This week we look at a trait that is important when assessing sales candidates for complex, long sales cycle positions.  Proactive or reactive is the difference in this highly valued sales trait.

Proactive Thinking
The ability of a salesperson to evaluate future implications of current decisions and actions. This would include examining the long-range effects of a decision. The ability to mentally create the scenarios and outcomes of situations that could develop from decisions or plans of action.

A salesperson with strength in this capacity will tend to evaluate current situations, needs and actions based on how they will change in the future.

A salesperson with weakness in this area will tend to react to events as they present themselves.  The focus is solely on the present.

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There is an interesting article in the recent Career Concepts USA newsletter (sorry, no newsletter link). Career Concepts USA offers recruiting solutions through Career Fairs, Sourcing, and Partnership Services. They have an article on research done by Salesnet.com which found that 87% of all leads are not pursued by salespeople. Boy is that a frightening statistic, think about all the money that is spent to develop leads and then they are never pursued. We often hear from salespeople that their company doesn’t do enough lead production.

Here are the main reasons why leads are not pursued as stated in the article:

-Lag time between prospect interest and sales contact.
-Lack of a sales process to track the status of the sales interaction with each lead.
-Cumbersome reporting mechanisms, usually spreadsheets with leads that must be updated, sent to headquarters, combined for all reps and then digested by management.
-Difficulty for management to measure and hold reps accountable for leads assigned.

Salesnet.com is a web based CRM solution provider which would compete with the likes of Salesforce.com and Zoho.com. Some questions you may want to explore to see how your company does with leads are: How are leads collected and then distributed to the sales team? What form of tracking do you have to ensure the leads are being qualified? Is the tracking process easy for the sales team and managers? What is your average time to contact from lead generation until the assigned salesperson’s initial contact?

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