My alternate title was, "Why I stopped coaching sales"

Relevant Point #1

I belong to several groups on LinkedIn. A member in one of them started a discussion a week ago by asking, "What's your biggest bottleneck to growth in 2015?".

There aren't very many comments. Maybe it's because everybody's taking a holiday. Maybe it's because they're wrapping up 2014. Maybe they're getting a head start on 2015. Maybe they have no bottlenecks. Maybe they don't want to admit that they have a bottleneck.

One VSB owner commented "Sales and More Sales".

Ain't that the truth?

Relevant Point #2

You may have attended our Goal Setting session and heard me say that when some business owners tell me what they want, they tell me that what they're doing isn't getting them where they want to be. So, they want me to help them change. Others tell me what they're doing and say that they don't want to change, they just want me to make what they're doing produce different results. That's just crazy. Ask Einstein!

Relevant Point #3

Most business owners are not after world domination. They're after a nice lifestyle. They want to have 6-8 clients, each paying $30-$50,000 a year and they want those clients to love them. So, that they'll send them referrals that don't need to be sold to replace the clients that need to be replaced. Let's face it. If you had a few regular clients, and you were billing $200K - $400K, would you be happy? This is a very different mindset than the sales rep that needs to grind out 10-20 new sales every month of every year for 10, 20, 30 years. They need to be better salespeople. They need to be efficient. They may need a coach, but the solopreneur, the VSB owner, the consultant just want a handful of ideal, loyal, clients so they can do what they're best at and not think about selling.

Relevant Point #4

Many of those lifestyle business owners will never be in a position to hire a salesperson. Good salespeople want opportunity. Good salespeople want a return on investment. Maybe a business owner would be willing to pay a salesperson to find those 6-8 perfect clients, but then what? The business is full. No more room for new sales. Fire the salesperson? Pay them for doing nothing? Many salespeople will decline that kind of opportunity thinking that's a lot of work for a short term gig.

That's why I quit it.

When I joined Kurlan in 2006, I wanted to train salespeople.

When I left Kurlan in 2011, I wanted to help some salespeople become sales rock stars.

When Carole and I formed our Joint Venture, it was to help 24 business owners in 1Q15 that wanted to make 2015 the best year of their lives by building their business into a self-sustaining, cadre of happy, evangelistic clients that loved them. You don't have to learn a lot about sales to do that. You just need to partner up with the right team for a few months. We have 9 with a few more in progress.

If you really want 2015 to be your year and you haven't talked to us yet, answer these questions.