Zig Ziglar use to say in seminars and on tapes that nothing happens until someone sells something. I had never really understood how absolutely true that was until I got into franchising and saw how one franchise sale could add jobs to the economy, provide great service to a community and change the quality of life for the franchisee and their family. Sales people have an advantage over other folks in business. Our top performing franchisees were always the best sales people. Our toughest competitors, well their founders were great sales people too. To this point I would like to recommend a book to you, that makes this point: The Force by David Dorsey. This is an interesting book on the psychological turmoil associated with a sales team. How it transfers itself into the personal lives of team members and how companies like GE, Xerox and IBM develop team leaders and sales people to excel. Remember many great sales people have gone on to be great entrepreneurs. Ray Kroc, Ross Perot come to mind. It discusses the motivations and the inner drive of these people. We have many former sales people on our team doing very well. It appears that sales ability as it relates with people is a key ingredient in being a successful franchisee. Now we have successful franchisees, who are not sales people, however I have noticed a higher degree of success with people who have had sales experience. This book should be read by those who do not want to be sold something by a sales person and by salespeople who think they are missing something or do not understand what their purpose is in their current job. Sales people who are quitting their job should read this book and those thinking of getting out of sales into a business should also read it and think about it. |
