Good or bad?

Have you ever thought about the pluses and minuses?

Today, a channel account manager wanted to "reset" his partners. So, he sent us 5 email templates that he was going to use to light a fire under their you-know-whats. The first one was intended for Disengaged Partners.

"When we first started working together, you stated that you wanted to add value by expanding within your current client engagements -- primarily through additional services. Are you on track to reach that goal for 2017?"

What does he want them to say?

Last weekend in October. Two months until the end of the year. Two months until 2018. What did you do this weekend?

• Wonder how you were going to make your October quota in two days?
• Wonder how you were going to bail out 2017 in the next two months?
• Wonder whether you were thinking big enough or safe enough for 2018?

May I share a couple of recent stories?

Have you been watching the news? My brother met Irma and Maria. My sister met Jose and Maria. My son's family were across the street from wildfires in Montana. Several of our clients have clients that were affected by the earthquakes in Mexico and one of our clients spent a week trying to help his relatives in Texas deal with Harvey and what the heck was Las Vegas all about? If I see the animals pairing off and lining up, I'm heading for higher ground.

Every day, somebody tells me, "We had a great conversation" or "They had huge pain" or "I did a great demo" and we established next steps, but they didn't follow through, they won't return my calls or they went dark.

Every freaking day!

Friday was no different.

Mauricio Suarez just finished his 4th month with us and just shared his story

Three questions:

1. Did somebody train or coach your salespeople today?
2. Which of the 21 Core Competencies did today's training address and was it what needed to be addressed?
3. Do they know what to do and can they do it?

I guess that's four questions, but we always ask #3 as one.

Are your salespeople extroverted? Persistent? Focused? Likeable? Intelligent? What else? Do you know which of the 21 Core Competencies they have and where they could improve?

A few thousand people are warching a conversation on LinkedIn as to whether or not a sales coach or manager needs to listen to their salespeople live, listen to recorded sales calls or rely on the salesperson's memory and the coach's skill at getting to the truth.

Last week, Jesse Gonzales wrote