1 out of 2 salesmen end up getting fired

Thought question: what is actually and truly the job of a sales guy? I will give you 5-10 seconds to think about it.

What did you come up with? Let’s go through this.

Some common answers we hear on this question are …

  • “To sell!” (logical)
  • “To build the right relationships!”
  • “To advance conversations!”
  • “To define the value prop!”
  • “To articulate product-market fit!”
  • “To reach the decision-maker!”
  • “To shorten the cycle!”

Hmm. OK.

Which of these are right?

It’s easier to start with the ones that are wrong.

A salesperson’s job does NOT involve:

  • Create Product-market fit
  • Identify Ideal Customer Profile
  • Create Value per market segment and per Personas

However, many organizations heap all that, or at least part of that, into the job description of a salesperson. This causes a lot of problems, notably churn in your sales ranks. When everything is on the plate of sales and there is also revenue pressure, two things typically happen:

  • You will come to see every second salesperson (1 in 2, or 50%) as “bad.”
  • There will be a lot of churn

OK, so what is a salesperson’s job?

In short, it’s these two things:

  • Find the right companies and buyers in the market segment and and credibly articulate the offer/value
  • Build rapport with buyers and consult/advise them on what to do next

PRODUCT SPLINTERING GUIDE

How Software And Services Companies Double The Number Of Mid-Market Customers In 180 Days.

And here’s the assumption problem

When you assume a salesperson needs to do everything on the first list, it’s too much.

Assume = Make a “ASS” out of “U” and “ME.”

But even when you know what a salesperson should do — the two bullets just above — you can still make the wrong assumptions.

Many companies just expect that a salesperson will “get it” and automatically pick the right market segment and talk to the right people the right values. Unfortunately, that works roughly 50% of the time. It’s by no means guaranteed. Many salespeople, either for lack of skill or lack of internal resources, spend close to a year talking to the wrong segment and the wrong buyers and try to sell them the wrong value. It’s honestly about 1 in 2 that end up doing this.

So 50% of your sales principals might be “bad.” (hint: they are often not) Every second salesman might be fired after a year or so. That is expensive, right? And in the process, you could be losing market share, go-to-market time, and everything else you need to stay truly competitive. And that’s is even more expensive!

Who should be doing what, then?

The best breakdown is something like this:

  • Ideal Customer Profile, Personas, Value Prop: Your board + external partner
  • Marketing Collateral and Stories: Marketing team or outsourced partner
  • Product-Market Fit: Board + external partner
  • Relationship-building: Board + own salespeople
  • Company research: Business Development Reps + Salespeople (or external partner)
  • Individual decision-maker research: Salespeople (with help from external partner)

Here’s what we offer

A 1-2-3 plan to start your lead generation and B2B sales pipeline humming in DACH. We are the “external partner” mentioned above, then.

Like this article?

Recent Articles

OUR SERVICE

Outbound B2B Lead Generation in DACH