Right now there’s a sales manager assuming that their comp plan is doing their job for them. They’re failing.

I know you want to be easy to work for. I know you don’t want to be a micromanager, but that isn’t a permission slip for being uninvolved.

There are so many misconceptions about qualifying your opportunities. I get that if you chase every potential lead, you’re wasting a lot of time. You need to protect your time and reserve it for the most valuable activities, but the way you make sales is by having sales conversations. You're probably talking yourself out of a lot of those opportunities.

The more time you can speak to potential customers, the better you will be in tune with your marketplace. That expertise will absolutely translate into more sales. 

Here’s where I think most reps go wrong.

Clients complain to me all the time about how their team isn’t winning enough new business. They’re hitting their numbers, they just aren’t winning enough new accounts.

I ask what the comp plan looks like…

“Well…”

When I get these complaints, I immediately stand up for the sellers. They’re not lazy, and they’re not subordinate. When it comes to what you want them to do and what you’re actually paying them to do, which path do you expect they’re going to choose?

Sales leaders are not providing direction or doing enough to simplify the processes. In short, they’re not creating a conducive selling environment.

There's nothing wrong with being inspired by someone else's frameworks, but let me tell you what happens when you take them too literally.

Playbooks, scripts, and call plans are all valuable. They still need relevant context.

There need to be people in your organization who are setting examples for how to use these tools effectively, and preferably in more than one way. Sales reps, especially those with less experience, need to see these plans in action in such a way that they can see themselves using them.

Weak salespeople will tell you they don’t have time to prospect because they have too many other things to do. There are accounts to manage and clients to keep happy. You wouldn’t want them to lose hard-earned business would you? The CRM needs to be updated and there’s a team meeting coming up in just over an hour. The list goes on.

My first day in sales was August 12, 2004, so this past Friday marked my 18th anniversary. That sounds like a long time, except I can’t imagine doing anything else, so in that way it doesn’t feel like any time at all.

I’ve been asked a few times what I would tell a younger version of myself who is just getting into the field. So I decided to write him a letter.

Prospecting can be simple if you’ll only let it.

Ignore the distractions. Remember the fundamentals still work and have worked forever.

Prospecting is not an improvisational exercise simply repeated over and over. It’s a well-orchestrated campaign with a beginning and a logical conclusion. If you’re not approaching it this way, you’re setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment.

I spoke with a prospect this week about how his team is getting enough meetings, but they’re not leading to enough real opportunities.

“A third of the meetings we get are BS. My reps want to ensure they’re doing what they’ve been told, but many of these never even turn into second meetings.”

Can you realistically spend the majority of your time at work doing your job?

There is a lot of prep work that goes into the prospecting process. You need to know whom you’re trying to reach, how you’re going to get a hold of them, how to organize your data, and plan your approach. It’s startling to me how many companies I work with leave it up to their reps to do all this work on their own.

Today’s episode is a replay from the archives of the Deeper Thought podcast.

I sat down with Andy Racic to discuss whether or not prospecting is all about luck. Andy starts by writing about how his mom would pay him for finding four-leaf clovers the yard when he was a kid.

Front-line sales management is the most challenging job in the sales organization. It’s coming at you from all angles. You’re responsible for several reps, which means, at the very least, you’re overseeing several books of business, and you’re probably required to travel a bit. So you’ve got more responsibility with less direct control over the outcome.

Prospecting is not a one-time event. At the very least, it’s a campaign; while the very best insist it’s a lifestyle.

For a lot of sellers, the expectation is that you're supposed to pick up the phone, deliver the perfect message at the perfect time to the perfect person, and make a sale.

In Season 3 of the Rethink The Way You Sell Podcast, I’m going to help you rethink your prospecting.

I’m going to simplify the concept for you so that it’s less intimidating, and give you some specific strategies and tactics that you can put into play immediately.

I’m going to start by identifying the 8 most common reasons that trained and motivated teams aren’t creating more opportunities, and I’m going to tell you how you can fix them.

“Jeff, I love how passionate you are about this!”

It took far more restraint than I’m comfortable admitting not to punch that product manager in the neck.

My annual summer golf trip is this weekend. Right now, I’m in paradise, getting ready to tee off for the weekend's final round. As I’ve been thinking of the message I want to deliver today, I’m returning to a story from this trip in 2010.

Who doesn’t love a good inbound lead? They’re a sign that you’re doing something right. Your SEO is on point, there’s some thought leadership that sent people your way, or someone specifically passed you a referral. Hey, maybe it’s pure dumb luck! One way or another, people are coming to you. 

You’re in sales. You’re proud to represent the company you work for and the solution you sell. That’s a great place to start. 

The problem is that many sellers are so proud of what they sell, it’s all they talk about. They run around from prospect to prospect offering their solution and hoping that they called on someone with the right problem. 

This is totally backward.