How many sales meetings did you attend in 2024 to review the Sales Team’s pipeline? Some companies do it weekly. Others every other week. Some monthly.
Whatever your cadence, there is a good chance the weekly, the bi-weekly and the monthly are ALL THE SAME MEETINGS! Whether you attended 50 of them, or 26 of them, or 12 of them – SAME MEETING!
Sales meeting context: It’s time to review pipelines. What’s in the hopper? Let’s talk about all of the business we are going to close in the coming weeks and months. Now, if you are like most companies your Sales Team has some “A” players, some “B” players, a few “C” players & one or two “D/E” players. Sound familiar, so far? Keep reading . . .
A few questions that will drive you crazy (but need to be asked):
- Why is it that some of your Sales Teammates feel the need to inflate and exaggerate their Pipeline opportunities?
- Why do some of these salespeople talk about every meeting being “Great!” Saying things like, “It was a really good meeting?” Or, “We had an awesome meeting!”
- Why do most of these people give their “% Likelihood of Closing” anywhere from 75% to 90% consistently across the board?
- Why is the tone of the pipeline portion of the meeting always positive, encouraging, pie-in-the-sky . . . “We have a good chance on this one!”?
- Why do these Pipelines look like Brad Pitt on paper . . . but turn into Danny DeVito in reality?
Answer? Ego.
Salespeople are people. People want to perform well. In the absence of performing well most people make excuses, tell a story, add color commentary, etc. If you haven’t figured out by now, we are talking about BS. In the absence of performing well most people will BS their way through a story and hope that it ends soon. Human nature.
But why? Again, ego.
It is very difficult for some people (impossible for others) to admit things did not work out. Admit that “we are not well-positioned for this deal.” Admit that they were outsold. Admit that they lost.
It takes an extraordinarily strong person to point that finger where it belongs – right between the eyes. Show me a Salesperson that takes responsibility for her actions & I will show you a successful Salesperson. The word? And it is an extremely popular word these days – tossed around TV, radio, podcasts, Social Media and any place else people go to be seen and heard – that word is ACCOUNTABILITY.
Most people would rather fly under the radar & hope nobody notices them in life. Same thing in Sales. Most salespeople would rather not be held accountable.
The only thing worse than Salespeople setting false expectations by pie-in-the-skying their pipelines is their Sales Leader excepting it. That’s right. The “real tragedy” here is that some Sales Leaders don’t hold their Salespeople accountable. It’s too hard. Too much work. No need for that.
So . . . most Salespeople do not want to be help accountable. Some Sales leaders do not like holding their Salespeople accountable. That is a recipe for disaster. You can predict how those Sales meetings will go.
Sales leaders & Salespeople out there . . . What will you do differently in 2025? Will you step up & hold your Team accountable? Salespeople, will you step up & point that finger between your eyebrows?
Didn’t think so . . . Tear is not speaking to you in this blog . . .
