You may have asked yourself, "where are the good salespeople?"  This
question plagues many companies.Some companies use salespeople
like cannon fodder. If they throw 100 salespeople into the battlefield, one
to two make it alive to the other side and the house has a few more
customers. But most of the salespeople die in this process. This is
particularly a problem in straight commission selling.The reason we call
salespeople cannon fodder is this: the sale is too difficult for an average
salesperson.There are two reasons why:

• Prospects don't have urgency - this is a marketing problem.
  
• The sales process is wrong - this is a sales consulting problem (no
  payment in kind, frying the nervous system, using the urgencies,
  focusing on material difference, proving etc.)
  

When these two issues are addressed, companies can find "good
salespeople." When these issues aren't solved, management's outlook is
similar to Jack Lemmon's in Glengarry Glen Ross when he asks: "When can
I get the good leads, the Glengarry leads?”Even good salespeople fail in
"cannon fodder" scenarios. So when a company is having trouble finding
"good salespeople" one diagnostic is to check for a "cannon fodder" scenario.

Why does a company move to a "cannon fodder" scenario when it once was
easy to close sales? The reason is typically competition. The markets have
gotten tougher, the market is mature, and there are tight incumbency
relationships.

Invite us to design a selling program and teach selling skills so your sales
force doesn’t get cut down like cannon fodder.