I had a conversation on LinkedIn with a sales rep at a startup. I asked him, “Are you carrying the company on your back?” He said, “Trying.” His team has six reps. Three are trying but useless. One is untouchable, has been there the longest, and sells 60 percent of the revenue.
You work hard right? Doesn’t every salesperson think they’re working hard?
I spoke with one ambitious leader who said something like: “I know I have to have a hard conversation with him”, 1 week after he said: “I know I have to have a hard conversation with him” talking about an underperformer.
Sales activity has never been higher. Reps are making 200 automated touches or 80 manual touches a day, yet half or more are “OK” missing quota.
We live in an age of infinite information. I was on the bus watching people. Scroll. Listen. Scroll. Are salespeople immune from the media's claw? Every scroll, podcast, and LinkedIn post gets scoured for the “trick” that’ll change results and lives? Did you know the average person now consumes 34 gigabytes of information a day? And yet, I still hear sales reps say something like, “I don’t know what to trust. I consume a lot but don’t improve much.”
Did you know that less than half of young adults believe they control the direction of their own lives (Cigna, 2023)? And in sales, it’s even more miserable: only 28-39% of reps are expected to hit quota (Salesforce, RepVue). The company quota, not their personal goal!
We have a few clients that are almost starting from scratch. They've had a few conversations with close friends in their network that resulted in what might be a few 'pity' sales, but they're not where they need to be. So, it might be appropriate for me to share a story about Rick in 1985.
