Business LockerRoom Blog

The Disservice We Do to the Sales Profession

by Kelly Riggs

Sales is a wild profession.

First off, you don’t need a degree or a certification to be a salesperson.

Second, at the same time, selling (in general) has a terrible reputation. Of course, given the fact that the barrier to entry is, in most cases, very low, that’s not a huge surprise.

And third, selling pays like CRAZY!

Well, it can pay like crazy. If you can get over the image problems of being a “salesperson.” And if you can find the right opportunity. And, if you can actually learn how to be an effective salesperson, then it can pay HUGE money.

But, frankly, those individuals are rare.

In 35 years of selling, I have known very few people who reach that upper tier of success. And none, to my knowledge, have done so without a coach or a mentor, without significant training, and without extensive drive and initiative.

Sadly, most salespeople would rather make excuses, blame their circumstances, and just be average.

Here’s the thing:

• The AVERAGE salesperson in a Sales I position (which is typically 4 years of experience with only average production) is making about $57,000 per year.
• The AVERAGE salesperson in a Sales IV position, which is typically 8+ years of experience with above average production and significant responsibility) is making $127K.
• Top 5% salespeople are making in excess of $170K, and the Top 1% (depending on industry and other factors) can be making $200-400K and sometimes more.

That means a fairly successful salesperson (experienced Sales IV slot) is making a little over twice as much as the average salesperson. And the Top 5% sales representative is making THREE times as much.

That is a HUGE gap! In just about any other industry, the gap between the average and the top of the chart might be a difference in 50-75% in terms of pay. Not entry-level vs. multi-degreed, certified, and highly experienced. I’m talking about the average employee vs. the best employee at that position in the building. It might be $15 per hour vs. $25 per hour. Or $36,000 per year vs. $62,000 per year.

But great salespeople make WAY more money than their average counterparts.

So, what does it take to get there? To be in that upper echelon of sales professionals?

It’s definitely not luck. And you weren’t born to be a salesperson any more than you were born to be a doctor or a mechanic. You were born with certain traits and capabilities, but the rest is a matter of specific skills that need to be learned and developed to succeed. In this case it would be selling skills.

Selling skills. Not tips or tricks or techniques, but persuasion skills, and planning skills, and interpersonal skills. It’s also about learning the ins and outs of business and how business people operate. It’s about understanding the psychology of buyers. And the ability to create real relationships – not the kind created by doughnuts and jokes and stopping by once a week to check on a proposal.

But most “sales” training is oriented around product knowledge, with a few tips and tricks sprinkled in to use when you’re face-to-face with customers. That’s why most sales training never leads to any significant changes in sales results. Not because I said so; that’s what the research data says-as much as 85% of sales training is largely ineffective for creating significant changes in results.

Why Greatness Matters

The reason that I love selling so much is that I love to compete. I love that I can adjust, change directions, learn new skills, and develop new ideas in order to create more success. Selling is a dynamic enterprise that rewards initiative and drive and excellence.

I LOVE that!

And the really cool thing about selling is that (in most cases) if I want a raise – if I want to make more money – I can just go out and sell more. When most people have to wait to the end of the year and wait for a 3% merit raise or something similar, I can go out and crush it and add thousands of dollars to my compensation.

But we in the profession are often guilty of doing a HUGE disservice to the profession.

When we fail to train our salespeople to a high standard of integrity and excellence, we perpetuate the negative perceptions about the profession: pushy, obnoxious, self-serving, and unprofessional.

When we allow unprepared, sub-par salespeople to practice on our customers, we permit incompetence and unprofessional behavior to leak into the profession and mar the market’s perception of selling.

What is necessary is a systematic transfer of knowledge with set standards and flexible yet effective principles of assessment to accurately gauge a sales trainees abilities; this allows both trainer and trainee to understand the subsequent direction and step to take, so that the trainee can seamlessly step into the role-that of a salesperson.

When you fail to train your sales managers to hire and lead salespeople effectively, you perpetuate the myth that anyone can be a salesperson and the only prerequisite to being a salesperson is to have the ability to fog a mirror.

But the very worst offense, I think, is when you hire people to be “SALES” people and not “VALUE” creators for your company. You send people out into the marketplace hell-bent on making a SALE instead of solving a problem for a customer. You create people who care more about cashing a COMMISSION check than creating a delighted customer.

All of this makes it harder to attract great people, and it certainly makes our jobs harder as sales professionals.

Do you need to raise the bar for your company or for your team?

When your salespeople dramatically improve their skills, you improve the profession.

When you hire better people, with higher standards of integrity and personal commitment, you improve the profession.

But, hey, just look at it selfishly: when your people become more skilled and more professional, you make more money.

The profession just happens to benefit as well.