A Personal Message to “Sales Prevention Officers” Everywhere?

Question: Is your ENTIRE organization committed to succeed?

Answer: Pretty unlikely

You see, sales prevention officers come in all shapes and sizes and, amazingly, they occupy the full range of positions - even up to C-Level.

However, the biggest problem of all is that they don’t know they are sales prevention officers, because nobody got round to telling them!

I like using the word “most” as in “most people in most countries”. It sounds authoritative, but actually it is laziness, because I don’t have time to go off and locate accurate data. But in my experience gained over many years, my opinion is that most companies always possess a number of really successful sales prevention officers who simply don’t get why we need customers - after all, great products sell themselves, don't they?

The other amazing fact about these often terribly self-important people is that they need no qualifications whatsoever - they are free to practice their self-indulgent, self-focused daily dumbness, without fear of reprimand. Whoever graduated with a first in "Arrogance?"

This is not a jaundiced view point, it is based on a complete view of the organizational process - in abstract, conceptual and pragmatic terms - gained by serving in every possible role from “bag-carrier” to Chairman/CEO over a very long career.

Change is continuous and will become more rapid as we move forward over time.

Every department must be capable of reacting to those changes and be prepared to take advantage of them and yet stay within the overall framework and agreed strategy, which has to be shared - spelled out even - from the very top.

Get behind your sales team - nothing happens until somebody sells something to somebody else - without them, there is no company!

In summary - Trying to operate a sales function without total commitment from the entire organization is like trying to drive a car without fuel.

Unless your ENTIRE organization is committed to succeed, you probably will not succeed.

Have you spotted the SPO’s in your company yet?

Jonathan Farrington is the CEO of Top Sales World and the editor of Top Sales Magazine. TSW is a unique, international online community dedicated exclusively to the profession of sales, bringing together the industry’s best-known sales experts to provide information in the form of how-to-guides, articles, webinars, podcasts and so much more. He is also the principal of Jonathan Farrington & Associates, a consultancy focused on helping clients prepare sales teams for the future. You can read more of Jonathan's articles, thoughts, white papers etc. HERE