Every sales person I know wants more leads to work. Unfortunately, the number of leads is only half of the equation. The number to focus on is your closing rate. Of course, the quality of the leads is important and sales teams often use poor quality as an excuse to explain for their lack of sales. Most of the time these sales people are in the wrong job and don’t realize it. These folks just want to take orders and have the sales come to them. We use the term ‘sales leads’ for a reason. A sales person needs to ‘lead’ the prospect to buy.

A friend of mine pointed out the movie/play Glen Gary Glen Ross and this one scene about “what it means to be a real estate salesman”. It was written by a playwright named David Mamet and hit Broadway in 1984 and won the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony. It starred Jack Lemon, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Al Pacino, and a ton of others. This play was later turned into a film with this scene written specifically for Alec Baldwin. This scene is taught in acting schools across the country as an example of how to properly perform a monologue. Funny enough it is also used in a lot of sales training along with Hard Ball Selling techniques. Many companies are against this style of forced selling but it is still a great scene and makes you appreciate every lead you have. It has some vulgarity so if that makes you uncomfortable don’t watch. It’s pretty intense. If you haven’t seen it, enjoy.

What is your sales process?