sales people, you must recruit people that come to the table with the traits that are required. The bottom line is just that; the bottom line. The best way to affect that is to hire people that are built to do just that! Snobby elitism is not only based in ignorance, it is also counter productive to revenue generation.