10 Things Top Salespeople Know is a Waste

From our 30 Things Top Performers series today we go over 10 things top salespeople know is a waste of their time.

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The audio, video, and additional lists in this builds on the 30 Things Top Salespeople Need and Want but won’t tell you.

10 Things High Performing Sales People Know is a Waste of Their Time

1. Endless Pipeline Reviews – Asking top salespeople over and over again where they are, where they plan to finish in the final days of a quarter takes away from selling and working to bring in business.
2. Committing Unnatural Acts for “Upside” to Help the Company Make Up for All the Schmucks that Can’t Close a Deal. So often underperformers put more pressure on the top performers. It comes in a variety of ways including increased quota, being asked by management to pull more deals forward. and this list goes on.
3. Get Your Customer Base to Attend Webinars so marketing can keep selling webinars to vendors instead of helping you make sales. Marketing gets paid in most companies to host webinars. content is not their top concern, driving actual sales is not their top concern. Butts in chairs is how most marketing people define success. Not all but many and most. If the event isn’t a good fit for your customers then spare them.
4. Being Asked to Share Wins because No One Else is Winning. At the top of the list Top Salespeople Know is a waste is being asked to share sales. Sometimes it’s to prop up another person’s numbers. Sometimes successful sales people get asked to share their stories in OBR’s, and with the expanded team which is fine, and flattering as long as they don’t become the magic trick for everyone else and forget to go sell.
5. Increased Quota to Make Sure My Manager Hits Their Nut and Keeps Their Gig. Did you company make it’s number, your manager made their and most of the sales team didn’t. It”s a way to control sales earnings, lower their pay, and lose your best sellers.
6. The CFO Thinking You are Making Too Much Money. I love a lot of CFO’s but there is always that one who thinks sales is nothing more than a necessary evil. That attitude permeates throughout their organization and top salespeople know it’s a waste. Do your best not to remind them that you pay their salary…they really hate that.
7. Products or Services that get dreamed up, have no market demand and no customer research showing they do but you are expected to “make them happen” and push it anyway.
8. Updating CRM as a CheckBox Exercise– CRM can be a very powerful tool used for good. Sadly most companies not only deploy it wrong they use it wrong. CRM is not a baby sitter for an insecure sales leaders to micromanage every little thing.
9. Adding “Customer’s” to Marketing’s Mailing List – Why you ask? “We need to market to them!” is the reply. My question is exactly what are they marketing, how often, and of what value to the customer. Regurgitating your Vendors crap isn’t marketing its worthless spam.
10. Being Treated Like All the Others Sales People Instead of the Snipers They Are. Life’s not fair – Invest more time in your top talent just like sports teams do. The B and C players may be able to improve but the A players can almost always get better.