One of the most important aptitudes in sales is a proper results orientation.  The key word is “results.”  Oftentimes we encounter sales managers who place their focus on activity orientation instead of results.

An example would be a salesperson who has a furiousness to their work…almost like their hair is on fire.  But no significant deals seem to close despite their frantic pace.

I used to work for a sales manager who would describe those salespeople as a horse-drawn wagon.  There would always be a cloud of dust around them, but at the end of the day, the wagon hadn’t moved.

Salespeople who lack a strong results orientation are often like that wagon.  Activity is important to success, but results are the actual goal.  This ability to drive for results can be measured in both your existing salespeople and potential sales candidates.

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Totally fascinating post from Steve Clark titled Why is change so difficult?

The human organism is resistant to change. The body tries to maintain what physiologists call homeostasis. This is the physical state of equilibrium or status quo. The body is designed to operate in a very narrow range of physiological processes. The brain is no different.

And now for the explanation:

Change creates psychological stress.

Change engages the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part of the brain that is responsible for judgment, planning and decision making. The prefrontal cortex is like RAM memory in a PC. It is fast and agile, able to hold multiple threads of logic at once to enable quick calculations. But like RAM, the prefrontal cortex’s capacity is finite—it can deal comfortably with only a handful of concepts before becoming overloaded. When it becomes overloaded it generates a palpable sense of discomfort, anxiety, fatigue, and frustration.

Like a computer the brain prefers to run off its hard drive or basal ganglia, which has a much larger storage capacity. This is the part of the brain that stores the hardwired memories and habits that dominate our daily lives.

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A perfect list from HR Chally Group via Recruiting.com: 

1. Relying on an Interview to Evaluate a Candidate
2. Using Successful People as a Model
3. Setting Too Many Criteria
4. Evaluating “Personality” instead of Job Skills
5. Using Yourself as an Example
6. Not Using Statistically Validated Testing
7. Not Researching the Reasons People Have Failed in a Job
8. Relying on General “Good Guy” Criteria
9. Not Doing A Careful Background Reference Check

They are all excellent points and ones that we have experienced first-hand with our customers.  Pay special attention to numbers 1, 2 and 5.  Those are the most common mistakes we see in our daily experience.

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