I am a somewhat (and increasingly) active member on LinkedIn. I recently saw a profile there for a person who is in a similar line of work as mine - working with sales organizations to improve effectiveness, one way or the other. His way struck me as a hard way to get from point A to point B, and it inspired me to write this post.
He positions himself as someone who can help to change the attitudes and beliefs that are core to sales success in the salespeople working in an organization.
Anyone who has read my book, Mastering Your Sales Process, or read my blog for any time will know that I too believe that the attitudes and beliefs held by a salesperson are important keys to success, so why am I critical of the approach of this person I found on LinkedIn?
While I think attitudes and beliefs are important, I also think that they can be hard to change. They can be changed, of course they can, but if I am going to try to help a sales organization be more effective, I am going to start with some things that are easier to change than the inner workings of the current salespeople, and things which have duration.
What do I mean by duration? Let's say that a company has 5 salespeople, and 3 of them have a high need of attitude and belief changes. Let's also assume that this person from LinkedIn comes into the company, and has success in making these changes. What has the organization gained from that? A few salespeople who have better thoughts about their jobs and who are now likely to do them better. This is certainly an improvement, but only the salespeople have changed. What if they leave? What will management do then? Hire more bad people and then hire the consultant to "fix" them? There must be a better way than that!
Last month, I wrote a blog post about the correct way to run a sales organization - focused on accountability and growth. It is a preview of my second book, which should be out late winter or early spring. I don't believe in pointing out a problem (like the change attitude and belief approach to sales consulting) without pointing out a solution, but rather than repeat the same points as I did in the earlier post, please see the blog post titled "Simple but not easy: Book 2 preview" from September 12, 2011.
Affecting sales organization level change is about more than just people. People are very important, but they work in systems and with processes and within a culture and a management framework. Anyone who tells you they can improve your sales organization by changing the attitudes and beliefs of your salespeople is focusing on a very small piece of the puzzle, one that will be hard to change, one which will only yield partial and temporary results, and one with only a somewhat likely possibility for success. You can and should do better. It is simple - maybe not easy, but simple.