Sales Wolf Blog

How would you define your company culture? Your sales culture?

Often, a company’s culture consists of a carefully-contrived paragraph of corporate speak that does not actually say much. Think of most company’s vision or mission statements.

Companies frequently believe they can similarly “set” their culture and, well, that’s that. The resulting, carefully-curated “culture” most certainly does not accurately represent the day-to-day relationships and tone of the organization.

Depending on the length of your sales career to date (as well as your title), you have probably either initiated or solicited sales coaching. Most typically, sales coaching occurs when a salesperson (or team) demonstrates clear deficiency in sales activity or performance.

Sales coaching is typically a reactive step, rather than proactive. More often than not, organizations solicit sales coaching as a futile attempt to turn around a low-performing salesperson or team.

Is your mindset one that is reactive or proactive?

For most CEOs and sales leaders, turning around a sales team is a reactive, futile effort that occurs ONLY when the sales team is floundering or dragging the company under. In most reactive sales team turnaround instances, the effort is futile because the mindset that got them to floundering / dragging the company under is what ultimately keeps the doomed company on track to destruction.

You only have one chance to do this the right way.

Building your sales team will define the short- and long-term success of your business. You only get one shot. When your company is founded or when a new business unit is first set up, assembling a team of Sales Wolves is critical.

But here is the sobering truth: Few organizations do it well.

Merriam Webster formally added "dumpster fire" to their online dictionary this week.  

The 2018 sales sprint begins!

Is your mindset ready? How about the mindset of your sales team?

Are you and your sales team taking the necessary actions that will crush 2018?

Are you and your sales team using proper form?

"Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan." - Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944), The Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943, Vol. 2.

Long story short.  

Everyone loves winning but few are willing to embrace the journey that includes the requisite failures necessary to win.

There are four failure problems in sales:

• The right kind of failure is not tolerated.
• The right kind of failure does not occur frequently enough.
• The wrong kind of failure is tolerated.
• The wrong kind of failure occurs too often.

Is your sales culture worthy?

Is your sales culture worthy of the love from the best-of-the-best sales professional, the Sales Wolf?

Not so fast...  Don't assume you have a Sales Wolf on your team because it is possible but unlikely.

Reality check - A salesperson who outsells everyone on your sales team is not necessarily a Sales Wolf.

Sales Wolves are rare.

Most everyone wants to win at some level.

What separates Sales Wolves from everyone else is the level they will push themselves to win.

Sales Wolves are absolutely relentless.

When a Sales Wolf loses (which isn't often), they quickly look in the mirror at the cause of their lost sale. They autopsy to see where they can improve. They then make improvements and repeat.

Sales Wolves abhor excuses. They hate posers. They hate wasting time.

Sales Wolves LOVE the hunt and they LOVE results.

"I would do anything for love, but I won't do that..."

As a young entrepreneur I loved to hustle. I delivered newspapers, babysat, mowed lawns and painted houses. 

I never, ever called myself a salesman. If someone asked me what I did, I used the task to describe what I did.

It really wasn't cool to be a salesman back then. In fact, the mental imagery I had in my head regarding the sales profession at the time was of a pushy, arrogant, scheming used car salesman.

Movies like Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992), Used Cars (1980) and Boiler Room (2000) embodied the general mindset about sales at the time. 

Cortés began his impossible conquest by burning the boats. 

For more than 600 years conquerors had unsuccessfuly attempted to colonize the Yucatan Peninsula.

What seemingly made the difference was mindset.

In 1519 Cortés took away the only backup plan he and some 600 Spaniards and 16 or so horses had. He ordered the boats to be burned.

Burn your boats.

Get rid of your backup plan.