"Do Great Salespeople Exist? Myth or Reality?

We're sharing a series on the proliferation of myths associated with?Professional Sales?and the truths that serve to clear up the misconceptions. Next in our series on “Sales Myths Debunked” from the Sales Education Foundation comes from SEF friend and Advisory Board member Lee Salz , author and keynote speaker.

We're certain you'll enjoy Lee's story - "Do Great Salespeople Exist? Myth or Reality?"

Years ago, my wife Sharon and I adopted a dog from a shelter. We knew nothing about his background, but he was estimated to be about three years old. Hello Newman! Newman is the name you get when the husband, who is a huge Seinfeld fan, names the family dog. He came home that first day and somehow knew all of the rules of the house. He never had an accident in our home, never damaged anything. Newman was the perfect dog.

Several years later, Sharon thought Newman needed a companion and suggested getting another dog. Since training a dog is easy (given the Newman experience), I was completely onboard with the idea. So, we adopted Baby. Baby is the name you get when you let your young daughter name the family dog.

Like Newman, we knew nothing about Baby’s background, but that is the end of the similarity between the dogs. Her first few weeks with us were a total disaster! She charged the door every time the doorbell rang. She dug up our backyard and ripped the gutter off of the house while chasing a chipmunk. And, for some odd reason, she picked a random spot on the wall in my daughter’s room and clawed a baseball-sized hole.

To be honest, I was frustrated and angry. Sharon was upset and disappointed. This was not at all what we expected given the experience with Newman. We were close to admitting that we made a mistake. As a last ditch effort to turn the tide, Sharon suggested we try a dog training service to see if that would change the behavior. Eureka! After four weeks of working with the trainer, it seemed like a miracle had occurred. Baby now had better skills than Newman. She had become a completely different dog. It’s as if a major transformation had taken place. (By the way, Sharon gets all of the credit here.)

While this story is completely true, why include it in a business book on profitably growing a sales team? This dog story parallels a belief that has been instilled in business leaders that there is an entity called a great salesperson. Executives wander the earth in search of these creatures and often come away feeling duped. They think they’ve found a great salesperson – this individual who produces a million dollars of revenue in a blink of an eye while the executive masters his golf swing.

Every once in a while, lightning strikes and a rare situation arises and, like with Newman, a great salesperson is found. Again, this is the exception, not the rule. More commonly, the experience with Baby is what transpires. The salespeople have potential, but both of you have work to do for the potential to become a reality.

Still believe that you can find great salespeople? How many of these so-called “great salespeople” have you hired, but they failed in your company? They came to you with a strong track-record, terrific prospecting skills and fantastic closing skills. Yet, somehow they failed in your company.

If you believe in great salespeople, then you must also subscribe to one of the following given the outcome:

This salesperson completely forgot how to sell when he arrived at your company.

or

Your company is the absolute worst company to sell for in the history of business.

What other reason could there be other than these two? Sales management life would be just dandy if prospecting and closing skill proficiency were the sole measures of sales greatness. If they were the sole measures, how would you explain a rainmaker in one company failing miserably in another company, or a sales dud from one firm becomes a sales star elsewhere?

The issue is the word “great.” Greatness is not a standalone quality, but rather a synergistic attribute of the relationship between the salesperson and the sales role in the company. Top performing companies don’t search for great salespeople. Their quest is to find the right salespeople with the potential to be great in the sales role for the company.

Interestingly, most companies have clearly defined their target client. Executives can talk for an eternity about those attributes. When asked about the profile of their target salesperson, a deafening silence is heard. Few companies invest the time to document those attributes which means they are operating blindly when evaluating sales talent.