Dave Kahle - Are There Best Practices for Sales People?

Published: Tue, 10/09/18

Are There Best Practices for Sales People?

One of the most debilitating myths about the sales profession is that sales people can learn on their own, on the job, and eventually become good at their jobs. This myth implies they’ll eventually develop their own style, and that will bring them the maximum results.

That myth is true for about five percent of the sales people in the world. For the other 95 percent, nothing could be further from the truth. The overwhelming majority of field sales people perform at a fraction of their potential because they have never been systematically exposed to the best practices of their profession. Instead, they have been expected to “learn on their own.”

I like to paint. I don’t mean pictures, I mean walls and bedrooms and hallways. I enjoy the physical nature of it, and the resulting change in the feeling of the room. I’ve always liked to paint and have done so for over 30 years. Once, for about two months, I actually made a living doing it. I think I’m pretty good at it.

Are your sales people ‘sharpening the sword’?

Sales people often become stuck in their comfort zones and allow their skills and disciplines to slide. It’s human nature. But, it’s not good for them or you.

Help them burst out of their routines with a short, weekly reminder. Sharpening the sword couldn’t be easier with our Kahle Way® B2B Selling System program.

A few minutes a week, for less than the cost of lunch.

Other people can teach you to sell. We empower you to sell better.

Learn More

Until a little while ago, when I was watching one of those reality home improvement shows. On it, a professional painter demonstrated the best way to apply masking tape, hold a brush and apply the paint. Yikes! I was doing it all wrong.

All this time I thought I was pretty good, in my own self-taught, learn-on-my-own sort of way. I guess I really didn’t have any standard. But I almost always painted by myself and had only my own opinion. I thought I was pretty good compared to what I thought was good.

Only when I discovered the best practices of a true professional, I saw that my own ideas were not up to the standard. I wasn’t nearly as good as I thought I was. If I’m going to become really good -- objectively, verifiably good -- I must change my routines and incorporate the best practices.

So it is with sales as well. The world is full of sales people who have learned on the job, pretty much on their own, and have never been exposed to the best practices of the profession. They delude themselves, as I did, holding the opinion that they are pretty good. And that delusion keeps them lingering in levels of performance considerably beneath what their potential would allow them.

Sales managers often share that delusion, and occupy themselves with other matters, unable or unsure how to improve the performance of their team. Typically, the sales manager was, in a previous incarnation, a high performing sales person. He/she was part of the five percent who learned on their own, who studied the best practices, and who incorporated them into his routines. As a result, that sales manager, formerly high performing sales person, expects every other sales person to be just like him; to have the same motivation, the same drive, the same ability and propensity to learn. He, therefore, makes little effort to expose the sales team to best practices, because he did it on his own.

That’s too bad. Every profession in the world develops a body of knowledge about the best way to do that job. And every professional in the world is expected, if they are serious about the profession, to regularly study those best practices, and to incorporate them...[CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE]

Making a Big Difference with Small Things

If you would like to unsubscribe to this Ezine only, Click Here

If you would like to unsubscribe from all emails from Dave Kahle, click the unsubscribe below.