There really is no other profession like sales, especially when we do it for a company, when

we're selling for a company, especially in business to business.

And I had this kind of epiphany right before I started this recording because this week

I had some bizarre interactions with some sales leaders.

And I asked myself, imagine starting your career working for somebody who doesn't even

understand the game that they're playing, but they think they do.

That's the worst situation possible. Why? Because if you

have these rules about how the game works, but it doesn't apply to the game that you're playing,

you're playing the wrong game. Now, today there's all kinds of things that people call

frameworks or methodologies, but when you really look at them, they're not frameworks or

methodologies, the kind of checklists that were developed in the 90s, not by salespeople, by sales operations people, people who

manage the forecast, and not for a struggling company, but a market dominant company.

Essentially, they were ranking the likelihood of an order closing. And was this checklist

helpful? Very helpful. Is this checklist the way to sell? Ah, no. And I get into this debate

quite often with sales leaders and I kind of shake my head. I go, why are you so

attached to this and not open-minded and discussing it? They're rationalizing why this checklist

of things that a deal should have, and but I go, do you realize this checklist is 100% outside the client looking in,

not from the client's perspective and what they need to do? Oh. This is why I empathize with salespeople

today because when your leader, your manager, is trying to tell you this is how the game's played, but the game isn't played that way, and you lose, guess who they blame?

You, they don't blame their system, their checklist.

They blame the poor rep. Who obeyed the silly-ass checklist.

And let's face it, the checklist, it's completely subjective.

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