162: Salesperson Bitchiness

<p>Sales is a tough enough job without having additional complications.  Clients can be very demanding, often we depend on logistics departments and production divisions, to get the purchase to the buyer.  We can’t control the quality, but we have total responsibility, as far as the client is concerned. There is the constant pressure of producing revenue results, with bosses always pushing hard on the numbers. </p> <p> </p> <p>If we are successful and we are doing well, you would think that life would be good.  Fat chance of that.  We know the emotional roller coaster that is the sales life and you are only ever as good as your last deal.  Perhaps with a little bit of success should come some respite from the turmoil of hitting the numbers.  I hate to break this to you, but no such luck!</p> <p> </p> <p>Our sales colleagues, by definition, cannot all be equally successful.  The Pareto Principle says that the top 20% of salespeople will account for 80% of the revenue numbers and commissions.  So that means the other 80% of the team are scrambling around for the remaining 20% of the sales.  People come into sales from different backgrounds, with different levels of experience, with degrees of motivation and they join at different points in the annual results cycle.  This means that some will be in the top group, a chunk will be in the middle and the rest are at the bottom.</p> <p> </p> <p>In the West, the usual way sales teams are managed is based on the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest.  Those who can’t cut it are cut loose.  Those who can continue to produce get to stay.  If they can survive a couple of recessions, they may even be moved up into management positions.  This means that those at the bottom are basically on their own. This should spur them on to greater efforts to move up the sales ranks and to strike for the top position in the sales results table.  Yet often this doesn’t happen. </p> <p> </p> <p>In Japan, most salespeople are on a salary and bonus structure, rather than salary and co