On July 30th of this year the Colts will go to Training Camp, this will signal the start of a four week period of intense practice designed to force the players to focus on what they need to do to improve their ability to play football. But it seems like a waste of time to me, after all most of these players have spent at least the last 8 years of their life working their craft in highly competitive games and the Colts have won more than any other professional team during this time. What on Earth could these people think they are going to learn?

Not surprisingly, on the first day of camp they will most likely hear the famous Vince Lombardi quote that almost all coaches use to start training camp. “Gentlemen, this is a football.” This beginning signals to all of the players on the field that success in football, much like success in sales, is all about a complete and single minded focus on doing the little things right and being certain that you a executing the Fundamentals.

As we work with our clients there is nothing more satisfying than watching their eyes light up as they realize that training in sales is no different than training for sports. They realize that the system they have started to learn is nothing more than a simple series of Behaviors, Attitudes and Techniques–that when correctly executed dramatically increase their chances of closing more business and making more money.

And they also realize why training is an ongoing process, with our typical client working with us for 4-6 years. Because no matter how simple the Behaviors, Attitudes and Techniques there is a long road from not knowing what you should do to doing what you should automatically.

I do not believe that practice makes perfect, in fact in football and in sales there is no perfect. However, in every professional field we do know that practice makes progress. When you look at your sales force, are they practicing? And by practice I mean, are they really working to systematically improve their ability to sell using ongoing reinforcement coupled with repetition and measurement of results? Or are they out seeing as many people as they can, hoping that what they are doing is right?

Next time you watch Peyton Manning throw a seemingly easy four yard touchdown pass be sure that you pause and realize that for every minute that Peyton plays on a field during the games he spends more than 15 minutes on a field practicing. Which leads me back to my question, when you look at your sales force, are they practicing?

Unfortunately for many of these companies, their internet marketing is starting to work and they are getting calls and emails from motivated buyers who have found and followed them on the internet. But they are noticing a troubling trend, marketing can create leads but sales teams are having more trouble than ever closing.

The Problem

Internet prospects are not the people you were selling to 3 years ago. Those people from 3 years ago really knew very little about you they did not truly know what you sold or how you sold it. They had no idea what you had done right or any idea about what you may have done poorly. In fact, 3 years ago when you got an inquiry the most common request from a prospect was ?tell me about what you do and how you do it.? Today?s prospect does not want to know ?what you do and how you do it.? And that is causing a severe disconnect between buyers and sellers right now.

Today?s prospect has googled you, visited your facebook page, followed you on twitter and read reviews about you on yelp. They know what you do, how you do it and all of the sordid details of the mistakes you have made over the past year. They have a reason to contact you and it is not to have a brochure read to them.

The new prospect does not want to learn about you-from you. They know most of that before you reach them. If your marketing is creating leads and your sales team can not close them the problem is typically not the quality of your leads. The problem is typically the quality of the sales process you are letting your sales team use.

If your sales process is designed to tell people about you it is flawed and you need to change.

The Solution

Ensure your business has a systematic process to discover why the prospect has contacted you. When you understand the needs of the prospect, then you are truly putting your business in a place to succeed with today?s buyers.

?Matt everybody can be better off and helping them helps the community. Remember ?a rising tide lifts all boats.? Little did I know that her message was the big message I would pick up studying economics later as I attended college. Once again I learned that when it comes to the economy, when things are good ?a rising tide lifts all boats.?

The boom years of the 90?s really proved my Mom and my econ professors were both geniuses. For more than 15 years (until 2008) a rising economic tide really did raise everybody?s boat. For a majority of small businesses those years were excellent, buyers were abundant, profits were comfortable and with some effort it was pretty simple to get out and find ready willing and able prospects to grow your revenue.

In 2008, the other half of my parent?s message started to make sense. My Dad is a great guy but unlike my Mom he was pretty good at keeping his mind focused on the downside of what was actually happening. His message to me was a little different. He told me ?Even dead fish float.? What he meant was when the tide rises everything moves up but not everything is a boat. His point was really simple, bad economies do not create weakness, bad economies expose weakness.

For the past 18 months we have been learning to live with my Dad?s message. And by WE, I mean the American economy. We have seen a huge number of businesses that made bad decisions. And when times were easy those decisions looked fine, there were no real problems or consequences for the bad choices. But as soon as we hit a bump in the road those consequences were exposed and all too often that exposure has led to catastrophic failure.

As a sales trainer, I spend my days working with business owners who are seeing a whole new side of their business. The salespeople they thought were great turned out to be doing nothing more than riding the tide of a few key clients who were growing. The salespeople who were willing to cut a little price in the good times are getting killed now that they have nothing to fall back to other than price cutting.

Those salespeople who did not consistently prospect have watched their sales volume collapse now that competitors are poaching their accounts. Two years ago these weaknesses may not have mattered, the economy was strong, buyers were plentiful and margins were healthy. The economy was growing and having weak sales processes and the wrong sales teams were problems, but they just were not big enough problems to fix.

Today it is different, your business is being held hostage. Your sales team is in control of your future and unless you know they are working from the right strategy, in the right structure and have the right skills even the recovery is going to be a challenge.