Lost the Will to Sell?

*** Guest post by Flame Conference speaker Geoff Burch ***

Recently I have told audiences that I started off by sales training.  “Why train your salespeople,” I cry?  “So they can sell” comes back the reply!  “Sell what?” I shout.  “Sell more” they call back. 

Then, being too clever for my own good, I say that we must be careful of simple single objectives.  If one’s simple objective was to ‘get more money’ then the very best person to be instructing us would be a mugger. 

He would soon show us the best type of knife for mugging, the darkest alley to lurk in, and the most likely victim.  In minutes we could start mugging and we would soon have ‘more money’ as set down in our single simple objective.  Sure we would soon be arrested too but that wasn’t in the brief. 

I then go on to illustrate a few companies who do use the mugger style of sales training.  In these companies, sales do rise - a good thing.  Complaints, arrests and prosecutions also rise - a bad thing.  The HR department are set the task of putting this right and decide that the solution is a customer care course. 

The result is a mugger that jumps out, holds a knife to your throat and, with a fixed smile says, “I’m Derek, your mugger for this evening.  Thank you for sharing your wallet with me, have a nice day and missing you already!”

The Financial Times affectionately referred to the son of a Viennese psychiatrist, the uproarious and irreverent Geoff Burch, as “The Hell’s Angel of Management Consultancy.”

Geoff is giving two presentations at the FIA Conference.