This one took a while...
I've been watching it happen, but it's been a busy few years.
Last week, my son posted a slide that really made it clear for me and I hope for you.
I wrote an article almost a decade ago that laid out 8 commonalities that I had seen in the sales rock stars that I had worked with. Most of the commonalities are still true, I'll add/adjust a couple.
The adjustment to #4 is logical and understandable, but wasn't intentional. This article tells that story of two clients that fit the description in #4 and started my reputation working with 'employee' reps that were part of larger teams. Since then, I've worked with reps that wanted to be the top producers on their teams. Sometimes with their employers blessing, help and encouragement but usually not.
I mentioned my son. This is the article. Look closely at the table.
If you think about the last column, are we talking Rock Stars or average reps? Now look at the first column. Do Rock Stars or average reps have higher or lower conversion, productivity and churn? Seriously, if your marketing channels are working hard to generate leads, why do you not want to give every lead to a Rock Star?
Remember that I've been thinking about this for years.
So, the Rock Star mentality starts to shift.
They watch more and more reps get hired with less and less ability.
They watch leads get divided up between more and more reps and they start to realize that their loss of commission is the way the new reps' salaries get funded and that their 'share' of OTE is gonna get smaller.
They watch Marketing struggle because the more leads that get burned, the less effective the message is and the less leads come in.
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not knocking the VCs, mega-Founders, or CROs that are driving the investing and hiring. That's good.
....but the mindset is changing and the Rock Stars are thinking that they can't count on free leads and can't count on the company maintaining their income. So, they have to do it. They want to know how they can get more leads through their own efforts that are better than the inbound leads than the company used to supply? They my long for "the good old days", but they see the reality and know that they've got to take care of themselves.
I once told my CEO, "Give my share of the company leads to my co-workers. I'll generate my own because the leads that you generate are attracted to you. The leads that I generate are attracted to me and the way I think and are much more likely to buy."
I think that I'll stop here for now, but clearly, there's more.