One of the least understood, yet essential personality characteristics of top salespeople that can give you better sales, is a drive toward entrepreneurialism.
I’ve heard those I consider weak Sales Manager say “I don’t want salespeople to be too entrepreneurial because they won’t stick with me.” But there is no separating top salespeople from the entrepreneurial drive.
A smart Sales Manager, on the other hand, realizes: Top salespeople produce 7 times the sales results of a mediocre salesperson1. A mediocre sales hire causes your sales department to be stuck with low average sales results per salesperson.
By running the numbers, you can easily see how when you manage a sales department you can’t afford to have weak sales performers. Salespeople who are excellent give you a dramatic increase in sales results – because of their drive toward entrepreneurialism.
This might be the most important insight a top sales manager arrives at. Once you fully understand the implication you realize how essential it is to concentrate on getting top salespeople.
How do you motivate these entrepreneurial top sales performers?
I recall years ago in one of my first meeting with my Sales Manager. He sat me down and said, “If you want to be successful in sales, think of sales as having your own business. We do all the work. We create the product. We bill for it. You are the sales company we hired to sell it for us. You get 15% of everything you sell.”
That was the catalyst! I got 15% of everything I sold and the company did all the work. What a deal! I owned my own business for no capital – and they were even giving me a draw until I got up and running.
Determine whether the applicant has the real entrepreneurial drive by using the AHS ValuesMatrix™ and StylesMatrix™. Do this before wasting time in an interview, not after.
I came across this video. Do you think this guy understands entrepreneurialism? Leave your comments below.
Extreme Entrepreneur! He could be successful at much more than this if he put his mind to it!