At the risk of sounding old and cynical, (not burnt out), I have to share with you one of my favourite things in presenting sales effectiveness programs to senior sales executives, and the thing that makes it even more fun, is that it happens regularly and therefore I am sure to be amused regularly.

The scenario usually unfolds when sitting with a VP or Director of sales, whether it is a formal sales call or just a discussion at an event; it happens more often where the organization is challenged in meeting, rather than exceeding objectives.  There comes a point when the other party in the conversation says something like:

“Well Tibor, the thing you have to understand is that our people know this industry, they are very experienced, most of them have 15 or years under their belts, and even when we hire, we only hire from the industry, you know, people who bring the same type of experience to the job and can hit the ground running.”

My response usually is something along the lines of:

“Well George, I certainly appreciate that, in fact many people do tell me the same.  I just curious if you don’t mind me asking, your average rep, say with 13 years, would you say that they have had 13 years of continuous growth and development, or the same year 13 times over?”

Then I just sit back.

Some people don’t get it, but the ones that do, we are able to move to the real issues quite quickly.  One of the recurring themes is what most would call sales burn out.  In general, a lot of sales professional do not maintain the consistency and pace they initially demonstrated when stepping into the role.  They either become victims of their own success or never fully realize success and slowly accept their fate and settle into acceptance of less than their full potential.

I argue that at either end of this spectrum, the root cause is the same: a lack of training and basic skill development, but to a much greater degree a lack of planning that prevents even those who may possess the skills to fully execute.  As a result, many end up completing task but rarely achieving objectives and results.

Let me say right here that the reason I started this piece by talking about my discussions with senior sales leaders or management, is that I believe that they are to a great degree responsible for this, and at the same time have the ability to reverse it should they choose (sadly they often don’t).

I say this because they are there when the young sales professional shows up malleable, pliable and full of energy, open to being shaped and focused.  This is the time that the basics of planning, time allocation and process should be stressed, but instead they are given minimal training, usually mostly around product not selling, and then sent out to conquer.

The young reps run fast and run hard, and quickly begin to gravitate into one of the two groups cited above.  In fact there are three groups, using the old 80/20 rule, it breaks down as follows: 20% get the need for planning, managing activity based on required time and metrics; they focus on executing the sales process.  These people are often held out as the anomalies, “it’d be great if everyone could sell like Charlie, but he is different.”  No new kid wants to be different.  The manager and the rep should be working to these differences, but they are usually distracted and over whelmed by the 80%.

The other 80%, the burn out group, fall into to the two groups, half flaming out under the weight of their success.  They run get prospects, write proposals, win clients, busy busy busy.  They spend less and less time selling and more time managing the base.  It’s good for a while but they get out of shape (not having run in some time), they never did have the form right, and as the base erodes and the competition (internal and external) grows, they realize they have to do something to change the tide.  It is then that they face a hard choice, do they learn the basics and practice them, some do; or do they put their old track suit on and try running hard again.  Out of shape out of practice: the burn out.

The other half of the 80% never really took off.  They worked the base they adopted as part of their territory, seeing “lower hanging fruit” as the big time.  They ran in to some new opportunities much like a blind squirrel runs into a nut sometimes.  But they hardly take off, usually just enough to gently crash; it takes slightly less effort to keep them than to replace them (I hope some people take issue with that statement, but this is what I hear managers say everyday); much like a log on a fire, they are just there, giving less light and less heat, eventually replaced by a new log, new rep.

The sad reality is sales burn out is unique among professions. In sports they would get traded.  In law, or aviation they would have to keep up or be replaced.  It is funny how sales is one of the only professions where one can make lots of money, have impact on the success of others and their own company,  but is not required to continuously educate and upgrade ones self.  If we did have to, we would be able to avoid sales burn out, both at the front line level and management level.