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Have you ever wondered why a once-promising new hire is performing far below your initial expectations? From one perspective, what’s happening here is pretty simple: the person you hired is not the person you interviewed. The dynamic at work in an interview situation is similar to the dynamic at work on a first date./blog/how-succeed-onboarding-new-hires-podcast

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-time Author, talks about his Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-selling book, The Sandler Rules: 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them.

Mike Montague interviews Haley Haggerty on How to Succeed at Rethinking the Sales Profession.

Being emotionally detached allows a salesperson to have control of the sales call and make reasonable decisions.

Ask salespeople to list their least favorite selling activities, and you can count on “prospecting” being at the top of the list. And, the least favorite of all prospecting activities is unquestionably making cold calls.

If we aren’t genuinely curious about ‘why we are talking’, ‘why the problem exists’ and at least 15 ‘why’s’ after that, we run the risk of taking too long to close the sale, becoming an unpaid consultant, or getting ourselves backed into a corner answering their ‘why questions’, like: ‘Why should I buy from you’, ultimately losing the sale.

It’s human nature to get into a comfort zone. Losing that hunger affects ambition and drive. Ask yourself these questions: Are some of your salespeople in comfort zones? What can you do to help keep their Desire high? Are you in a comfort zone yourself?

I read a quote the other day from French impressionist painter Edgar Degas. He said “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”. If you’ve ever picked up a paint brush, a palette and a piece of canvas thinking “how hard can this be” you soon found out, it isn’t easy. The end results look amateurish and the activity is humbling. It’s not that big of a leap to say that “Selling is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”.

I tell my clients at our Thursday morning prospecting sessions that I don’t like making cold calls but the reality is…they work IF you do them correctly. Whether you struggle with the idea of picking up the phone without feeling like a pest or you have no problem calling people but your technique is old school, find a place where you can develop your skills in this area and it will pay!

How many of your salespeople are content and in comfort zones? With the aggressive sales goals that most companies have going into 2012, having a team of content salespeople will not work. The latest research shows that unconditional commitment is a requirement in today’s competitive selling environment. Which of your salespeople should be cut from the team because they are coasting?

When your sales people come back from a call after presenting a perfect, logical case for investing in your product or service and they get a “think it over”, don’t be surprised. That’s a logical ending to an intellectual process.