Matt Nettleton

What is a Cargo Cult? Well, after World War II anthropologists discovered that an unusual religion had developed among the islanders of the South Pacific. It was oriented around the concept of cargo which the islanders perceived as the source of the wealth and power of the Europeans and Americans.  

The internet has created a new process for selling and buying, sometimes companies are expanding their online marketing to create leads but just as often, the internet has collected and sorted information to answer questions from potential buyers. According to the Harvard Business Review there are two trends shaping sales process regardless of industry...Click Below to continue

Working in the sales training world for the past 10 years has allowed me to study the insides of quite a few companies in a wide variety of industries. Through all of my conversations and observations, I have learned one clear lesson: all sales are impossible. Like the bumblebee, the typical approach to sales doesn't seem engineered for success.

Recently, I made a prospecting call to a Director of Sales for a large local sales force. I introduced myself and we talked briefly about how I ended up calling him. He finally stopped the conversation and told me that he was not interested in using Sandler Training because he already had a sales process that he used from a fairly large competitor. 

When the call from a prospect comes in, most salespeople are not ready to answer it. Many sales teams are taught how to storm the castle, but they have no idea what to do when they get invited in the main gate.

Watching salespeople flash their "buts" is much less enjoyable than watching baboons. Not sure what I mean? Think back on the last conversation you had with a salesperson who had missed his goal. Do any of these excuses sound familiar?

As an old saying goes, "A tiger can't change his stripes". Unfortunately salespeople spend plenty of time coming up with schemes and ruses designed to keep their prospects from figuring out that they, in fact, are sales people.

I don’t know about you, but when I first was hired into a sales position, I wanted to become a sales manager.  But my first manager was a bad role model, he produced great results but had trouble growing people and spent most of his time undoing problems that he had created. This is one of the main reasons why Sales Management training is so important.

As a sales coach, I spend time with quite a few people who have big monkey collections. They have accepted their prospects' and clients' problems as their own. Unfortunately, these monkey collections have some predictable consequences.