Sales Reps Need To Be Team Players

“Time is money” as the saying goes. That’s why salespeople need to be spending their time selling. Over the years I’ve noticed a pattern of the biggest “wasters” for salespeople.

One of them is having a lack of trust in other people in the organization.

Salespeople have a natural tendency to work alone. After all, we spend most of the day by ourselves. We decide where to go by ourselves, we decide what to do by ourselves, and we are pretty much on our own all day long. It’s no wonder then, that we just naturally want to do everything by ourselves.

That’s generally a positive personality trait for a sales person. Unfortunately, when it extends to those tasks that could be done better by other people in our organization it turns into a real negative.

Instead of soliciting aid from others in the organization, and thereby making much better use of our time, many sales people insist on doing it themselves, no matter how redundant and time-consuming is the task. The world is full of sales people who don’t trust their own colleagues to write an order, to source a product, to enter an order in the system, to follow up on a back order, to deliver some sample or literature, to research a quote, to deliver a proposal, etc. Again, the list could go on and on.

The point is that many of these tasks can be done better or cheaper by someone else in the organization. The sales people don’t release the tasks to them because they, the sales people, don’t trust them to do it. Too bad. It’s a tremendous waste of good selling time and talent.

Of course, there are hundreds of other time-wasting habits. Correct the ones you can identify, and you’ll be well on your way to dramatically improved results.

Dave Kahle is one of the world's leading sales authorities. He's written twelve books, presented in 47 states and eleven countries, and has helped enrich tens of thousands of sales people and transform hundreds of sales organizations. Sign up for his free weekly Ezine, His book, How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime, has been recognized by three international entities as "one of the five best English language business books.” Check out his latest book, The Heart of a Christian Sales Person.”