Sales Wolf Blog

Resilience - the ultimate sales performance turbocharger.

Salespeople with resilience achieve greater and more consistent periods of sales performance than those without.

Resilience defined.

American Psychological Association defines resilience as: The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress -- such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences. 

The end of Daylight Saving Time is upon us once again.

Many view Daylight Saving Time as an extra hour of sleep, working out or playing Call of Duty.

Daylight Saving Time is your wake up call to get your house in order.

Personally, the end of Daylight Saving Time is a pattern interrupt; a call-to-action to get my strategic house in order.

From the outside looking in.

I recently woke up in the middle of the night with the title of this article in my mind. When I began working with The Rainmaker Group, my biggest struggle was to create clarity and direction for our marketing.

If you can’t clearly communicate the message of who you are and what you do, you will never be successful.

I became immersed in The Rainmaker Group's culture and soon came to understand the brilliance behind our sales hiring process (it’s genius).

Most Prospects do not realize powerful sales hiring tools like ours exist.

How could I as a marketer communicate the simplicity and value of using our expertise?

Why would a company use The Rainmaker Group's services?

Then it hit me.

Your most valuable asset is not your equipment, nor your real estate, nor your trademarks nor your intellectual property.

Your most valuable asset is the mindset of your sales team. 

The Cambridge Dictionary describes mindset as: "A person's way of thinking and their opinions."

There is a direct correlation between the strength of your sales team's mindset and your sales.

If your sales team has the mindset of playing to win, they will win more sales.

The best way to increase sales is to maximize your sales team's mindset.

Long story short.

If you are like me, you are never satisfied with the status quo.

And chances are you do not do well with "happy talk".

"Happy talk" is what well-meaning sales authors, consultants and training "experts" espouse to the masses. Their target audience is salespeople - the majority of which shouldn't be in the noble profession of sales.

Sales pundits share pithy boring statements like, "Listening is the ESSENTIAL selling skill for salespeople."

If real salespeople - Sales Wolves - engaged Prospects who POSSESSED the capacity to care about their salesperson's value proposition, the world would be a better place!

Long story short. 

Private Equity (PE) Firms are failing to optimize their sales teams from the very beginning of ownership.

It seems that PE Firms fail to grasp that the Net Present Value (NPV) of every acquired portfolio company is a DIRECT REFLECTION of the quality of their sales talent - both salespeople and sales management. 

Objectively-measure sales talent potential.

Every portfolio company sales team should be measured to provide the appropriate catlayst to allocated resources to address deficiencies. 

What gets measured gets improved.

Long story short.

Most salespeople cannot sell value because they lack key "sales personality" elements that drive them to understand and sell value.

If salespeople lack the capacity to understand value, they will be unable to sell it.

Long story.

My statement, "Most salespeople cannot sell value" may be viewed as bold and perhaps overly-harsh by some.

It is the truth.

It's a well-known fact: a good assistant is worth their weight in gold.

The value of a good assistant is maximized when they complete the tasks they are most-qualified to handle.  

However, there is a fine line between utilizing your assistant and having your assistant do your job.

Let's discuss a few scenarios.

Sales efficiency is the objective.

When you have maximized sales with minimal friction and cost, you will have achieved sales efficiency. 

Sales efficiency is diminished when:

• Sales Talent - Poor sales hiring decisions are allowed to continue unchecked.
• Sales Systems - Sales systems are not habitually followed.
• Sales Culture -Behaviors contrary to an accountable, performance-driven sales culture are allowed unchecked.

There is always, always room for improvement.

Strategic CEOs and Sales VPs realize that true sales efficiency is something that is truly never completely achieved yet always pursued.

Mental Toughness requires...

The best sales talent coupled with solid Mindset habits.