Death, Cake & The Traveling Sales Professionals Head Back to The Office

By Russ Riendeau: Dateline, June 10: Somewhere in the rainforests of northwest of Chicago, Illinois.

This prehistoric reptile you see above, found it's way to within five feet of my favorite porch chair, a few mornings ago. With the shell at about 13 inches long, this snapping turtle could be 25-35 years old, on her way to 75-100 years old. She will outlive me.

With a face perfect for radio, she starred me down like I'd just snatched the last Klondike Bar from her cooler.

Ever so slowly I knelt down, attempting to get close enough for a nice "graduation photo," or should I say a "shell...fie" while remaining far enough away to escape her seductive good looks and jaws that crush broom handles like pretzel rods. And, despite having run a PB 5:35 mile in high school, I still was queasy about being able to run fast enough from this snapping turtle that had just laid 25 eggs (90% won't make it a year in the wild) in our flower garden, probably not feeling like having her picture taken. The little razor sharp white fangs under her chin, by the way, is not a bow tie, but special teeth to gnaw their way out their shells.

Motivation to excel in something is easy to find, if the activity is intrinsically wired into your internal being. Gnawing your way out of a thick shell after being buried for nearly two months, waiting for your fangs to come in may motivate turtles. Intrinsic motivation, at it's best, in Darwinian terms. Not many 5-year olds are thinking " I want to be a dentist...I want to work at the DMV....I would love a job rodding restaurant grease traps." These kids are contemplating movement and gratification of all kinds in exploring their world. The activities involving something one loves to do are innate. We doesn't first calculate the return or average income to decide whether or not we would pursue the hobby.

Professional selling is certainly tied into intrinsic motivation--despite rumors that sales professionals are in it for one primary reason: money. Selling as a profession is hard work, exhausting work, that demands extreme amounts of preparation and planning sessions, the ability to be "on" all the time, and engaging in active listening at all times to both project interest and to be on watch for buying clues. The time spent traveling, as well, takes a physical and mental toll on all professionals and sales people are no exception. Pressures and logistics of making appointments on the faith of the airlines schedule, transportation, security issues, traveling with products, maintaining a professional appearance and looking confident, crisp, is not easy going being in hot planes, cars, ubers and trains.

Travel is exhausting. Remember this old humorous story?:

Poor Phil, a 40-year old traveling sales professional is lying as dead as a cold lead, in his coffin. His wake is attended by many.

An old friend stands over Phil while talking to Phil’s boss right beside him and says, “Wow, Phil was so young and he looks so good. What did he have?”

“South Dakota and part of Iowa,” the boss says, shaking his head.

In today's technology-driven world, there are more and more ways to reduce the amount of time sales and management professionals spend on planes, in rental cars and sitting in airports. Justin Ross-Marsh's book: The Machine, makes a compelling pitch to shift the way leaders are starting to hire, train and coach sales professionals from the inside of the office and away from knocking on hinged doors to knocking on cyber doors. This shift purports that sales professionals can be more efficient, more streamlined and earn more money and sales with better systems. And the customers? Well, they're already ready for the cyber door call. They don't want to see the sales person too soon. They are gathering their data and when ready, they'll meet.

Whether you buy-in to this potential shift of the inside out sales person, there is compelling evidence it is happening--and it's working.

As more competition shifts to a more robust web presence, interactive websites, and automatic ordering and allowing customers to access inventory numbers (much like Federal Express pioneered in the 1990s), we all will have to consider when we shift.

For now, managers can start to train and recruit sales people that have the proven qualities of a sales process or system that they can utilize in many different industries.

Does your sales team have the teeth to gnaw out of their sales shell long underground and find their way to the sun and the water? Will they be in the 10% that survive and thrive? (Like the nice tie-into the turtle picture metaphor, eh?)

The strong won't survive-- the adaptable will.

Russ