Sales pros - why are we so often treated like children?

I have been in outside, business to business (also business to government) sales for 15+ years, and it never seems to amaze me how often I feel like other members of our team seem to want to treat myself and my peers like children.  This is not an issue with any one organization, but to some degree or another EVERY organization I have been a part of.  In my experience, it is (almost) never the sales managers or sales executives that do this, but others in the organization, including:

• Non sales executives
• Operations
• Pre-sales engineering
• Accounting
• HR

I wonder if I am not alone in this feeling?  I suspect I am not.  Some things are said in jest, as in "Why are we even selling this?" or "Why do you put up with that kind of customer?"... others are stated clearly, as in "We don't send our reps to Las Vegas, we don't trust them." Whether or not direct or implied, I have a huge issue with this.  From my point of view, your sales team should be the most trusted group of people in your organization (possibly tied with Accounting).  Why?  Because sales people that you can't trust can impact your organization in so many ways.

A good sales team is the life blood of most organizations, as they take drive home and close the business.  They are of course aided by marketing and pre-sales support and a myriad of other activities, but if they are not doing their job the best laid marketing campaign will fail.  Without sales, companies all whither and eventually die.

A bad sales team (or even bad sales team member) can have both short and long term effects on a company.  Loss of a sale is one thing, but winning a lot of bad business can be even worse. If you are tying up your limited resources on business that is not profitable, does not provide long term repeat business, and/or impacts the morale of the Ops team that is trying to deliver you have an albatross around your neck.  In this connected world, there are more opportunities then ever for clients to take to social media to tell the whole world about the nightmare you are.  So one bad sale can hurt a company's reputation, morale, bottom line, and possibly even worse things like legal trouble. 

When these bad sales happen (which can happen to good sales teams), the real question is how do great companies respond?  I think there are several typical reactions that average companies have...

1. We ignore it
2. We blame someone or something and then change nothing
3. We never actually know the sale was bad in the first place (no post mortem on a project, no client follow up about their experience)
4. We wag our finger at the sales person and say "don't do that again"

Any of these sound familiar?  Sort of sounds like how many people treat their kids doesn't it? 

I am always optimistic that each time I join a company, I will see truly in action an organization that gets this right, at least most of the time.  In order to truly inspire great sales people, I think first they need to be seen as professionals (and if you don't think yours qualify you need to train them or set them free).  They also should be held to a similar standard, understanding that the whole team impacts the ability to earn and keep long term clients that bring us good business.  The real challenge comes in this final point, which is that companies need to look at their business transactions, both those that went well and those that didn't go as well, and assess the why and the how.  Why did this go so badly (or so much better then expected)?  How can we mitigate the risk factors in the future?  If the client was impacted, how do we keep them (assuming they can bring us future good business).  How do we make sure the lessons we learned can be shared across the organization and incorporated into future sales transactions?

This is the kind of adult discussions and problem solving the world seems to lack.  We are all so busy doing our jobs that we don't step back to ask important questions and make sure we are not doomed to repeat the mistakes that history has taught us.  Step 1 in my opinion is that we need to treat each other likes adults and professionals and peers.  I think this could be a culture that can be bred into an organization, but it would need to be something that is inspired by leadership, bought into by the rank and file, and enforced not by any one person but by the collective will of the team members. 

If you catch you treating your team like children, I hope you think on this article and ponder the reason you are doing this.  Are they the problem, or are you the problem?  Either way, I encourage everyone to try and solve it.  Nobody likes to be treated like a kid.  I should know, I have 8 of them and they all like to be treated like adults.  We don't have a choice about who our kids our, but we can choose the teams we are on, and being a part of a great team is something that all of us dream of.  Are we all willing to do our part to make the team great, act like adults, and treat our peers with respect?  I know I am...

- Brad Orme