Funny how both Dave Brock and I wound up here, commenting on your post. Are you, Dave, and I a sales process triumvirate? Fortunately there are others who understand that process is at the root of consistent and predictable sales performance. It would be far too big a burden for just we three to carry.

But we do have a responsibility to get many, many more on the “leave the improvising to jazz musicians, not sales people” band wagon.

There are a few points you made that I’ll continue to research and write about:

1. Required traits for salespeople. The more complex the sale, and the more opportunities (or accounts) that a professional has, the greater the requirement for discipline and process-oriented thinking (among other traits). Many salespeople are born with neither of those qualities. They may have wound up in sales because they weren’t, or wouldn’t have been successful in other careers requiring those personal characteristics. (Think engineer, surgeon, scientist, architect, pilot, architect, lawyer, military leader, etc.)

That’s why it’s so difficult (or impossible) to train people to be disciplined. Discipline is a trait. It’s in your DNA forever, or it’s not and never will be. Traits are not like driving a car, or using Microsoft Word. Those are skills. We believe, by the way, that four years in the military might change someone’s behavior so that they appear more disciplined, but rigor doesn’t mutate their genes!

2. You’re right. In its most basic form, the purpose of sales training is to change the behavior of salespeople so that they follow a sales process. That presupposes that you have a relevant and follow-able sales process, an effective training approach, and that the people that are being trained are capable of behavioral change. See point #1 above.

You laid the issues and your take on them out very clearly.

ESR still contends that unless you have people with the right traits in the right sales and sales management roles, little forward progress is going to be made, process or no process, training or no training.

I agree with Dave. What a great post.

I think effectiveness has to do with the attributes, but also is a critical part of a well designed sales process. We need to design and execute sales processes that maximize the effectiveness of the sales people. I would tend not to separate the effectiveness issue from the process.

It’s also important to recognize that people producing the “biggest numbers” may not be your most effective and highest performing sales people. I’ve seen too many people producing big numbers–but bringing in the wrong kind of business, doing it unprofitably, creating a lot of breakage in the process, etc. These people aren’t great fits, and if they can’t change, need to find a job in an organization where they can produce numbers–effectively.

Great post!

In most cases, sales processes are effective enough, just like most business strategies are effective enough. The performance gap is in the execution. Sales has never been more difficult and more complex than it is now. But the answer to the complexity…