Once upon a time in a sales cubicle far, far away I managed a sales team that had a very cool luxury . . . a team of inside sales jedis who’s sole purpose was to set appointments for the outside sales jedis.
Pretty freakin cool . . . huh?
Well, upon mucho reviews and mucho ride alongs I noticed something rather disturbing.
We were sitting on top of a territory that had all the big game, but were only getting in front of the road kill.
I confronted the head of the department and was told that “nobody in the big companies wants to see us” I don’t remember how I responded and quite frankly it doesn’t matter but I do remember what happened later that night when everyone left the office.
Note: this next part requires a humming of the Mission Impossible theme and picturing me flying into the bullpen on a zip line. My blog . . . I can BS if I want to.
I decided to look through their notes which brings us to
Note #2: The company I worked for didn’t give us computers so we had everything on 3×5 cards. Very disturbing considering this was 1998 but any who . . .
I quickly understood what the problem was
It was their notes.
Things like (earmuffs some strong language coming up)
“Total b*tch hung up on me”
“Screw this guy. Total A-hole”
You get the picture.
So every time they would come across these contacts, they would naturally avoid calling.
Or worse yet, call with a certain tone of defensiveness that I’m sure could be felt on the other end.
Then a wave of genius hit me.
I was about to hire a new outbound rep, so . . .
What if me and my group of outside jedi were to rewrite the cards and do the unthinkable.
Give them to the new rep as if they were the “Glenngary” leads.
So for the next few weeks, we rewrote approximately 5,000 cards removing the comments.
When I hired the new rep, I told her that the others would be jealous and she was not to tell them about the “special” leads or
Listen to anyone who told her she was wasting her time.
By the end of that year, we signed massive amounts of business, my team went from 110th worldwide to 13th and two of my jedis were ranked in the top 20.
All because we created a new self fulfilling prophecy!
It makes me want to offer some questions to consider . . .
What is the overall tone of the notes you review when calling a prospect?
What affect do they have on your attitude and willingness to call?
How appropriate is it to vent through your notes in the first place?
Have you ever avoided an account simply because one of the veterans told you you’re wasting your time (meanwhile they are basing this on a solitary call made to the prospect back in 1976)
And just for the heck of it . . .
If someone is an idiot to you
Could it have just been “one of those days”
Did your approach add to that certain pissiness? Not saying its justified, just sayin.
Could things have changed since your last call (like they are now on Prozac or the recipient of a successful exorcism)
Or maybe one of these things happened in this Free Poster
Things change! 
Today, you are cordially invited to think about these little moments of venting and how they influence your future behavior and . . .
How they influence your behavior today as you set out to put a new ding in the universe!
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