Wimpy Salespeople Should Be...

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Zig Ziglar used to say,

Ol’ Zig was right.

The world needs non-wimpy salespeople.

Your business needs non-wimpy salespeople.

You need to be a non-wimpy salesperson, regardless of your title.

Case in point:

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, my neighbor came over so I could help her brainstorm and roleplay a negotiation with her boss.

An underperformer had suddenly quit after a year of subpar work, which management allowed.

Now that she’s gone, her duties must be reallocated to the existing team, but there are certain parts nobody wants to do, and my neighbor will only do them if she gets a raise.

So, we mapped out the possible scenarios:

• how to open,

• how to avoid being the first one to give a number,

• how to give a range if she has to give a number, and

• how to quantify that number so the boss can agree that her number is reasonable.

I texted her tonight, and she said the owner did not call her in for a meeting, so she did not bring it up.

She’s playing it cool and lowkey. She’s not showing that she’s anxious and excited to take on this role and a nice salary increase.

In other words, so far, so good.

By playing it cool, she is selling the manager that she is not needy or desperate, which makes her more valuable to him.

I’ll let you know how it goes, but I tell you this so you understand that we’re all in sales.

You know that nothing happens until a sale is made,…

yet the profession of sales gets a bad rap.

In the past, we had the arrogant “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue and the three-martini lunches of their sales counterparts.

Then it was the Yuppies and the coke-addled finance whizzes on Wall Street.

Then it was the day traders.

Then it was the tech geniuses.

Then it was the real estate flippers.

Then it was the crypto nerds.

Oh, and we’ve always had the car, copier/business equipment, Yellow Pages (now high-speed internet), appliances, and home improvement/remodeling contractor salespeople.

Now it’s the internet bros, the solar salespeople, and the cold outreachers—email, text, calls, and DMs.

They call themselves “high ticket closers” or “consultative account managers” and hide behind a wall of acronyms—SDRs, BDRs, GTM, PLS, PLG, TOFU, MOFU, BOFU, SQL, MQL—and they still can’t close the leads they are handed on a silver CRM.

But companies hold onto these perennial underperformers because they don’t know how to Find Your Sales Pro, but I digress.

I used to work for a guy who came up through sales to lead a couple of tech firms I worked at, and he was fond of saying,

He’s right, yet even in his companies, wimpy salespeople are the norm in business. Hell, wimpy people are the norm in life.

The three questions you must answer as an owner, sales manager, and/or sole proprietor are:

1. How can I only hire sales superstars and avoid the wimps?

2. What should I do if I have a wimp in my midst, or worse, on my payroll?

3. What do I do if I’m a wimp?

How to only hire sales superstars and avoid the wimps.

You need a process, a road map, a proven system that you stick to for every single person you hire. And remove yourself from that process until the end.

(John Pyke covered this in great detail way back in episode 335 of The Sales Podcast.)

What do I mean by “remove yourself from the process”?

Most people are terrible interviewers.

Studies have shown that typical interviews are 14% accurate in selecting the right salesperson for the job.

Think that’s too low?

Think about the last time you either went on an interview or interviewed a salesperson.

The typical interviewer throws out some cliched “Tell me about yourself” or “What’s your greatest weakness” mumbo-jumbo, then jumps into a 45-minute dissertation on how wonderful their company is.

WRONG!!

If you’re hiring and you’re doing all of the talking, you are in for a world of hurt.

You need to put that sales candidate through the wringer to create a real-world scenario for them to see how they perform under pressure. You need to see what inherent, natural selling skills they possess.

As we used to say in the Air Force,

Your interview is the practice you set up for this candidate.

Make it tough.

Order “Find Your Sales Pro” to streamline your hiring of sales professionals now.

What to do if you already have a wimp.

1. Start recruiting and continue recruiting sales professionals.

2. Set higher expectations for everyone in your life, including the wimp. This goes for employees, vendors, and even clients.

3. Explain your expectations to the wimp.

4. Help them if they ask for help.

5. Ignore them if they do not ask for help.

6. Focus on your star(s).

7. If you don’t have any stars focus on recruiting.

Businesses, like human beings, are growing or dying.

Homeostasis is for your body temperature and internal stability.

Homeostasis in your business means death is around the corner.

What to do if you are the wimp?

You are not alone…by a long shot.

The great Michael E. Gerber discusses the three types of business owners in his E-Myth series—The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician.

The Technician is the one who most often starts a business and HATES selling with a passion.

He hates it.

He cannot do it.

He has never done.

He doesn’t want to do it.

He just wants to do what he does, which is why he opened his business in the first place.

Sound familiar?

If this is you, which it probably is, and your goal is to grow, which it probably is, you need to do these two things:

1. Take a deep breath and take comfort in the fact you are not alone.

2. Stare deeply into your Technician soul and decide to:

   • Stay on your current path (maybe work a few more hours a day) and hope for the best. (Let me know how that works out for ya.)

   • Hire someone to help with sales and maybe even hire someone to manage that someone.

   • Get good at sales and marketing yourself to make sure your baby—the business—is cared for, nurtured, and grows.

Simple options.

Tough actions.

But you don’t have to do this alone.

If you want to jump-start things with a little boost from me, consider my initial process assessment or my 90-day private consulting.

Whatever you choose, make sure you ask me about the “Find Your Sales Pro” program.

It will make your hiring process smoother than the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man Alive,” which I include access to with any of these other programs.

Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.

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