Why There Are Not 4 Types of Salespeople

In today's installment of Understanding the Sales Force, it is made perfectly clear that there are not 4 or 5 or 8 or 12 types of salespeople.  Instead, when sales managers are coaching salespeople, they will coach their salespeople in one of 11 ways.  The article says that there are literally more than 1 million different types of salespeople who, when coached, present as one of 11 types.  Here's a link to the article where it is explained much more effectively.

Most sales managers find it quite difficult to get their arms around sales coaching.  Between the complexities of debriefing calls the right way, pre-call strategizing, the time and frequency requirements, and having to role-play, coaching is a challenge.  But when you understand the 11 types of coaching conversations, suddenly coaching seems a lot easier to handle!  Here is a link to the article.

The article also discusses salespeople in the context of greatness.  With references to both Harvard Business Review and Objective Management Group, the article presents similar statistics that define the percentage of salespeople who are elite and strong, as well as the size of the group comprising everyone else.  Here's a link to the article again.  You'll be surprised at the incredible size of the group that sucks!