Reasons many salespeople are not growing in the profession

Lack of requisite support structures, rejection by buyers and lack of a proper foundation affect the growth of many sales people. PHOTO | FILE 

By JOHN KEGECHE

Most salespeople fall on the wayside and many grow into inefficiency. This is the tragedy of the sales profession.

A worrying number of experienced salespeople aren’t really growing in experience. Their 10 years experience is in fact one year experience ten times. It is a matter of duration not merit.

This tragedy is aggravated by the fact that the last decade has fundamentally shifted the sales landscape.

Technology is rapidly shifting what was for a long time a one way street into a dual carriageway. Buyers have greater access to information and options beyond the average salesperson.

What is the source of this tragedy? First, is it is foundation – the environment that shapes our formative years. Education, society and upbringing prepare us for a desk job.

As such, the baseline for growth in employment is from zero because a footing exists, plus the organisation structure supports it.

On the other hand, how many teachers, role models or parents tell their mentees to study hard and be salespeople? Close to nil. Many people, therefore, are not born salespeople but have it thrust upon them. Small wonder then that only a handful achieve greatness.

Selling, on the other hand, starts from below zero and reaching zero is a feat in itself. To successfully reach the zero base line, sellers must first unlearn what they learned for close to two decades and in an environment that treats them as outcasts.

Lacking the requisite support structures (for example, a competent sales manager) makes it a losing battle for many.

Secondly, the nature of selling makes things hard. Unlike the desk job where work comes to you, selling requires that we are always looking for work. To thrive, the search must remain never ending. It’s the very lifeline of the role.

Salespeople have to learn to remain afloat in the floods of internal pressure for numbers and external rejection by buyers. Rejection is painful and it torpedoes many sales boats. They rapidly sink and the captain jumps ship.

Sometimes the captain stays on board because he is seasoned in steering clear off the waters. He thus remains “experienced” in his comfort zone. Naturally, growth is stunted.

Another reason why many salespeople grow into inefficiency is their attitude. Having grown a year past base line, the sales person wallows in the miasma of the progressive pats on the back he has been receiving.

He looks around at the novices struggling to get to zero and feels that he has arrived. He stops learning, developing and growing. He gets sloppy and inadvertently breaks his prospecting pattern; he wings his presentations and gets too casual with buyers.

For a moment it works; the momentum he has built in the past year carries him forward. Soon though, he realises he has been decelerating. What was once a steady gush is reduced to spurts. This becomes his new normal.

It is especially difficult to get out of this predicament if the salesperson lacks a selfish drive to keep him going; not merely achieving targets for the sake of it (which incidentally is unsustainable as a motivation tool) but a burning desire for, say, recognition, helping others, getting a degree or keeping up with the Joneses.

Interestingly, even those with desk jobs in time find it necessary to acquire sales skills for their side hustles. Globally, even with rapidly changing technology replacing many jobs, the one profession that is still growing is sales. Paradoxically, the salesperson isn’t.

Arresting this anomaly is a joint effort that pools together the salesperson’s attitude and enabling support structures.

Kageche is lead facilitator, Lend Me Your Ears, a sales training and development firm. Email:lend