How Pareto's Principle Impacts Your Sales Success

Pareto's Principle {the 80/20 rule) is vividlythe superstars in your industry or pro-fession.Just
illustrated in the sales statistics of most industries,"liking" a given candidate for a sales position can
companies and professional service organiizations.lead to long-term sales or business development
Eighty percent of all products or services are soldfailure. Read these articles;Hire A Six To
by just 20 percent of the sales professionals inConsistently Produce Sales Success at:
the United States and Canada. How does this rule
effect the overall management of the sellingHiring, A Key To Sales Management Success at:
process in your company or firm? Basically,learn how to build a sales team where you no
Pareto's principle impacts your selling process inlonger carry 80 percent of the team members.
three key areas:· Hiring The Right SalesWhere is it written that your company or
People,profes-sional service firm must live with Pareto's
· Training Sales Team Members, andPrinciple anyway.Good luck in producing a team of
· Coaching The Team To Highertop producers. You can find some tools to help in
Performance LevelsAlmost all of the candidatesthe process of training and coaching your new
that apply for sales positions today fall into the 80hires at THORNTON is the founder and President
percent group of sales or service industryof The $elling Edge(R), Inc. a firm specializing in
professionals who produce only 20 percent of thesales, customer relations, and management
sales. Therefore, when hiring, you must screentraining and development. Clients have included
carefully to discover a candidate's selling skillSears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Deloitte &
potential, not just his or her past sales successTouché, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and
levels. It is almost impossible to find and recruitWal-Mart to name a few. Virden is the author of
sales professionals in the 20 percent bracketProspecting: The Key To Sales Success and the
because employers do everything in their powerbest selling Building & Closing the Sale, Fifty-Minute
to keep their top producers happy, so theseries books and Close That Sale, a video/audio
turnover in Pareto's 20 percent bracket istape series published by Crisp Publications, Inc.
extremely rare. Even if you find a "top gun" whoMenlo Park, California. He has also authored a
is looking for a position, many organizations can'tSelf-Directed Learning series of sales, coaching &
afford to bring one of these high pricedteam development, telemarketing, and personal
professionals on board.If finding one or two topproductivity training guides.Virden assists clients
producers is difficult, think how hard it is to recruitthrough a unique personal coaching
a team of these superstars. Therefore, you need(telephone)program. He has taught at the Center
to change your mindset to find candidates thatFor Professional Development, Texas Tech
have the potential to move into the top producerUniversity, Lubbock, Texas and the School Of
or rainmaker category and then train, coach andEntrepreneurship, Marriott School Of Management,
manage them until they produce at the level ofBrigham Young University, Provo, Utah.