Let's assume you are a neutral party and haven’t decided who you will vote for yet. If you ask your sales person that is a Democrat you will hear how horrific the current Republican candidate is, in fact they will probably embellish anything negative about that person and not mention one good thing that person has done. Now if you turn to your Republican sales person and ask them who they like you are likely to hear how terrible the Democrat candidate is and failed attempts at anything and not one positive comment.
What Does Politics Have To Do With Sales?
As a neutral party you know that there are two sides to every story and you only heard one side of both stories. I bring this up because I want you to know when you ask your sales people about their pipeline, it is just like when you are listening to a Democrat or a Republican; you are probably hearing one side of both stories.
Don’t get mad at the sales people if only 30% of their pipeline becomes a reality…. that is your fault not theirs. You need to help your sales people see both sides of the story…. even the part they don’t want to see - the possibility they are not getting the sale.
Are You Being A Good Coach To Both?
A good coach is the one that replays the videos and helps you see where you missed the play and then puts you back into training to get better at the play…then a good coach congratulates you for getting better at making the play work and then replays the video again and shows you that you made the play happen but then you turned left when you should have gone straight. You must be great at debriefing. The term Debriefing came from the military…it is something you do to find out where we messed up so we don’t mess up again.
So if I am one of your sales people and we are two weeks into the month and I tell you all the great things in my pipeline and they I will get a 100% and you say ok, you are doing me a disservice. But if you debrief HARD like any good coach and I realize I only have about 50% closing possibility…. then I can make more calls the next two weeks, I can try to tighten up what is in my pipeline.
Just like the Republicans and Democrats say, “go vote, but before you do…get all the facts.”
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