The size of the motor

f,

nnrexo oNCE ToLD me, "If

called crazy. If you're crazy and rich, you're called eccentric." Let's just say, if they had been born rich, my parents would have been eccentric.

My mother read John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath about the Dust Bowl migration of millions during the Depression from Oklahoma to California looking for work. A powerful novel, the book won the National Book Award, a Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize, and drove my mother to think that it would be a good for our family to pick fruit in the summer, like migrant workers!

To my father, an easy-going dreamer and English teacher, in that order, it must have seemed like a great idea, because we spent every summer from age 5 to 14 picking fruit. School would get out on the 6th of June and on the l0th we were gone with the wind (really just an old Ford Fairlane wagon) like a band of fruit-picking gypsies for two-and-a-half months.

No baseball, golf or summer tomfoolery for the Olsen boys, no-just Grapes of Wrath.

Motor Size

I have a twin brother, David. We picked fruit together for nine summers. Cherries, apples, peaches, strawberries, plums and pears. In nine summers, I never out-picked him.

David has the focus, drive and tenacity to finish big and small jobs. He is the senior v.p. of a Fortune 500 company. He is a machine with no off switch. His motor for work is bigger than mine. We have the same DNA, but the power is dispersed differently. (I sing and dance better, but no one is paying for that.)

You may have some David Olsens working for you. Congratulations, you've won the salesman's lottery. Treat them great: they are rare.

Realistically, you probably have more James Olsen types (not Superman, just his pal, cub reporter Jimmy Olsen) working for you.

Asking a player to make a play he cannot make and then getting angry with him for not making it is bad coaching, but it happens all the time.

It happens on sales teams, too. Any time you hear yourself saying, "If only he would more, he would sell more" or "All she has to do is _ and she would sell more," stop. You are not smarter than your sales team. They know what you are telling them. (How many times have we gone over this?) They just may not have the motor to deliver on your expectations.

Banging the Table

Many managers I work with have salespeople working for them who are 'Just good enough not to fire." They have been haranguing (managing?) these same salespeople for years. Who's lazy? The sales team or the sales manager?

A dirty little secret of sales management is that it is a pain in the neck (read: difficult) to hire and train new salespeople. So it's easier to try to get growth from the team in front of you.

Most managers have some very good salespeople who will never be great. Are they profitable? Yes, more profitable than most, but all their manager can see is what they could be doing (if only), not the great work (especially visd-vis their motor) they are doing.

Expecting A+ results from a B+ salesperson is the same as a salesperson wanting A+ results from a B+ account base! SALES GROWTH IS YOUR JOB. Banging your fist on the table and saying, "Sell more!" will not get it done.

Maximize & Grow

Set a profitability goal for all salespeople. Make it aggressive. Don't give in to mediocrity, but be realistic. Once your individual salespeople hit that number, work with them (give them RST Leadership sales training, for example) to get better, but when you get to maximization with your current team, hire more salespeople.

This strategy will work with the experienced yet underperforming salesperson who is holding your growth hostage. Like the development in a city that must grow around a hard-nosed '; non-seller, build around him.

When your team knows that you are committed to growth, that you will hire new salespeople, they will work harder for you. New blood will do what nagging never will-grow sales.

James Olsen Reality Sales Training (so3\ 544-3572